Between a late-afternoon interview and schmooze time at the Nokia-Pop Sci party, I had a chance to talk with Ari Jaaksi for more than 90 minutes on Tuesday. Best moment: when he discussed the work the internet tablet team has done on optimizing the software stack and improving (among other things) video playback. He doesn't claim to have achieved the ultimate Flash viewing experience, but said that now YouTube video wouldn't be like watching a slideshow.

And then he proved it by going to YouTube and playing videos there. I made him play one video I've watched a lot ("Learn to Speak Body Tape 5" by Mitchell Rose) so I'd have a sense of how well it was playing. It was fine. In fact, because that tape has actors in static poses at times, Ari apologized for some hitches that didn't actually occur.

The "short term" in his internet tablet road map is described as "a few weeks" and he used the same time frame in our discussion. Still talking Flash 7 and nothing beyond what the blog says, but I'll say from my firsthand experience that the improvement coming is major.

Best of all is how Ari expresses the benchmark evaluating the browsing and Flash experience for the Nokia tablets -- "what you experience on your PC." To equal and (in some cases, like WiFi connectivity) exceed that.

So whatever we get come March isn't going to be the end.