Murdoch should note that many young Americans receive their daily dose of news not from traditional news outlets but from satire TV, like the "Daily Show" and the "Colbert Report." News on its own isn't enough anymore. The news bread needs a thick layer of entertainment spread on it.

It's believed that Steve Jobs is personally involved with the project, so hopefully he'll be offering this kind of advice to Murdoch. However, I can't help feeling that The Daily is arriving several years too early. A tablet computer in every home might happen, but it will probably not be an iPad. I suspect Mr Murdoch's main interest in the iPad as a platform is the tightly controlled distribution system via iTunes. Right now, at least, this kind of infrastructure is something that only Apple can offer.

Keir Thomas has been writing about computing since the last century, and more recently has written several best-selling books. You can learn more about him at .