"Mobile web browsing is something of a dead end."

- I don't think so, mobile browsing is taking off fast. 100 fold growth in UK in last 4 years, everybody in Japan and Korea does it. iPhone seems popular for browsing.

"No matter how great your scaling technology, most websites won't work properly on the smallest screen. So operators, manufacturers, and pundits are betting that mobile widgets will be the vehicle that brings the mobile internet to the masses."

Thankfully, operators, manufacturers and "pundits" don't write mobile websites. Those who do write them are adapting them to work on small screens. Yahoo, Google, ebay,facebook, myspace, bebo, bbc, cnn, usatoday, sun, flickr, times, even nokia. (But not apple yet) all have small screen sites that work fine.