the shift between China and the U.S as leading economies is accelerating

A news item telling of Lenovo choosing to focus on China and ignore the United States in regards to its leading technological products is, in my mind, the strongest signal yet of the U.S losing its leading role, even in setting the tones and fashions.

In the last great shift - from the European powers to the United States, it took ages for the Americans to become world taste-setters.

Seems like Globalization is making these processes much faster. The queen (US) is dead.
Long live the queen (China) !

Lenovo: Win7 and the U.S do not interest us any more... What does it actually mean?

Lenovo has anounced it has no plans to market the company's Android based tablet or Smartphone in the U.S in the near future, and that it has no plans to manufacture a windows 7 based tablet even in china.

I believe this is the first real indication I've ran across that -

1. Some serious companies no longer consider the U.S a critical market
2. Android is a real threat to Windows in the personal computing space.

Lenovo's director of new technology, Howard Locker, was quoted: :

"Windows 7 is based on the same paradigm as 1985 -- it's really an interface that's optimized for a mouse and keyboard,"

How many books are there in this world ?

How many books are there in this world ? the good people of google books might have the answer.