Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about technology, multimedia, and digital entertainment:

If anything, Palm's Foleo seems like it was designed to elicit instant geek cred. It's small, thin and light, and its solid state storage helps provide long battery life. It has instant-on capabilities and supports Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. It even runs Linux and all for only $500. However, quite to the contrary, much of the reaction to Palm's latest mobile foray has run the gamut from confusion to scorn, with some calling the product "Folly-o" or "Fooleo."

The core problem that the Foleo seeks to address is easy to understand, but its positioning is a moving target. Here's how early adopters are becoming lost in Foleo's rationale:

Palm: Smartphones continue to gain more processing power and more memory.
Users: OK, that's fair enough.
Palm: However, they are still deficient in input and output.
Users: Well, there sure are compromises, we can agree. I drag my laptop around when I need more.
Palm: So, what we need is a whole new device with a large screen and keyboard
Users: Whoa, why not create some kind of keyboard dock with a big screen for the Treo, like all those speaker docks for the iPod?
Palm: That's clumsy. We consider this a smartphone companion.
Users: I didn't realize my smartphone was lonely.

We weren't just talking with Sir Richard and crashing the first class cabin on yesterday's Virgin America flight, we also spent some quality time with the in-flight RED entertainment system. The experience shows a lot of promise, and offers up a hefty helping of media, interaction and convenience, easily besting other seat back offerings we've played with. There are also plenty of rough edges and features yet to be enabled, so we look forward to playing with RED in a year or so, once everything's up and running. Our in-depth impressions are after the break.

There was no shortage of opinion last week on Ask Engadget, when Ebzy was in search of some guidance in the digital camera market. You can get your own question answered by sending in to ask at engadget dawt com. Today Perry's in search of a GPS unit:

"I'm thinking of buying a GPS for my car, and am totally confused with the options. I'm not interested in ones with JPG viewers, MPEG players... I just want the best GPS that I can get. What do you recommend in various price ranges, and if money were no object?"

So Perry isn't exactly into the frills, but can he find a top-shelf unit without them? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Yesterday we sat down with Sir Richard Branson, Chairman of Virgin Group, in the first class cabin of Air Colbert on the inaugural flight of Virgin America. Richard's day started with a rush through NY rain to make the plane that morning, and was losing his voice on top of it, but he was nice enough to spend a some minutes with us chatting up a few of his myriad of companies. We requested to speak to him about Virgin Galactic, but he isn't allowed to comment on the current situation due to an ongoing investigation into the explosion at Scaled Composites.

Thank you for talking with us today. Congratulations on the flight!

Thank you very much.

How are you liking it?

[Laughs] Well, I'm biased. And we've spent years and years trying to get this Virgin born and off the ground, and so many people have put so much time and effort and sweat and toil into it. Our competitors have tried to smother it at birth and make sure it never happened, but now it's finally happened. It's the perfect birth, I can't think of anything I'd change. She's a beautiful baby, has got beautiful eyes, and I'm very very proud of her, very proud of what everyone's done to get this.

It's definitely been a well publicized fight to make this happen, what made it worth three and a half years to launch Virgin America?

I think anybody who's traveled on the legacy carriers in America will know why people have to fight to try to compete with them. The quality of their service is almost non-existent. I wouldn't say that's particularly the fault of their crews, it's the tools that those crews have been given by their masters, or they haven't been given any tools, and the end result has been... If you look at any poll of the best airlines in the world, I've never seen an American carrier come anywhere but very very near the bottom. So, in a situation like that, it's right for Virgin to come in and shake up that industry. The very fact that we come in and we offer that equality will mean that will lift those legacy carriers, it'll be actually good for them. They'll have to compete back, and I'm sure they will. But, you know, it's up to our team that we always remain one step ahead.

We know we don't normally do our How would you change feature in the middle of the week -- nor do we ever do it about software -- but since Tuesday we've been absolutely inundated with unhappy iMovie '08 customers who want back many of the the more robust features of previous versions. Chief among them, iMovie could seriously use themes, chapter markers, a timeline view, track-volume editing / fading, and the list goes on. So tell us, what would you change about it? Go nuts in comments, we hear Apple reads the site every once in a while.

We're at JFK airport right now, for the inaugural flight of Virgin America from New York to San Francisco, and Sir Richard Branson just stepped on stage.

Update: We've landed! Check it out after the break.

9:27AM: "I don't know who organized the weather today!" New York got nailed by some horrible weather this morning, and we're running about an hour late. Stephen Colbert, who the plane is named after and is supposed to be christening the plane this morning, is stuck in traffic, along with a few other main figures. We're going to carry on all the same. Sir Richard mentions how hard this has been to get off the ground, but it's finally happening. "It's time Americans get the airline they deserve, it's been much too long." Applause.


