Google's Rajen Sheth and his new baby: the Chromebook. Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com.

Rajen Sheth was grinning from ear to ear. And he looked barely old enough to shave. But his answer carried some serious weight. “Gmail,” he said.

It was 2004, and Sheth was interviewing for a job with Google’s enterprise division. If you could call it that. At the time, the division spanned all of 25 employees and one lonely product: the Google Search Appliance. Google had stuffed its famous search engine into a server for use inside the enterprise, and Sheth was asked the same question every candidate was a...

The sun is blanketing San Francisco in a toasty glow, and for once, people are wearing t-shirts outside.

But all that’s on my mind is why in the world I’m spending an entire morning test-riding a Yamaha Zuma scooter to write this Wired review. I have a red-eye to catch to New York in 12 hours, and a speech to give for my book tour right after I hop off the plane. In six days I co-launch a new website. In two weeks I have to file the second draft of a documentary screenplay before the filmmakers fly to Egypt.

I’m cutting it close, and to make matters worse, this bike is so slow.

“40 miles per h...