Wired magazine just announced their picks for top 10 technology breakthroughs of 2008, a list which includes lots of cool stuff like flexible displays and Michael Phelps high-tech Speedos. However, their top two picks can be seen as somewhat controversial: #1. Apple's App Store and #2. Google’s Android. While Apple’s App Store certainly is an improved environment for third party developers (as compared to anything the traditional mobile operators currently offer), it still represents a “walled garden” school of thought. Google’s free, open source smartphone operating system is designed to work best with Google’s web-based email, contacts and calendar programs. While both products represent steps in the right direction, it can be argued that their two top picks are designed to benefit their creators more than the consumers…

If you havent read, ESPN has come out and said that they will be aggressively bidding for the retransmission rights for the next available Olympics, which will be in 2016. Notice I didnt say TV rights. The battle for the Olympics rights will be in spreadsheet projections done by ESPN, NBC and probably DirecTV (my guess, not based on any info), that will have to take in to account what revenues can be generated on TV advertising (traditional and interactive), through cable/satellite subscription revenues, an ever increasing market size for mobile video and advertising, and of course audio/video and text advertising of all types.

New York - Disney (NYSE: DIS) president and CEO Bob Iger believes that the computer will soon replace television as children’s screen of choice. He made the remark at the McGraw-Hill Media Summit in New York yesterday. Iger also stressed how social media was far from a fad, but in fact a part of everyday life for children, according to Broadcasting & Cable.

CES 2008: Bill Gates delivered his last keynote as Chairman of Microsoft at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. While he treated the audience to a hilarious celebrity-filled farewell video and played Guitar Hero on stage with Guns’n Roses star Slash, he did not make any really ground-breaking new announcements (as DMW’s readers predicted.) Gates’ keynote underscored the fact that Microsoft is still far from a digital entertainment company (but at least they are working on it.)