9:30AM: And we're off to our gate! We'll keep you posted on the proceedings as we can, and be landing on the west coast around 1PM PST.

9:58AM: A few comments have wondered what exactly this flight has to do with gadgets. Hopefully this hands on we did earlier this year speaks for itself, and we'll be playing with all the gadgetry during the cross country flight to let you know just how great in-flight Doom really is. We're also paying our return flight back, so it ain't no freebie.

10:01AM: The plane is currently taxiing. We just added a few new pictures to the gallery.

10:08AM: We're boarding now. They called out Group A for boarding, but there were no takers, so everybody has been invited on board.

Our spankin' new fully-loaded 24-inch fourth gen iMac just arrived via FedEx, so for those that can't get enough of the most aluminum and glass clad Apple PC to date, we've got a ton of pics for you to pore over. Some first impressions on the device:

• The friendly, white packaging betrays the slick sense of style of the machine inside. (MacBook Pros and Mac Pros have much more appealing matte black boxes.)
• Its 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo and full-size drive is way snappy -- the machine boots from cold to desktop in 26 seconds (granted, it's a clean install without any third party software installed).
• Upon closer inspection we weren't too stoked about the screen. The colors are rich, but compared to our Dell 24-incher (at 400 cd/m2, 1000:1 contrast ratio), the iMac was still dissatisfying. Despite its very decent 380cd/m2, 750:1 CR display, contrast was still very low, and working with objects and icons white window space was even at times strenuous on our eyes.
• The Apple Remote no longer magnetically clips on to the side! Pssh!
• We love -- really love -- thin keyboards, and the new Apple keyboard is as thin and aesthetically pleasing as they come. Unfortunately, it's just not too usable since, like the MacBook keyboard, the keys aren't shaped with ridges to help your fingers find their way. (And what can we say? We really dislike the Mighty Mouse, always have.)
• We also suspect Mac laptop and Apple Pro Keyboard users will be irritated by the function-key shortcuts having been moved around; or example, laptop volume keys went from F3-5 to F10-12, Exposé went from F7 to F3, etc. Also, what's up with F16-19?
• The RAM bay is super easy to get to with the machine on its face. As usual, you get two slots. We really wish the hard drive was this easy to get at.
• Despite our niggles, it's straight up the thinnest, sexiest Mac desktop machine Apple's produced to date; Cupertino really needed to drop the white, plastic overgrown iPod look, and we're grateful Jobs & co did.

So, is there anything about this thing you want to know?

Aight, we just got our hands on the new 4th generation iMac and its wired and wireless Bluetooth keyboards. What can we say, it's all super sexy. Unfortunately we're not too partial to the MacBook square-key grid layout, and we really, REALLY wish Apple would get rid of the Jay Leno chin on the iMac already, but check out the pics and see for yourself.

Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about technology, multimedia, and digital entertainment:

A few weeks ago a two-part Switched On column (see: here and here) discussed Apple's approach to the iPhone keyboard. I agreed with Apple's reasoning that, for a phone, or at least this first iPhone, the gains that could be made by going with a soft keyboard outweighed the cons. And, make no mistake (or actually a lot of them with typos), there are cons. Even in a best-case scenario of perfect accuracy, the iPhone's keyboard has drawbacks. There are, for example, no cursor keys, (Mac history buffs will remember that this is just what the original Macintosh forced users to do as its keyboard had no arrow keys), and users must go into punctuation (albeit briefly if using the famous "Pogue period" hint) mode whenever you want to type a period.

Since Apple seems to have decided that keyboards are only for laptops and larger devices, and now has an opportunity to create an embedded appliance (call it Foleo-like, if you must) loaded not with some souped-up file viewers but embedded versions of, Pages, Keynote, perhaps some future Apple spreadsheet product, and a light version of FileMaker (which, for all of Apple's stealth initiatives, is one of the company's best-kept secrets). iWork, much like Safari, may well have some agenda beyond being a Microsoft insurance policy for the Mac.

"Tack on a scroll wheel and call it an iPod." Alright, now that we've gotten that obvious little gem out of the way, it's time to get down to business and start our unpaid weekly focus group for major consumer electronics manufacturers, with today's victim subject being none other than Microsoft's controversial Zune. Far from the complete failure some had predicted, the Zune has actually managed to hold its own in the marketplace and even develop a small but dedicated following; however, we're not gathered here to give Redmond props on the social, so let's see what kind of suggestions we can come up with for its troubled-but-promising DAP. Bigger storage capacity? Check. Non-crippled wireless functionality? Check. Makes phone calls and plays YouTube videos and gives one a heightened sense of self-worth? Checkmate. Yup, looks like we're off to a good start here, so keep 'em comin' folks: how would you change the Zune?

