I, Cloud (From High Scalability) I agree that cloud computing probably will result in more job-shifting than job-cutting, but I wouldn’t be so sure that software can’t use context to make human-like judgment calls. (see, e.g., IBM’s Watson supercomputer).

Verizon Medical Data Cloud on Track to Serve 350,000 Doctors (From SearchCloudComputing.com) It looks like the “Field of Dreams” logic works for data clouds, too: If you build it, they will come. Even one of three doctors uploading records there could mean a big improvement in health care efficiency.

However, checking in this morning on the social media accompanying the series? Disappointing. NBC is accompanying the show with some video extra features as well as some social media — but the efforts range from mildly entertaining to flat-out disjointed.

Starting with the good: Going through the Twitter messages from characters after the fact is kinda fun, especially given whomever is responsible for the social media campaign went to the trouble of making an account for relatively random characters (who may hold bigger secrets).

They’ve also done a decent job of modeling the fictional President’s Twitter account after the real Barack Obama account. And the touch of syndicating the real Twitter accounts of the cast on the NBC site is nice.

But beyond that, all that’s on the horizon for web content is some yet-to-come video “deconstructing” the show as well as two different sites: The Event is Coming and TruthSeeker. Here’s where things get annoying.

TruthSeeker is a so-far unutilized blog and Twitter account promising to reveal secrets from within the Martinez administration; creator Nick Wauters told TV Squad that the character behind TruthSeeker is a character who appeared in the pilot, and whose identity will be revealed at a later date. That’s fine — but on the night of the premiere, there’s only one blog entry and three pretty weak Twitter updates. Anyone hoping for real substantive content will find themselves disappointed.

Meanwhile, The Event is Coming is an incoherent hodgepodge of blog entries from the show’s producers and “in-game” news articles about President Martinez and his campaign. The News section is particularly disastrous. While there are one or two interesting clues to be found here — if you dig a little, for example, you’ll find out that the Alaskan detention facility was originally built in 1944 — there’s no narrative logic to the site, no justification for why this data is available alongside musings from the show’s producer.

Overall, looking at what’s in place so far is disappointing when compared to the eight different social media components that ABC’s FlashForward launched with last year, some of which represented truly inspired and engaging interactivity. In fact, with so many good examples of transmedia campaigns built to support mainstream properties, there’s almost something offensive about how artless this is.

Then again, FlashForward got canceled, and it’s a bit early to give up on the show (if only because — spoilers! — I do want to know what happened to that airplane). So we’ll just have to see how things evolve.

Related GigaOm Pro Content (subscription required): Monetizing the Social Web Isn’t One Size Fits All

Remember also that the iPhone 4 is only available for sale in five countries so far, including Britain, France, Germany, Japan and the U.S. Even with the limited initial launch, Apple had trouble keeping the iPhone in stock and shortages caused crowds to become disgruntled at multiple locations.

Steve Jobs apologized for the delays, while also patting himself on the back for a job well done. “This is the most successful product launch in Apple’s history,” he said. “Even so, we apologize to those customers who were turned away because we did not have enough supply.”

The iPhone 4 reached record heights despite numerous reports of signal problems when the phone is held in a certain way, with fingers touching two contact points in the steel band surrounding the case, which doubles as an antenna. While some news outlets are billing the flaw as a major design problem, not all units appear to be affected, and Steve Jobs has advised users who are affected to either hold it a different way or put a case on the iPhone to prevent issues.

The new iPhone also has yet to be offered in significant quantities at secondary retailers like Best Buy and Walmart, so when stock levels are sufficient enough to allow for more presence there, we’ll most likely see more big gains. AT&T is also having trouble keeping the device in stock, and I wouldn’t hold my breath for Apple sticking to the July date promised if you don’t live in one of the initial launch countries.

For context, remember that the iPhone 3GS sold almost half this number during its launch weekend, with one million units moved, and Canada, Italy, Spain and Switzerland were among the first countries to get the device that time around. When the iPhone 4 launches in 15 more countries next month, expect sales to break even more numbers, despite any negative press Apple happens to be getting regarding reception issues and the breakability of the iPhone’s case when dropped from relatively small distances.

If you haven’t yet purchased an iPhone 4, but were planning to, are the reported problems with the device influencing your decision at all? I’m in Canada, but I still plan on picking one up next month when it comes out, even if there is no sure fix for the receptions issues. Am I just a glutton for punishment, or do the benefits outweigh the downsides?

