New Florence. New Renaissance.

Science Commons

"As scientific goals grow more multifaceted, the challenges for research and development lie not only in the experiments themselves, but also in the transfer of information among peers.

Enter John Wilbanks, executive director of the Science Commons initiative, and the six-year-old innovation of its parent organization, Creative Commons—an intelligent, understandable copyright that's revolutionizing how everything from photos to publications are shared. Wilbanks and his team (which includes Nobel Prize winners Joshua Lederberg and John Sulston) are focused on three areas where roadblocks to scientific discovery are most common: in accessing literature, obtaining materials, and sharing data."

Popular Science

See also US Supreme Court and "patent trolls"

Technology Innovation and Family Trees

"As Web sites and genealogical societies proliferate and DNA testing becomes more widely available, the tools for tracing a family tree are becoming more accessible — and the hunt is often intriguing. A bit of online detective work can yield a significant amount of information for little or nothing. But for extensive or difficult searches, the cost in money and time can mount."

New York Times

A Digital Coach

"Using GPS, or by triangulating its location from nearby Wi-Fi access points, the phone can tell how close you are to your gym, say, or the nearest McDonald's. The coach can then remind you how long it's been since your last workout or gently chide you for all the fast-food joints you've visited that week."

An innovation from the tech labs at Accenture - Business 2.0

Web War One

Wired Magazine on the DDoS attacks on Estonia this past May.

"It is known as a botnet, and it had slipped into the country through its least protected border — the Internet. Ministers of defense develop strategies to combat the threat of missile attacks, naval bombardment, air raids, and tank advances. But a digital invasion? Estonia is a member of both NATO and the European Union. Should Aaviksoo invoke NATO Article 5, which states that an assault on one allied country obligates the alliance to attack the aggressor?

This was not the first botnet strike ever, nor was it the largest. But never before had an entire country been targeted on almost every digital front all at once, and never before had a government itself fought back. "The attacks were aimed at the essential electronic infrastructure of the Republic of Estonia," Aaviksoo tells me later. "All major commercial banks, telcos, media outlets, and name servers — the phone books of the Internet — felt the impact, and this affected the majority of the Estonian population. This was the first time that a botnet threatened the national security of an entire nation."

Update : New Scientist on suspicions of China hacking Pentagon networks

Voice Recognition for the Mobile

"Using Vlingo’s voice-recognition interface, a user can speak a sentence into a cell phone, see that sentence (in this case the text message “Hey Andy how’s it going”) appear on a screen, and use simple editing tools to replace words that may have been misinterpreted by voice-recognition technology. The interface helps users avoid manual entry of text messages, search terms, and e-mails."

MIT Technology Review

"The Most Advanced Dorm Room Ever"

Popular Science (sub required) puts together the dorm room tomorrow's freshman will enjoy - including wall-to-wall touchscreen TVs, stowaway sleep pods, a dry cleaning closet, a kitchen which uses RFIP tags to warn you of expired dates on products, auto shut off countertops, biometric security and more.

Not a whole bunch about books and calculators, though -)

The Next Disruptors

Business 2.0

"A disruptive startup does not necessarily need to make a better mousetrap - just one that's cheaper or more convenient. Expensr is a webtop application for managing personal finances and has a lot fewer features than you can find in Intuit's Quicken. But Expensr is easier to use - and free. Zipcar thinks it can convince you that you no longer need to own an automobile. How? It sprinkles its rental cars throughout urban neighborhoods with the densest populations and lets people book online and by the hour."

"Bloom Energy wants to short-circuit electric utilities by building a power plant in every home. Zink is trying to create a market for mobile printing, without the ink. Blinkx thinks it can become the Google of video. Virgin Charter, the newest wing of Richard Branson's empire, is helping to launch the air-taxi industry."

High End Digital Cameras

"Just three days after Canon announced a pair of pro cameras, Nikon unleashed it’s own duo of high-end digitals: The ultra high-end D3 and the still really high-end D300.

It leads with the Deathstar of SLRs, the D3. The biggest change is, in fact, one of bigness. Nikon equipped the new camera with a 36x23.9-millimeter image sensor that’s nearly as large as an old 35-milimeter film frame."

Popular Science

The Facebook economy

Business 2.0

"In just 10 weeks, hundreds of developers launched more than 2,500 new applications, triggering 139 million downloads. While a possible Facebook IPO or acquisition could change things overnight, for the moment it's a free-for-all.

The apps have names like FoodFight, Zombies, (fluff)Friends, and Fortune Cookie, and they let users indulge in everything from scrawling graffiti and sending virtual cocktails to buying music, brokering loans, and joining charitable causes - usually without leaving their Facebook homepages. Some apps have attracted hundreds of thousands of users, and a select few have pulled in millions."

Google Sky

The latest version of Google Earth now takes you in to the heavens.

PC World explores the experience.