February second is the exact halfway point between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox.  What does this mean in layman's terms?  Well, today is Groundhog Day.  The day where Punxsutawney Phil sees his shadow and tells us whether or not we're going to have more cold or a sooner spring thaw.  Bill Murray made Groundhog Day the longest day ever in his 1993 movie of the same name.  This is the movie where he relived that day over and over and over again. 

How does this tie in to technology you might be asking yourself?  Well, these days I'm feeling like we're reliving the same thing over and over and over again with much of what's going on with technology these days.  Every day it seems to be more of the same - this is faster, that's the latest thing, this will change your life, you can't live without that.  While there are a ton of new great things that keep coming out, where are the truly life changing things at? 

Case in point - the iPad.  Do we really need another "gadget" -  one that fits somewhere in between our smartphone and our laptop?  How does this really make our life that much better?  I understand how it will make Steve Jobs or an Apple shareholder's better, but c'mon - seriously?  The latest and greatest from Apple is a device that's vying for the space that's currently filled by Amazon's Kindle and a Netbook.  I can see where this could get to (and "could" is the operative word in this sentence) once they work out the kinks and add the other features it really needs.  When I can replace my home computer, laptop, netbook, smartphone, AND Kindle, then we're talking.  Till then, it seems like the same thing over and over again - promises, promises, promises.