Returning back to universal sync mechanism idea posted almost a year ago Universal server storage and news about syncing Angry Birds saves, for the beginning it can be quite simple to organize one worldwide cloud service accessible from any OS and device where any application can store some data.

Example:
Application developer registers at superappstoragecloudservice.com and adds several applications.
Each application obtains its own GUID id and then implementation on any platform can access superappstoragecloudservice.com/appStorage// and store and retrieve settings, save files etc.
It's good idea to limit each app slot about small like 4 kilobytes per user not to allow content storage

New Lightpeak (Thunderbold) technology from Intel opens completely new horizons for external devices. Presenting the idea that can open new performance perspectives for laptops.

External box equipped with 4 (or better 8) RAM slots and hardware controller and interface board capable to access this RAM with almost no additional delays.
Box is connected with dedicated Lightpeak (Thunderbold) port on your laptop and is recognized by operating system by ordinary external disk but is used just as swap file storage for laptop's own RAM.

Due to page oriented (or even page cluster oriented) algorithms for swap file management transfer should be effective.

So you can have for instance 4 or 8 Gb of laptop's own RAM and up to 64Gb of backup RAM as swap. Pretty nice perspective and not so expensive even now.

What time is it now?

Introduction:
Almost every person that has pocket music player at least once asked himself a question - why am I lying with eyes closed listening favourite music with perfect player, relaxing but with any ability to know what time is it now without eyes opening, turning on screen, or even turn on the lights in a room?

Note, that there are lot's of devices without screen at all (iPod shuffle for instance).

So there is a simple solution!
Solution:
Almost any pocket device (player, media player or even electronic watches) can be equipped with quite simple extension - by double click on Play button (or any other button if doubleclick on Play is already used) SPEAK current time on a currently selected language.
Samples for current time speaking are insignificantly small nowadays even if device have them on 20 languages.

Also it can be a marketing feature that didn't met on devices before

Consolidated data retrieval for application bunch on mobile devices

Introduction:
There exist lot's of quality and useful applications on modern mobile devices that uses internet access to retrieve data and that are able to work with that data offline later:
Twitter, any blog clients, electronic news provider clients, rss clients and lots of others.

If device has permanent internet connection (wi-fi, 3G or whatever else) it's ok and user can start any application on demand, it connects to required internet sites/services/etc and retrieves data.
But what if device has no permanent connection (or connection is very expensive)?
- User moves to other country and roaming is extremely expensive or no roaming at all
- User is moving through the city with no permanent connection but with somewhere several free wi-fi hot-spots on his way
- lot's of other real cases

And what user will do if he finds free hot-spot? He should run EVERY application, wait for their initialization, GUI starting, retrieval process itself, data processing and lot's of other excessive stuff.

If we're at roaming then during such time lasting set of operations connection can be dropped, local operator (or home operator) quantization for 100kb or even 1Mb can apply - lot's of time and money is spending with no effect.

Solution:
Mobile device API - let's name it BunchData API (independently on device OS) can be design to provide the following capabilities:
From application point:
- if application supports BunchData API then it has it's normal GUI AND separate module that provides only network connection and data retrieval functionality in atomic manner. E.g. some system service calls this module of application, it reads required connection parameters, account list etc, connects to server(s) and retrieves data updates putting them to local storage. That's it for this module.
- OS provides infrastructure to run registered application services and perform correct error handling and logging
From user point:
- OS provides settings customization capabilities to manage registered BunchData API application (allow to be involved in process or disable), group applications into multiple sets e.g. my social apps (twitter, blog clients, email) or my shopping apps (ebay notifications) or my reader applications (magazine subscriptions, new books)

When user finds free wi-fi - he can press just ONE button that means Download all updates for all social networks I involved and then system will run related services according system preferences all at once or one by one (depends on QoS criteria) and in few moments user can go away from connection and read new information.

Moreover system can provide settings like - when free wi-fi found - run all social networks, shopping and reader subscription application sets and user can leave device in his pocket and don't even press a button.

Also such conception can save lot's of energy for mobile device in average cause no GUI, FX, sound and other overhead required to retrieve data for large of application set.

Most preferred area to include such framework to is mobile devices world.
iPhone OS devices, android device, new Windows Phone 7 system devices etc.

Universal server storage for various small amount of mobile devices related sync data

Introduction:
Nowadays almost every person has at least several devices or computers (mobile or not): phones, smartphones, netbooks, laptops, desktops at home and in offices etc.
But there is still no universal API and centralized storage providing smooth fast and universal syncronization between devices, software etc.

Solution:
It is possible to design universal API for any operating system and programming language that encapsulates the following amount of data and functionality using set of applicable rules and meta-description of real data. Server side most likely will be web-services accessible from any internet-enabled device.

Let's try to put several examples:

Example 1:
Rules:
For every mail application (category)
OR
Microsoft Live client

Data:
Contact list in standard xml based format

Access:
My account only from any device type

Example 2:
Rules:
For every book/periodic reader application (several subcategories of reader devices category)

Data:
Current bookmarks and end of last read page (with symbol precise cause pages can be different on different devices). Per book/periodic

Access:
My account, my family members group, my friends group (if they have such ISBNned book)

And so on for music players (iPod, desktop winamp etc), video stop moment, last web browsing session (urls + cookies + possibly login session info)

That will provide unbelievable transparency through devices rotation in person's life and will require not so big amount of storage cause only links/bookmarks/keys will be stored