To some degree, Nokia’s move towards MeeGo for high-end smartphones is actually old news. This past December, Nokia outlined a strategy that included delivery of the first Maemo 6 device in the second half of 2010. Maemo morphed into MeeGo two months later, so while the planned platform did shift, it was clear late last year that a change was underfoot. But Symbian was still in the mix at that time, with Nokia saying it would “re-engineer our Symbian user interface” in 2010. From what I’ve seen of  Symbian^3 so far, Nokia is making progress, but now that progress will be applied to lower-end smartphones — even after it designed a potentially high-margin, flagship Symbian^3 device. As far as I’m concerned, that means Nokia still hasn’t quite figured out what it takes to compete well in today’s high-end, smartphone market.

Rafe Blandford from All About Maemo provides an interesting editorial take on Nokia’s strategic plans for MeeGo and the N-series devices, suggesting the web is making much ado about nothing:

One of the consequences of the narrowed scope of Nseries devices and fierce competition at the high end is that Symbian-powered Nseries devices make up only a small proportion (12% in Q1 2010, less now) of Nokia’s total Symbian device sales. The perception that the majority of Nokia’s Symbian devices are Nseries is simply inaccurate. As such, the end of Symbian-powered Nseries devices will have a relatively small impact on Nokia’s overall Symbian sales.

The figures Rafe quotes actually indicate to me that the problem is bigger than some perceive. If Nokia’s high-end smartphone series — where profit margins and opportunities for value-add services are greater — is small and shrinking, how is that a good thing? Yes, Nokia rules the worldwide roost when it comes to feature phones and the company has stemmed somewhat its smartphone market share losses. But Nokia would face a bleak future by relying on low-cost, low-margin feature phones over the long term as trends indicate a gradual shift away from feature phones to smartphones.

Perhaps I’m reading into Nokia’s reliance on feature phones too much. If that’s the case, how does the company plan to compete against Apple, Google, and Research In Motion? A history lesson might answer that question — how has Nokia competed over the last few years?

• 2007 – This year brought the first Apple iPhone as well as the highly touted Nokia N95. Running Symbian S60 3rd edition, the slider had no touchscreen and just a QVGA display. Even with an excellent 5-megapixel camera paired with Carl Zeiss optics and front-facing camera, Nokia’s worldwide smartphone share began to decline. According to figures from Canalys, Nokia’s share in the fourth quarter of 2007 fell to to 52.9 percent from 53.8 percent in the same quarter of 2006.
• 2008 — Apple introduced both the App Store and iPhone 3G, while very late in the year, Google launched its first Android device. Nokia’s revised the N95 with the N96, still running Symbian S60 3rd edition, but with feature pack 2. Others in the line included candy bar handsets such as the N78, N79 and the N85 slider, none of which helped Nokia add market share. In the second quarter of 2008, Canalys data measured a 45.5 percent share for Nokia smartphones worldwide.
• 2009 — Google Android devices really begin to proliferate, especially in the last quarter of the year due to Android 2.0 and the Motorola Droid , while Apple launched the iPhone 3GS. Nokia introduced the Symbian-powered N86 and N97 but also took experience from Internet Tablet products — the N770, N800 and N810 — and created the N900 handset running Maemo. Om felt that Nokia was on the right track, but “on a very slippery slope and unless it fields a competitive device, it will continue to see its share of the smartphone market erode.” For the third quarter of the year, Canalys reported Nokia’s share to be 39.7 percent of worldwide smartphone sales.

If the history lesson were to end here, one would expect that the N900 would be Nokia’s gateway to the future in this world of iPhones and Android handsets. But along came Symbian^3 in February of 2010 and with it, many expectations that this platform would be used for high-end Nokia phones. In April, I said that Nokia needed to step on the Symbian^3 gas pedal and a week later, the Nokia N8 was announced, which brings us full circle as both the first and last N-series device to use Symbian^3. Making matters slightly worse: Nokia hasn’t announced future upgrade support for the N900. In effect then, both the 9-month old N900 and the unreleased N8 already have an end-of-life tag on them. Meanwhile, Apple sold an estimated 1-1.5 million iPhone 4 devices on launch day and Google is enjoying 160,000 Android activations daily — an annual rate of 58.4 million units, assuming no additional growth.

