I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life. And see if I could not learn what it had to teach and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. There is a very narrow range of human behavior which, if properly exercised, will make the Newton appear to be an intelligent product. The problem here is that people change when they believe they are interacting with artificial intelligences.
People make themselves stupid in order to make the machines appear smart.
Imagine that, in an alternate universe, the Newton had been advertised as a portable display of data that would allow you to do a little bit of data entry on the go, instead of as an intelligent assistant. I think that advertised as such, it would be rather successful. Not much has been said about the Newton's interface, but it is about the best I've seen. I believe that the craft of interface design is one of the most important frontiers of culture. If one wishes to be the master of an art, technical knowledge is not enough.