J. Craig Ventner can be kind of a blow-hard, but waking up to this article made realize that we are indeed living in a new century. Synthetic DNA. Wow. Nobel Laureate Hamilton Smith explains what the next step is:

�The third step, which we�re working on now, is to take the chemically synthesized DNA, which is in the test tube, and get it into a bacterium where it can take over and produce a synthetic cell,� Smith said.

Yup. Pretty much speechless over here. The press release is here. J. Craig�s sweet laboratory of bleeding edge mad, mad science is just up the road in Rockville, MD.

A note to Steve: I updated my iPhone and am not able to get on my home wifi network. I wonder if this is some screw up in 1.1.3. Fix it ASAP, Ace�

Anywho�

Pretty amazed by the new features they�ve managed to throw out�especially the Big Brother-ish find-me-now feature in Maps. And I�ve already gotten clips together of my must-read blogs and my company�s Basecamp dashboard.

As far as the other stuff, I think that over the next few days the meme will develop that this might not have had the jazz of last year�s iPhone announcement, but Apple really showed how serious they are about owning innovation in the burgeoning field of �digital lifestyle� appliances. iTunes Store will rent you movies. Apple TV �take 2� does Flickr and .Mac picture management and doesn�t require you to own a computer in order to use it. Time Capsule will probably be the very first time in the history of personal computing that pretty much anyone can do system backups with no problem, which will drastically reduce the nation�s headache quotient.

And let�s not forget the MacBook Air, which has me thinking that I probably won�t end up buying a MacBook Pro for my second computer after all. I�m in the market for a new laptop and had been thinking I�d just replace the PowerBook G4 with a MacBookPro. But for the same price, I can get the Air, the Time Capsule, and the Apple TV. Combined, you�ve got a more inclusive �home system� for managing work and entertainment, and keeping yourself from losing data.

The one thing I think is bizarre about the whole announcement is the idea of the solid state HDD. Who cares. The pricing difference is insane, and you actually LOSE major space if you go solid state. How often is your HDD likely to break? Get a 3-year Apple Care for $299 in case your regular SATA drive ever craps out, and you�re still $1,000 and 16GB richer. Sure, you also lose 200mhz, but I doubt that�s the bulk of the price jump.

Anyway� Lot�s of fun. I�m gonna get my Apple gorge on in the next couple months. This stuff isn�t as sexy as the iPhone, but I bet it will be as useful in the long run.

Since I’m married, I pay no attention to online dating services, so I’m a little late to this party:

Match My Friends™ allows anyone to quickly and easily create a profile for their friend and search for potential dates on their behalf–all without having to have a Match.com profile themselves. After receiving an invitation directly from their friend, the single friend then has the opportunity to enhance and approve the profile before it is ever posted on Match.com.

Watch this video introducing the feature–it’s pretty funny. Wendy, the “hot friend” never says a word, and the two married folk who do talk seem to spend a lot of time reassuring you that this isn’t for freaks and losers, and that neither you nor the potential other that your friends find will “end up on Match.com unless you both agree to.”

In any case, it seems a fantastic use of social networking–one of the first really decent ones I’ve seen. It’s well and good to have lots of digital buddies on Facebook to share photos and goof off, but connecting through friends for dating purposes might finally be the solution to the longstanding it’s-so-hard-to-meet-good-people problem, and therefore kick social networks up to a new level of usefulness.