With such a rich history as a leader in the handset market, the sentimental side of me wants to see Nokia succeed in the smartphone space. But a product strategy that appears to be in constant transition isn’t one that attracts either developers or customers, which makes it difficult to combat Apple and Google. So far the only thing such an approach has attracted is declining market share and reduced revenue forecasts. My hope is that the trend reverses with MeeGo — or will it turn around with the next platform after that?

Related research report from GigaOM Pro (sub req’d):

The App Developer’s Guide to Choosing a Mobile Platform

Babelgum today announced that it’s acquired the complete Chad Vader back catalog, and is also distributing exclusive new episodes of the Aaron Yonda and Matt Sloan-produced web series on a monthly basis. The first installment, in which Chad gets a Death Star, is, on a comedy level, on par with previous installments.

Next New Networks, meanwhile, launched its next new network, which is devoted to health and exercise. (I think that should be the last time I use the “next new” pun when writing about NNN. Alas. I’ll miss you, “next new” pun.) The Click Fitness network incorporates shows brought to NNN through its Next New Creators program, including yoga pro Tara Stiles’s Tara Stiles Yoga and online fitness and health personality Sarah Dussault’s Sarah’s Fit Show (who talks about the announcement in the video below).

Also today, Revision3 released a free iPhone app, allowing users to watch all of Rev3′s current and in-production series via the device.

According to the Guardian, Ben Stiller is making a web series, starring his parents Jerry Stiller and Ana Meara, to run exclusively on Yahoo before the end of the year. Personally, I believe that Stiller’s parents are just as funny, perhaps even funnier, than their son (below, please find a little video evidence of that fact), so this is one I’m looking forward to.

And finally: YouTube favorite Michael Buckley got Lasik surgery, as documented in the latest episode of What the Buck. Fans of his bespectacled look, though, need not worry — via email, he promises that he’ll continue wearing “blank” glasses in his videos “for fashion/character/branding! HA! But it is SO NICE to see!”

Related GigaOm Pro Content (subscription required): A Guide To Online Video Monetization Options

In Durham, North Carolina, record-breaking temperatures near 100 degrees could not keep the faithful from lining up outside the local Apple Store. The line for the iPhone 4 began yesterday evening, reaching around the block by early this morning and remaining more or less constant with new arrivals. By noon, Apple Store employees were passing out umbrellas. There were no white umbrellas available either, and very few black iPhones for those without reservations.

Durham was not an anomaly.

As the earth turned, so did iPhone 4 sales, starting with Japan, followed by Germany, France, the UK, and then east to west in the U.S. In every country, in every city, the story was the same: demand outstripped supply. The dearth of white iPhones appears to have no measurable effect on sales.

Calls to stores, assuming you can get someone to pick up, also tell a similar story. Supplies of the iPhone 4 are dwindling, many stores expect to be sold out by the end of the day. While more iPhones are expected, no one knows when they will arrive. Expect an iPhone 4 availability page to appear on Apple’s website soon.

As for the iPhone 4 itself, satisfaction will likely be high, but there are reports of some issues. MacRumors was one of the first to report of “yellow blotching” on some iPhone 4 displays. There are conflicting reports as to whether this is a “residue from manufacturing” that will clear up in a few days, or a flaw that requires replacement. There are also scattered reports of reception degradation when holding the bottom left of the iPhone 4, though the supposed issue cannot be reliably duplicated.

These flaws, if they exist, will likely only matter to those who have successfully ordered an iPhone 4 or have one on reserve. For everyone else by far the biggest problem with the iPhone 4 is availability. It will be days, if not weeks, before Apple establishes equilibrium between supply and demand.

The updated operating system, previously known as the iPhone OS, features more than 100 new features. However, in order to download the 378MB update, you will need the latest version of iTunes (version 9.2), so be sure you are all up to speed before trying to upgrade.

iOS 4 can be installed for free on the older iPhone 3G and the current iPhone 3GS, in addition to the second- and third-generation iPod touch. An iPad-friendly version of the OS is expected later in the year.

The main features that the new OS offers includes multitasking, a unified inbox, folders for better application organization, the introduction of Game Center and more. Apple’s own site has an informative run-down of what iOS 4 brings to the table.

Check out the iOS update and let us know if you have any problems.

