In case you’re keeping track, here’s some stuff I’ve written for other sites this week:
 
For TIME, I proposed a few new year’s resolutions for tech companies.
 
Also at TIME, I mused on the fact that at CES, everyone’s keynoter.
 
And at CNET, Microsoft’s CES departure made me think of IBM”s COMDEX departure.

Jay Greene of Cnet has an excellent story up–the first of a two-parter–on Microsoft’s Courier two-screen tablet, which got everyone excited with an animated demo, but was killed before it ever shipped:

But the device wasn’t intended to be a computer replacement; it was meant to complement PCs. Courier users wouldn’t want or need a feature-rich e-mail application such as Microsoft’s Outlook that lets them switch to conversation views in their inbox or support offline e-mail reading and writing. The key to Courier, Allard’s team argued, was its focus on content creation. Courier was for the creative set, a gadget on which architects might begin to sketch building plans, or writers might begin to draft documents.

The Courier was a wonderful concept product, but I’m not convinced it’s a tragedy that Microsoft axed it, for three reasons:

1) It’s a heck of a lot easier to make a product impressive in a conceptual demo than in real life.

2) Like the Tablet PC, the Courier was heavily invested in the idea that lots of people want to take notes using a stylus and store them in their own handwriting. I’m convinced that very few folks actually want to do that.

3) It behooved Microsoft to identify the one most promising future path for Windows–which turned out to be Windows 8–and then pursue it as aggressively as possible. (And I don’t see why Windows 8 couldn’t be used as the basis of a Courier-like device.)

Still, it would have been fun to see the Courier in that demo in real life. Maybe the most important lesson is this: DON’T LEAK DEMOS OF PRODUCTS YOU AREN’T WILLING TO SELL.

I’ve been a busy boy this week. Here are three items I’ve written for other sites that are now live:

• For the Technologizer column at TIME.com, I reviewed OnStar FMV, the new flavor of GM’s service that fits into a mirror that can be installed in most vehicles.
• At CNET, I wrote about the fact that the Lytro camera isn’t just interesting because of its light-field technology–it’s also an attempt to build a true point-and-shoot.
• And for AllBusiness.com, I took a look at a half-dozen smartphone apps–all available for both iPhones and Android–that help me run my small business.

Whew. Mind if I take a brief nap?

Over at my Challengers blog on Cnet News, I wrote about happy developments this week for two of my favorite scrappy Web services: DuckDuckGo and Wolfram Alpha.

Over at my new Challengers blog on Cnet, I took a look at the present and future of the four major platforms that aim to rival iOS as seen on the iPad: Android, WebOS, QNX, and Windows. I like competition, but so far, there hasn’t been a whole lot of good news for anyone except Apple.

Over at my new Challengers blog on Cnet, I wrote about Windows 8′s “touch-first” interface–and whether it’ll lead to touch becoming a standard feature on new PCs. (I think the odds are good…or at least higher than they were for the Tablet PC…but it’s not going to happen instantly the moment Windows 8 ships.)

Over at Cnet, I wrote about a technology that I’m excited about, although it’s unclear whether any big players other than Intel and Apple are as enthusiastic as I am:  Thunderbolt.

As part of my ongoing efforts to be everywhere at once–or at least in several cool places–I’ve begun writing for Cnet, a site I’ve known as a reader and sometime competitor since it was founded back in the mid-1990s. I’m going to be contributing a new blog called Challengers, and my topic will be something that’s both quite specific and remarkably broad. The blog is about new things that aim to replace old things–products, services, companies, and technologies. I’ll write about ones that are full of promise and ones that have gotchas, and I’ll do my best to sort out the difference.

Here’s my introductory post over there; look for more stuff soon.

It’s deja vu all over again: Cnet is reporting that Apple is trying to get back a prototype iPhone that was lost in a San Francisco bar.

Meanwhile, my friend Seth Weintraub of 9to5Mac has a screenshot that might–emphasis on might–be a representation of the iPhone 5.

Last Friday afternoon, I had fun participating in Cnet’s Reporters’ Roundtable show before a live audience on the CES show floor–okay, we were actually right outside the show floor–with host Rafe Needleman and fellow guests Rob Enderle and Jim Louderback. I’m having trouble embedding it, so here’s a link to the video on Cnet.

Cnet’s Tom Krazit thinks that Google CEO Eric Schmidt should be careful with his visions of a profoundly computer-augmented future:

It’s not that Schmidt is wrong or misguided in making these predictions: the seeds for such a future were sown long ago. But Schmidt and Google never seem to understand how much they freak some people out when they evangelize a future that de-emphasizes the role of people in their day-to-day lives.

I agree that Schmidt’s enthusiasm can be unsettling, at least on first blush (which is not the same thing as saying that his predictions won’t come true, or that I won’t be happy if they do). When he talks about the end of human-driven cars, one of the questions that pops into my head is this: Does Google plan to run the computers that run the planet’s automobiles?

I’m tickled to report that I’m going to be a guest today on Reporters’ Roundtable, a new CNET podcast. I’ll be in excellent company: The host is Webware’s Rafe Needleman and Gdgt’s Ryan Block is also guesting. And the topic’s a fun one: the past, present, and future of tablet computers.

The show is taping at 1pm PDT, and you can watch us live. The recorded version will show up here. Check it out, won’t you?