By JOHN MURRELL

Apple unrolled its roadmap for the iPhone this morning, and it charts a route to the heart of the business district, with some side trips to the amusement park. On the business end, Apple answered the needs of corporate IT departments and sent a shiver through BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion by announcing that it had licensed the protocols to let the iPhone connect with Microsoft's Exchange, allowing for push-mail and coordination of calendars and contacts, as well as the ability for companies to remotely delete data if necessary. The other headline news is the much anticipated release of the software development kit that will let third parties create iPhone applications using the same tools Apple does. Developers will need to submit their creations to Apple for approval (so no porn, malicious software or iPhone jailbreak cracks). The developers can set their own prices (including free) and distribute their apps directly to the iPhone or via the iTunes store. On any application that carries a price, Apple will take a 30 percent cut. And just to prime the pump a bit, venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers have set up a $100 million fund exclusively to help finance start-ups in the iPhone application niche. Some sample programs were shown at the press event, including sales tools from Salesforce.com and medical software from Epocrates, but there were also revelations of a more playful side of the iPhone, including Sega's plans for a version of "Super Monkey Ball" and Electronic Arts' porting of the as-yet-unreleased "Spore."
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Q  U  O  T  E  D

"Our results suggest that it may soon be possible to reconstruct a picture of a person's visual experience from measurements of brain activity alone. Imagine a general brain-reading device that could reconstruct a picture of a person's visual experience at any moment in time. ... It is possible that decoding brain activity could have serious ethical and privacy implications downstream in, say, the 30- to 50-year time frame. [We] believe strongly that no one should be subjected to any form of brain-reading process involuntarily, covertly, or without complete informed consent."

-- Dr. Jack Gallant, University of California, Berkeley, whose team has started on the research

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Kid Yang's rope-a-dope riles the Redmond Rumbler: The leisurely pace of Yahoo's response to Microsoft's takeover bid is starting to make that little vein pulse in Steve Ballmer's sizable and ever-reddening forehead, and that means one thing: The facilities folks have replacements at the ready for all his office furniture. According to the New York Post, Yahoo's latest move -- delaying its annual meeting and board election to forestall a proxy fight (see "Yahoo to Microsoft: Turns out high noon doesn't work for us; can we reschedule?") -- has pushed the Microsoft CEO closer to spontaneous combustion. "Ballmer is just one of many highly emotional people involved in this," said a source who has spoken with executives at both companies. "Microsoft has been trying to avoid going completely hostile, but now it is going to get completely hostile." That, says the Post, could mean upping the pressure by publicly announcing the competing slate of directors it would offer. And, according to the report, it also could mean Microsoft might change its bid from one tied to the companies' stock prices to an all-cash offer in order to get Yahoo shareholders pushing the board from the other side.

Meantime, says BoomTown's Kara Swisher, while a source close to Microsoft says the process "feels like fighting with molasses," the slowdown game is helping Yahoo. "In fact," she writes, "it is positively Zen how Yahoo has removed Microsoft's incentive to go hostile with a proxy fight, by dangling the possibility of talks, gently floating news of other suitors and even possibly keeping this circus going until July. July!?! What we are witnessing, folks, is nothing less than Olympic foot-dragging! Gold medal awarded to Yahoo!" But let's see how things go when we get to the boxing competition.
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Ask.com: No, we aren't a women's search site (not that there's anything wrong with that): It's true that Ask.com is struggling to find some firm ground in a search market dominated by Google, and that as rumored (see "Tormented ghost of Jeeves spotted in Ask.com offices"), it is cutting staff (40 employees, or about 8 percent of its workforce) and refocusing the site. But, says spokesperson Nicholas Graham, it is absolutely not true, as reported in an AP story, that the site will narrow its target audience to married women primarily living in the southern and midwestern United States who are looking for answers to basic questions about recipes, hobbies and children's homework.

While that's an important constituency, Graham said, it's not what will drive the changes in the site. "The idea that we're going to become a women's site is just plain wrong. We know that a sizable group of our core user base is women, and we know they come to us for a certain kind of search: to get answers, often in areas of reference, health and entertainment," he told Search Engine Watch. "We recognize that we can't be all things to all people, so we're focusing on our core group of users. We want to build up the kinds of answers those users are looking for, while at the same time remain a strong search site." To Ask, the demographic isn't as important satisfying the kind of users it draws most -- those who search with a question -- and the site plans enhancements for that approach. "We want to address the answer-seekers, who put things in a search box in certain ways," Graham said. "We think it's smart to identify who our most active users are. It's smart to identify the kind of searches they're looking for, and focus on building that up." Of course, Ask itself faces the biggest question: Will this be enough to gain on Google? Not a chance, says Jason Calacanis, for Ask or anyone else, because Google's going to own a 90 percent share of the search market a year from now.
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Google fills sync hole: Users of Google's Calendar appreciate being able to get at their schedules from anywhere, but those who are also hooked in to Microsoft Outlook at work have long dealt with the irritation of juggling appointments across multiple calendars. Now Google has a tool to relieve that headache. Google Calendar Sync (download here) automatically keeps the two calendars in harmony, updating events and pop-up reminders across both (unless, for privacy reasons, you prefer a one-way sync).

Google also checked off one of the standing requests from the developers' wish list, releasing an API that will allow program-level access to your Contacts list (to the extent that you permit it). This will save you the trouble (and any security worries) of handing over your Google ID and password for programs that want to integrate or coordinate with your contact data.
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Off topic: The Sumsing Turbo 3000 Multitask, a true utility phone, and other funny business from the Groen Brothers (thanks, Miles). Also, free shipping deals.
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