According to NPD Group’s latest Mobile Phone Track study, price cuts on devices like Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone and RIM’s (RIMM) Blackberry Curve inspired a three percent decline in the average price for all cellphones in the third quarter of 2009. The overall average purchase price for mobile phones in the U.S. for the period: $85. A year ago it was $88.

An interesting trend given the fast-advancing feature sets and presumably high development costs of the new state-of-the-art smartphones we’re carrying around these days. For while these lower prices mean more sales for smartphone manufacturers and more subscribers for their carrier partners in the short term, they may well be undermining the smartphone’s price potential in the long term. It’s hard not to see the $299.99 Palm (PALM) Pixi for $24.99 on Amazon (AMZN) or the $499.99 Droid Eris for $49.99 on Overstock (OSTK) as having some deflationary impact once those retailers are done with them.

“That impact will continue,” NPD analyst Ross Rubin told me. “The iPhone 3G at $99 has created a benchmark that competitors are responding to with handsets such as the Droid Eris and Palm. Even where a handset is competing closer to the $200 mark, carriers and retailers are using buy-one-get-one promotions (that help lock in family plans). And retailers are discounting even value-priced smartphones further to drive store traffic and accessory sales.”

Rubin’s conclusion: “We will soon reach the point where the handset is a minor expense consideration and the required monthly data fees become the limiting factor in smartphone adoption.”

Scientifically, there really is no question [that Pluto should be reclassified]. Either Pluto is not a planet, or many other things are planets. Which is a better choice? I want my planets to be more special, not less special, so I favor Pluto not being a planet.”

–California Institute of Technology astronomer Michael Brown, 2004

Delisted from the pantheon of celestial bodies back in 2006 for its weaker than expected planethood, and then pronounced second best to Eris, its recently discovered neighbor, Pluto is no longer the solar system’s bastard stepchild. Yesterday, the International Astronomical Union, which struck Pluto from the planetary rolls, decreed that all “transneptunian dwarf planets similar to Pluto” will henceforth be called “Plutoids.” Pluto shares the designation with Eris, the only other … non-planet to meet the IAU’s criteria for Plutoidenism.

The IAU clearly views the new classification as an honor for the humbled Pluto, but to Plutevangelists it’s just one more insult. “It’s just some people in a smoke-filled room who dreamed it up,” Alan Stern, a former NASA space sciences chief and principal investigator on a mission to Pluto, told the Associated Press. “Plutoids or hemorrhoids, whatever they call it. This is irrelevant.”

Scientifically, there really is no question [that Pluto should be reclassified]. Either Pluto is not a planet, or many other things are planets. Which is a better choice? I want my planets to be more special, not less special, so I favor Pluto not being a planet. Emotionally, though, I have to admit that I have grown up thinking Pluto [is] this special oddball planet at the edge of the solar system. While I now know scientifically that Pluto is less special, it’s still hard to let go.”

–California Institute of Technology astronomer Michael Brown, 2004

The scientific community really has it out for Pluto, doesn’t it? Delisted from the planetary rolls last year after a wholesale redefinition of planethood determined it was actually the largest of the dwarf planets, Pluto suffered another humiliation yesterday when astronomers announced that Eris, Pluto’s recently discovered neighbor, outweighs it by about 27%. “There was a possibility that Pluto and Eris were roughly the same size, but these new results show that it’s second place at best for Pluto,” said Caltech astronomer Brown. “I don’t think we’re picking on Pluto. … It’s just the truth. It [Eris] just is more massive than Pluto. It’s just the way it is.”