I’ve had a couple days now with Windows 7 and it is certainly an improvement over both Vista and XP, requiring slightly less resources than either (significantly less than Vista), booting faster, and offering superior usability. Yeah, but why does it cost so much? I know why.

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Looking for improved business models for the personal computer business, Apple CEO Steve Jobs often used to cite automobile makers, though never American car companies. The examples were invariably German. Whether it was the design aesthetic of his Mercedes sedan or Porsche’s success at selling high-margin cars as entertainment devices, Jobs could always point to farfegnugen as a way to sell a good car for a great price. So since he thinks about these things anyway, and because the U.S. automobile industry is on the skids and begging for help this week, I find myself wondering what would happen if Steve Jobs were put in charge of any of the Big Three car companies? It wouldn’t be boring, that’s for sure, and I’m fairly certain Steve could do a better job than the Detroit executives currently in charge.

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Apple last week introduced a pair of very nice notebook computers that, not at all surprisingly, looked like riffs on the MacBook Air. The company in a separate announcement released 600 high-definition television episodes through the iTunes Store. This week Apple will reportedly release new 20-inch and 24-inch iMacs, also for the Christmas season. Two weeks, three announcements, but what strikes me is what won’t be announced–the big surprises that are missing. What happened?

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This column is about a new chat system called Talkinator, which I find very exciting, but to do it justice, first I have to cover some of the emerging–but not often recognized–realities of Web 2.0 that make a Talkinator even possible.

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I bet you thought people banked in the Cayman Islands because they serve fruity cocktails with tiny parasols in them while you’re waiting for your checks to clear. Well, you’re only partly right. The other reason people keep accounts in the Caymans is to avoid paying taxes and/or to launder their ill-gotten gains. For many of us this is not news–or at least it wouldn’t be, if not for the brain-dead actions of one such bank and the magistrate they duped into being their monkey. Swiss Bank Julius Baer used its legal muscle to convince a U.S. judge to close down the WikiLeaks.org domain, because the site contains documents that allegedly show Baer is exchanging its clients’ dirty old dineros for fresh clean ones with just a hint of mint.

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When analog television broadcasting goes dark in the United States on Feb. 17, 2009, and the huge analog transmitters of more than 1,600 broadcast stations are turned off, what will happen to those radio frequencies formerly used for analog TV? Well, for UHF channels 60 to 69, the future will be decided starting this week, as the Federal Communications Commission begins to auction that reclaimed bandwidth, bringing at least $10 billion into the treasury from auction winners and possibly allowing a dramatic expansion of wireless spectrum for cellular voice and data communication. Or maybe not, since it is just as likely these frequencies will be bought by incumbent wireless providers who may choose to simply let the channels go unused so as not to threaten their existing businesses.

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