A year ago I wrote an entry titled Living in the Third World of Communications and boy, I must have been really pissed off on that day because I usually don't tell politicians they need to be sure they aren't the reason their kids have two telephone companies to choose from instead of hundreds or thousands.

I kept thinking about living in the third world of communications when I saw this post regarding a new Panasonic phone with specs that make it a must have. The model is the Panasonic P905i Viera phone and its 3.5 inch screen has 854x480 resolution. This is a breathtaking amount of pixels to put on a phone and allows for some incredible web surfing and TV watching.

In fact, Google tells me this device has 5.4 times the pixels of my brand new Windows Mobile device. Only country music makes me sadder than seeing this in writing.

As you might imagine there is a dedicated TV tuner processor and mobile banking built-in to this incredibly sophisticated little device. But I wonder how many years we will have to wait before this little gem comes to the US.

As a proud American I am equally embarrassed that the rest of the world has to experience three things in the US. The smell in New York subways, the dilapidated condition of LaGuardia Airport and our lack of communications devices.

I swear, if it wasn't for Apple's iPhone the communications problem in the US would be of wrist-slitting proportions. Thank you Steve Jobs.