There's nothing outside the standard press release info in the brief writeup on the Nokia N800 Internet Tablet at the New York Times today. But I think the article is worth noting, if only for its headline: "Take an Internet Call or Some Notes, or Just Doodle".

Well, there is the power of marketing too. Here's the lede: "You can't put the world in your pocket but you can put the Web there ...." Yes, the idea of accessing the internet while untethered from your desktop or laptop is fully insinuating itself into the Zeitgeist. As is the notion of using one's WiFi carryaround to take (or make) phone calls obviously, based on this headline. (If only Ivan Berger, esteemed audio writer* and avid reader, knew how apt his opening sentence's comparison of the N800 to a paperback book really is! Hopefully he'll get to try FBReader soon.)

I think the day is nearly over when people wonder why someone would buy an internet tablet instead of (hm-m, let's see ... ) a UMPC, a PSP, an OQO, a myLo, a LifeDrive or even an iPhone. And that's the news I see in the Times' brief.

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* Full disclosure: Twenty years ago, Ivan and I were colleagues at CBS. Not only do I admire his writing and his brain, I like him personally. Ivan was one of the first to see the real potential in microcomputers. He was such an early adopter that the Smithsonian gratefully accepted the donation of his first small computer, an original Altair 8800b.