Unfortunately, it takes time for all of the pieces of a great smartphone to come together — time to test, design, integrate and build. A chip manufacturer, for example, can’t provide a new chipset from scratch in just a few months time. And developing or upgrading a platform to run atop such chips is no small task, either — it took Google more than three years from the time it purchased Android to deliver its first phone, the G1, in October of 2008.

Although I understand why these business cycles take time, the similarities mean I’m still not jazzed as much by the latest and greatest devices as I was six months ago. Sure there are differences between the Nexus One, Incredible, EVO, Droid X and Galaxy S, to name a few hot handsets. But most of those differences are fairly incremental — a few more megapixels for the camera, an extra third of an inch on a display and the addition of the kickstand, for example — not the kinds of changes that will take things to the next level. Even my own list of suggested iPhone 4 alternatives has more similarities than differences.

Perhaps the problem is that handset makers can’t decide what the “next level” will require. Certainly it’s new connectivity such as the WiMAX radio in Sprint’s HTC EVO 4G. The high-resolution Retina Display of the upcoming iPhone 4 is another qualifier, as is the recent addition of 720p recording on a handful of handsets. But after that, I come up a little dry when it comes to what the next course of the smartphone menu will bring. Am I being too cynical, not giving software enough weight in this situation, or do I just need to wake up on the other side of the bed?

Related content from GigaOM Pro (sub req’d):

For Phones, the Future is Multiple Cores

As Twitter struggles with repeated outages on the network (which, to its credit, the company has been very transparent about), some are asking whether it isn’t unwise to rely on a single company for a communications platform that has become such an integral part of so many people’s lives. So what would a more open version of Twitter — or a world that relied less on it as a single point of contact — look like?

It might look something like the idea proposed by Dave Winer, inventor of the RSS standard. He’s written often about the idea of “a decentralized Twitter” and how he’d like to see someone develop a Twitter app based on open-source standards, which he compared to the Apache open-source server software that lies behind a majority of the websites on the Internet. More recently, he’s talked about how developers of Twitter clients — whether they be apps, or services such as WordPress (see disclosure below) or Tumblr — could build an “emergency broadcast system” that would function even when Twitter is down.

Distributed Twitter Model Proposed by Dave Winer. Image courtesy Dave Winer

Here’s how such a system could work: Clients such as Tweetdeck, Seesmic and Brizzly would communicate through the Twitter API (application programming interface) just the same way they do now, but when the network goes down, they would store tweets — either on their own servers or at some neutral location — and each client would be able to get updates from the others. When Twitter comes back up, the tweets get sent to the network as usual, along with a record of what was tweeted while Twitter was offline, so they can push out an updated activity stream. All this takes is co-ordination among the various developers of Twitter clients and a standard to work around.

Part of that standard could involve Montreal-based developer Adrian Evan Promodrou’s Prodromou’s Status.net, which is similar to the blogging software company WordPress. It provides Twitter-style microblogging software that can be run on a server by any user or company, but also has a hosted version with additional features. Promodrou has also developed an open standard designed to enable communication between microblogging clients called OStatus, which the company says is based on other publishing standards such as PubSubHubbub, WebFinger and Salmon.

Howard Lindzon, CEO of the investing-related service StockTwits (see disclosure below), says he and his co-founder Soren Macbeth see a future in which there are multiple versions of Twitter. Stocktwits pulls information from Twitter and also pushes information into it, Lindzon said, adding that if Twitter were to go away tomorrow, “I would miss the musings of a few hundred people that I follow, but so many companies would step up fast and a new leader would quickly emerge.”

Whether Twitter likes it or not, the service’s continuing network issues — as well as its growing dominance in the marketplace for real-time communication — makes it likely that more StockTwits and Status.nets will emerge. And that is as it should be. If the company is smart, it will do what it can to become the engine that helps to power these different ventures, or at least plays nicely with them, rather than seeing them as competition and trying to shut them down or block them off.

Post and thumbnail photos courtesy of Flickr user watchsmart

Related content from GigaOM Pro (sub req’d): Lessons From Twitter: How to Play Nice With Ecosystem Partners

Disclosure: Automattic (maker of WordPress.com) and StockTwits are both backed by True Ventures, a venture capital firm that is an investor in the parent company of this blog, Giga Omni Media. Om Malik, founder of Giga Omni Media, is also a venture partner at True.

