In short, in the year ahead, with Washington focused on spending cuts, the architects of U.S. policy will need to lean more heavily on steady friends to help advance our interests at just the moment when these allies have morethan enough problems of their own.
It was one of the early iPhone applications that redefined the smart phone as morethanjust a geeky way to store contacts: it can also gross out your friends.
Having re-Christened it iTunes Ping, or just Ping, Apple now says the service has morethan one million users who can view what music their friends are playing or streaming, and can create profiles for themselves.