> That argument would be a lot more convincing if the Dash actually displayed results from a lot of places, not just Amazon. What if I want to search the Web? What if I want to search my social networking services? What if I want to look up directions to a location? What if I want to look up a word in a dictionary? (Remember, Ubuntu is popular in schools in some countries.)

Apple already tried this with Sherlock. It just isn't something people seem to actually want.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherlock_(software)

When Apple killed Sherlock, they replaced it with Spotlight (local search only), and Dashboard (widgets that you can use to find specific network information without going to the web).