It’s expensive to live and work in the Valley. Businesses have to pay higher salaries (check out the latest numbers from Glassdoor out today showing those salary averages in the tech industry), and also deal with onerous government regulations that benefit workers and the social good, but come with a cost. It’s also expensive for employees living there in terms of high housing costs, high income taxes and a variety of other expenses.

The Economist today published an article and fancy maps showing the migration away from the Valley. But while it blames high taxation, I think there’s another trend at work here — broadband. Dr. Mohit Kaushal, director of health care for the FCC’s Broadband Strategy Initiative, put it very succinctly earlier this year when he told me that broadband has the ability to eliminate temporal and geographic boundaries. And that is giving people a freedom to pursue their jobs, especially those of us in technology, in areas of the country where that may have been impossible a decade ago.

Our society will take a while to catch up (as will our infrastructure), but for those who have fast connections and the type of profession and company culture to embrace remote working in a wide scale, they can be part of a distributed workforce. This isn’t about outsourcing to India; it’s about having the level of geographic freedom once reserved for consultants and perhaps freelancers. So while there’s a meme in the tech press pitting New York against Silicon Valley, the real meme may well be pitting the Valley against anywhere else.

Right now, there’s capital, big companies and inertia keeping a huge number of startups, employees and businesses in Silicon Valley, but for how long? The economics are the same — or perhaps marginally worse for California businesses lately — but the technology has changed. Has it changed enough, or will the Valley continue to draw in the lion’s share of technology talent?

Related GigaOM Pro Content (sub req’d): Who Will Profit From Broadband Innovation?

Twitter, after being relatively stable for several months, has seen its downtime and reliability issues mount over the past couple of weeks, with repeated system errors and outages. It’s blamed a flaw in its networking setup and — most recently — a failed upgrade to its timeline system, although the strain of the World Cup has also played a role. Meanwhile, users are subject to multiple messages flooding their streams, as well as missing tweets and hours of balky or non-existent updates on the network.

All of which raises the question: Can Twitter handle its emerging status as the world’s real-time communications network, or does it need help? This is not to beat up on the company, by any means, although plenty of observers have taken its recent downtime as an excuse to do just that. The reality is that Twitter is trying to do something incredibly ambitious — namely, to build what Om has called the messaging bus for the real-time web. Growing pains and problems are to be expected, but they still raise important questions about where the company goes from here. Should it become part of an open, federated system, as programming guru and RSS pioneer Dave Winer and some others have suggested?

Despite the continued cracks from non-Twitter users about it being frivolous or useless, the social network has become an important part of the way people (almost 200 million of them) communicate online in real time — and not just people, but companies and organizations as well. Police and other emergency response teams increasingly use it to alert the public of important information when there’s a crisis, and governments post public notices that not too long ago would have only ended up on a website somewhere, as they know that more people will see it.

When earthquakes and other catastrophes occur, Twitter is one of the ways that critical information gets out to the world. During the Iranian protests last year, for example, the State Department asked the company to delay upgrades that might have taken the network down, so that it could be used to get news reports out of the country (although there has since been some debate about how much of a the role the service played during those protests). In Haiti, hundreds or even thousands of journalists, emergency workers and ordinary citizens used Twitter as a critical communications system.

All of this puts a lot of pressure on the company to keep its systems up at all times — a difficult thing to do when you’re still a small company, never mind when you’re growing as quickly as Twitter has been. The company has doubled the number of employees over the past six months, and has said that it will likely double that number again by the end of this year. It has clearly been sinking some of the funding it raised last year into infrastructure and upgrades for its network, but still the service is showing the strain. Running a real-time communications network for millions of people is hard — just ask any phone company.

So then the question becomes: Can one company do what Twitter is trying to do? Could one company handle all the email in the world? If it’s as important a service as it seems to have become (or is becoming), should it be looked at as part of a larger infrastructure, the way Ethernet or TCP/IP was in the early days of the Internet, or like IMAP and POP for email? Perhaps — as Winer and others have suggested — Twitter needs to become just one large player in a distributed and federated system that connects to multiple communication channels, whether they are other services or networks, or open-source versions of Twitter such as Identi.ca or Status.net.

