The goal here is not just being able to run decade-old apps from the Newton. It is extending what was so good about the Newton to new platforms. No pda has yet to come close to the best features of the Newton. Furthermore, palm os has stagnated, and there are lots of gadgets, from cell phones to "internet tablets" appearing that run on linux that are crying out for better user interfaces (especially decent handwriting recognition). Check out
http://www.internettablettalk.com/forums/showthrea d.php?p=7287#post7287 over on the Nokia 770 forum as an example of how this might play out.
Actually, there's good evidence suggesting that what's being celebrated here is a media event, not a technological breakthrough. The Marconi transatlantic signal was unsubstantiated and unverifiable, and was not reproduced until several years later with better equipment. No one outside the company heard the signal. The scientific community at the time didn't accept the accomplishment, but the press ignored them. Marconi just knew how to play the press like a violin. Douglas' _Inventing American Broadcasting_ (1987) has a good discussion of all this on pp. 57-58.
Slashdot Mirror
The goal here is not just being able to run decade-old apps from the Newton. It is extending what was so good about the Newton to new platforms. No pda has yet to come close to the best features of the Newton. Furthermore, palm os has stagnated, and there are lots of gadgets, from cell phones to "internet tablets" appearing that run on linux that are crying out for better user interfaces (especially decent handwriting recognition). Check out http://www.internettablettalk.com/forums/showthrea d.php?p=7287#post7287 over on the Nokia 770 forum as an example of how this might play out.
Actually, there's good evidence suggesting that what's being celebrated here is a media event, not a technological breakthrough. The Marconi transatlantic signal was unsubstantiated and unverifiable, and was not reproduced until several years later with better equipment. No one outside the company heard the signal. The scientific community at the time didn't accept the accomplishment, but the press ignored them. Marconi just knew how to play the press like a violin. Douglas' _Inventing American Broadcasting_ (1987) has a good discussion of all this on pp. 57-58.