Now that we got Lenny's wireless TV situation sorted last week on Ask Engadget, let's turn our attention to cameras. And of course, don't be shy about sending in your questions to ask at engadget dawt com, because life is too short to listen to your Uncle Ted's unsolicited tech advice. This one's a little vague, but it sounds to us like Ebzy here would like to take pictures of stuff, with, um, something.

"I'd like to know what are the best price vs. performance cameras out there. It would be particularly helpful if people could suggest what they think are the best cameras in each price range and category, (including DSLR). The type of memory the card takes is not an issue. Although a good UI is worthy of mention."

Alright, so that's a little broad, but if you've got a favorite shooter in your bag, be sure to shout it out in the comments.

We've given away any number of Xbox 360s on Engadget in the past, but never one with the level of awesome turned up to 11 (or, in this case, 300). Today we're giving away one of just 20 super rare Xbox 360 Elite consoles printed with blood designs from 300 -- but rarer still since it's friggin' signed by Frank Miller. The details of what the winner takes:

• 300-Edition Xbox 360 Elite (120GB drive, wireless controller, etc.)
• Console is signed by 300 creator and comic legend Frank Miller, as well as Zack Snyder, director of the eponymous film
• 300 combo DVD / HD DVD (which is, incidentally, out today) to go right along with it.

Look, we'll admit it, we really don't want to give this thing away -- so make sure you follow the contest guidelines, ok?

The rules (yeah, there are always rules):

• Leave a comment below -- tell us your fave scene from the movie. (It's ok if you haven't seen it, but where the hell have you been?)
• You may only enter this specific giveaway once. If you enter this giveaway more than once you'll be automatically disqualified, etc. (Yes, we have robots that thoroughly check to ensure fairness.) In other words, be careful when commenting and if you submit more than once, only activate one comment, ok?
• If you enter more than once, only activate one comment -- otherwise we'll send Leonidas after you.
• Contest is open to anyone worldwide!
• Entries can be submitted until 11:59pm EDT on Sunday, August 12th.

Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about technology, multimedia, and digital entertainment:
For all the attention on the love-hate relationship between Apple and Microsoft, there's another software superpower with which Apple is increasingly butting heads. Apple was an early investor in Adobe and an early supporter of PostScript, which drove the first LaserWriters and launched the desktop publishing market. When Steve Jobs left Apple and founded NeXT, that company used Display PostScript as the imaging engine for the company's black boxes.

Photoshop and other members of Adobe's Creative Suite remain some of the most popular creative tools on the Mac. For years, Photoshop made cameos at Apple keynotes as the company argued the superiority of the PowerPC architecture.

But the relationship has been strained at times as well. After going on lots of minor quests involving the slaying of forest creatures, Adobe released PostScript Level 2. But Apple surprised nearly everyone when it partnered with Microsoft in 1989 to position TrueType and the now-forgotten TrueImage as a rival to Adobe's technology. Apple would later try again to surpass Adobe's font technology with QuickDraw GX before adopting PDF as the graphics lingua franca for Mac OS X.

Generally we reserve this feature for already-released consumer products, but with everyone now the proud owner of "the last gadget I'll ever need," we figure that we're forced to look in a new direction for devices to collectively critique. And with the hundred-dollar-and-change OLPC XO finally in full-scale production, what better candidate to help us stray from the traditional format? Keep in mind, though, as you're tearing the charitable unit apart, that it's not really meant for the readers and writers of Engadget (at least not yet), and therefore you're gonna look pretty silly suggesting Alienware-esque specs for a project whose goal is financial prudence. That being said, there are still a number of changes we can think of that would benefit the kiddies while still keeping the green plastic wonder under budget. Like, how about a keyboard with some tactility that one can actually touch type on? And while we love the philosophy behind open-source software, the sad truth is that you need to at least be familiar with Windows in the business world -- and with Microsoft offering $3 basic installs to developing countries, why not let these machines dual-boot? Finally -- and this one is for you conservative types over at the News Agency of Nigeria -- NickNeg and friends should probably stop wasting time with those ineffective filters and simply make the machines incapable of displaying flesh tones instead.

Well that's the best we could come up with; now how about you -- how would you change the OLPC XO?