That might make it more difficult for the company to pursue what seems to be its intended goal of becoming a media entity, with services such as the upcoming “Promoted Tweets,” which appeal to advertisers and other commercial users. But in the long run, it would make Twitter an even more important part of the fabric of the real-time Internet, and that might be even more valuable — both for Twitter itself and for the rest of the web.

Related content from GigaOM Pro (sub req’d): Lessons From Twitter: How to Play Nice With Ecosystem Partners

Post and thumbnail photos courtesy of Flickr user World Resources Institute

But what convinced me that I truly was wrong about the iPad and its prospects for the future weren’t the reports coming in about its tremendous retail success. That could still be accounted for by initial fervor for a new product by Apple, which, few will argue, has become the “it” company of late. No, it was a few select apps that convinced me that the iPad was here to stay, and that that was a good thing. Below are those apps, along with why I think they’re serious game-changers.

Air Video ($2.99)

When I found this app for my iPhone and iPod touch, it was like a godsend. But when I booted it up for the first time on my iPad, it was more impressive by far. The added screen real estate and resolution makes the iPad a terrific portable video device, and having access to my entire media library on my home computer from wherever I am, well that’s just a fantastic combination.

So fantastic, in fact, that I still feel like I’m getting away with something when I use it, that Apple will at some point come in and shut it down for being too competitive with iTunes. Let’s hope that doesn’t happen, because Air Video’s developers say that an update will also support audio streaming of your iTunes library. Only thing this is missing is support for Apple’s video out accessory, but that’s recently come to GoodReader, so we could be in luck shortly.

Air Display ($9.99)

Similar in function to Air Video, but also completely different, there’s Air Display. Long have I coveted a Mimo monitor, or some other similar small equivalent for bringing a multimonitor workspace with me when I travel. But then there’s the price tag, and the question of whether or not I’ll actually do enough work with it to justify the purchase.

Air Display provides an inexpensive software solution, provided you already have the iPad to begin with. It allows you to extend your computer’s desktop wirelessly using VNC technology to your iPad. Though it isn’t smooth enough for advanced editing or other intensive tasks, it works great for having Mail, Twitte, or an IM client constantly open without grabbing precious laptop screen space.

Documents to Go Premium ($11.99)

So many times I’ve wished I could just leave my MacBook behind and still get writing work done on the go in a manner that wasn’t clumsy or awkward. Documents to Go Premium, with its built-in support for Google Docs, which is what I use more than anything else for my own writing, fits the bill perfectly.

Now I just pack my iPad and an Apple Bluetooth keyboard and I’m working easily in Starbucks or wherever I happen to pause to rest my heels. Better still, the nature of the iPad with its lack of true multitasking actually inhibits distractions, so I feel like I get more done.

Sketchbook Pro ($7.99)

A long while ago, when the software that turns your MacBook’s trackpad into a drawing surface for a stylus came out, I bought a Pogo Sketch. It’s a capacitive stylus that you can use with iPhones, iPads and iPod touches, in addition to MacBook trackpads. It stayed in the closet until I got my iPad.

Now, in combination with a powerful drawing program like Sketchbook Pro, the iPad becomes the perfect on-the-go drawing and painting device. I’m not skilled enough to pull off any masterpieces, but rough sketches for graphic design work and even some basic speed paintings are well within reach. I’d have preferred genuine Wacom input options, but you can’t always get what you want.

Comic Zeal Comic Reader 4 ($7.99)

I’ve saved the best for last, because no matter how much I may try to convince myself and others that the iPad is a productivity-boosting device, there’s no denying that it’s also just downright fun. And one of the most fun things to do on the platform is read comics. It seems tailor-made for the task. Even if you haven’t ever read comics before, you should try it on the iPad. I can almost guarantee you’ll enjoy the experience.

In order to accomplish this, there are a number of comic book format (CBR and CBZ file) readers you could try available in the App Store. For my money, Comic Zeal is the best, because of its interface, its sync options, and its app-specific format and desktop conversion tool. It may even be a little bit buggier than other offerings, and Comic Book Lover doesn’t require conversion, but it’s the one with which I’m most comfortable. I can honestly spend an entire day with this baby and not know where the time went.

The iPad has drastically changed the way I interact with, enjoy and produce digital media. Sure, sometimes it’s hard to get a good, comfortable grip on the thing, but it’s definitely a far cry from the niche-less device I expected it to be. And Apple has developers to thank for that.

To learn more about using Safari, check out our Safari 101 screencast on TechUniversity (subscription required).

Web & Utilities

AdBlock

The AdBlock extension is a great way to remove unwanted content from your browsing experience. Download the extension and load your web pages without as many intrusive ads. There’s even beta options to remove Google ads and YouTube ads.

BuiltWith Analysis

The BuiltWith Analysis extension provides an insider look into a website with one click. You can see what JavaScript libraries a site uses, who provides analytics as well as other nitty-gritty details that are totally public, but often obscured in tons of HTML source code.

Invisible Status Bar

Google’s Chrome browser does away with the status bar at the bottom of your window and only shows it when you hover over a link. The Invisible Status Bar extension does the same thing for Safari!

Live CSS Editing

The Live CSS Editing extension provides a quick way to load up a page and test modifications to the CSS in real time.

Bit.ly Shortener

The Safari Bit.ly Shortener extension makes it easy to shorten a URL with Bit.ly. Simply load the URL in your browser and then click the button!

PageSaver

The Svay.com PageSaver extension will, in one click, save the visible portion of a web page as an image and automatically download it into your Downloads folder.

ScribeFire

ScribeFire is an extension for using a centralized place for posting to all of your blogs, supporting a variety of typical blog features including formatting, categories and tags. ScribeFire’s Safari Extension brings support for this right into Safari.

Snapper

Similar to PageSaver, Snapper also saves the currently viewable portion of a website as a PNG and automatically downloads it for you.

Type to Navigate

The Type to Navigate extension is pretty darn cool. If you’re browsing a page and there’s a link you want to follow, just start typing any word that’s contained within it. It’ll highlight the link and then you just press Return to load it. If it’s not the right link, press Command + G to move to the next one.

E-Commerce

Amazon.com Search Bar

If you frequent Amazon.com, you’ll want the Amazon.com Search Bar extension. It’ll add a new Amazon.com bar to Safari giving you one-click access to your shopping cart, wish list, the latest deals and a quick way to search Amazon.com.

InvisibleHand

The InvisibleHand extension will subtly let you know when it finds a cheaper price to a product elsewhere on the Internet. The list of supported retailers is fairly decent for the U.S., UK and Germany, but more are being added frequently.

Social

FaceBlock

The FaceBlock extension blocks all of the annoying ads on Facebook. I always feel a little sadness for the advertisers that are paying for impressions that I never have to see. Oh well.

safari140

This gem of an extension allows you to post directly to Twitter from within Safari. Links are automatically shortened by is.gd.

Share with Facebook

The Share with Facebook extension gives you one-click access to share your current URL with your Facebook account.

Webbla

If you use Webbla for managing your bookmarks, take a look at the Webbla browser extension, which allows you to quickly add or modify them.

YouTube Full Screen

This extension is a great way to enable full-screen support of YouTube videos if you’re using YouTube’s HTML5 player instead of its Flash player.

Productivity

Background Tabs

The Background Tabs extension will allow you to open a new tab in the background by simply pressing the V key.

Gmail Checker

The Gmail Checker extension will give you an icon and badge in your Safari toolbar to show unread messages on your Gmail account. Keep an eye on their website for updates because the next version will support Google Apps users.

GoMBoX

The GoMBoX extension transforms your Google Images experience by showcasing results in a Lightbox overlay, allowing you to see larger versions without having to leave your search results page.

Instapaper

If you love Instapaper, check out Instafari, a simple one-click way to save an article to your Instapaper account.

InstaPaper Greystyled and Article Tools

The Greystyled and Article Tools extensions provide you with a cleaner style for your Instapaper.com account. Once the extension is installed, just visit instapaper.com to see the changes.

Google Reader – Simplified

If you’re a fan of Google Reader and the GreaseMonkey scripts that give it a simplified look, check out Lucidica, an extension that’s based off Helvetireader.

Safari Reload Button

If you’ve ever wanted to move the reload button for Safari out of the URL window and into its own button, the Safari Reload Button extension does just that.

Search Preview

With the Search Preview extension, you can preview the web pages that show up in your search results. This extension works with Google, Bing and Yahoo.

Toodlethings

If you use Toodledo for your task management, the Toodlethings extension re-styles the web interface with clean buttons and easier to read fonts.

For more great extensions, check out the Safari Extensions blog and keep an eye on Apple.com for its showcase that’s scheduled to premiere later this summer.

Have you written your own extension or found others? Share them in the comments below!

We’ll be providing text and photo updates both before and during the event to see if any of our predictions came true.

The keynote will start on Monday, June 7 at 10 a.m. PST and we’ll be starting our coverage an hour or so before.

You can tune in via live.theappleblog.com and via our Twitter account: @theappleblog

Be sure to signup for a reminder of when coverage starts.

The theme for this year’s WWDC, “The Center of the App Universe,” is all about the iPhone. When Steve takes the stage on Monday, we can expect to hear a lot about the next release of iPhone OS and the next generation hardware. But what else can we expect to hear about during the keynote next week?

For Sure

iPhone OS 4.0

I do not expect many surprises beyond what is already listed on the what’s new page but it will be nice to get some more details on the iAd program and Game Center. My money is on a GM release available in the Developer Center later on Tuesday as soon as the keynote is over. The software might be available in an iTunes update on Tuesday as well.

iPhone OS 4.0 for iPad

Steve has already said that it will be available in the fall, but I expect we will hear about the imminent release of developer betas of iPhone OS 4 for iPad. I will go out on a limb and guess that iPhone OS 4 for iPad will be available on CD’s at the event and will appear on the Developer Center sometime next week.

New iPhone Hardware

The fourth generation of the iPhone hardware will not be called the iPhone 4G. No way. It would be too confusing to market a mobile phone as a 4G device when it does not speak 4G wireless protocols (LTE or IMT Advanced). I think it will be called the iPhone HD. That HD moniker is going to be popular this season.

The only big question remaining is to see if Steve brings G.P. up on stage with him to introduce it.

Tethering

AT&T already announced that tethering on the iPhone would be available on Tuesday this summer when iPhone OS 4.0 is released. If the software is not available to customers then, it would make AT&T look foolish and incompetent… wait a second.

Apple Design Awards Winners

The winners of this year’s Apple Design Awards for iPhone and iPad apps will surprise no one. Sure, I mean, it will be a surprise and all but there will not be a single app on the list that you have not heard of. I expect a few of the iPad showcase apps from the January event to get a nicely lit cube to take home.

Maybe

Apple TV

There are quite a few rumors flying that the next Apple TV will be based on the iPhone OS and the A4 processor in the iPad. The idea of running apps on the Apple TV, even with a non-touch, remote control interface, is exciting. Pandora would be amazing. I am a little concerned that the iPad can only do 720p video, so the Apple TV would need a little extra oomph to get to 1080p. If it does 1080p, it will be called the Apple TV HD.

iPod touch

There have been some sightings of the next iPod touch casing that show a camera. We might see an update here, but I would not expect anything until the back to school promotion is over in the fall.

Mac Pro Update

I think we are all ready for new Mac Pro hardware. New six-core Xeons would be amazing. You know, sometimes you just need a big truck to do some heavy lifting.

No Chance

OS X 10.7

This year is all about the iPhone. I think the only mention that 10.7 might get is to remind everyone that they are not going to hear about it this week.

Other U.S. Carriers

So many people want this that I figured I had to put it on the list even though I don’t think it is going to happen in the next week. If you are waiting to get an iPhone on Verizon, T-Mobile or Sprint — keep waiting.

App Store Approval Process Q&A with Apple Executives

Hehe. Just having a bit of fun there.

I Can Dream, Can’t I?

Safari Extensions

Gruber dropped a hint the other week that an extension framework for Safari might be coming. Extensions are one of the few things that keep me on Firefox and Chrome. While Safari extensions would certainly be welcome on the desktop, it could also be amazing on the iPhone and the iPad.

MobileMe

I have heard the arguments for Apple to make MobileMe free, but I do not think that will happen. What I am hoping for is a cloud file system that makes sense for the iPhone and iPad.

iTunes Cloud/Lala

It would be nice to hear about a cloud strategy for iTunes, especially if the next Apple TV is primarily a streaming device. Surely that big, fancy, new data center is going to be used for something. That said, I am not holding my breath.

What Do You Want to See?

What are you expecting (or wishing) to hear about next week? Sound off in the comments below. And don’t forget to check out our live coverage of the keynote!

For those interested in cloud computing or data centers, check out our Structure conference in June.