Guest blogger Darren Barefoot is a writer, marketer, technologist, and co-founder of Capulet Communications, a web marketing firm that specializes in high-tech and sustainability clients. He is the co-author of a forthcoming book about social media marketing for No Starch Press entitled "Friends wit...

With all of the stress and anxiety that humanity deals with on a daily basis--confronting the dangers of global warming, the perils of a financial system in meltdown and the ever-present threat of terrorism--the fact that there's yet another danger lurking out there ready to destroy mankind: the thr...

If you've gotten tired of hacking firewalls or cloud computing, maybe it's time to try your hand with DNA. That's what Reshma Shetty is doing with her Doctorate in Biological Engineering from MIT. Apart from her crowning achievement of getting bacteria to smell like mint and bananas, she's also acti...

In an early test of the OLPC XO in Nigeria, the student users dropped every laptop several times a day. Despite the laptops' rugged construction, they occasionally needed fixing, and a group of six-year-old girls opened up a "hospital" to reseat cables and do other simpler repairs. Mary Lou Jepson, ...

This morning I was absentmindedly checking out the New York Times' bits blog coverage of the Kindle 2 launch and saw this: “Our vision is every book, ever printed, in any language, all available in less than 60 seconds.” It wasn't the main story for sure. It was buried in the piece like ...

My brother called me a week ago and during the course of our conversation mentioned that he made the trek to the Miami Auto Show. He was complaining that he really wanted to take Tri-Rail (the commuter rail that runs along Florida's South East coast) but it was just too hard to figure out the rest o...

Vivek Kundra, the District of Columbia's CTO, isn't just talking about transparent government and participative democracy, he's working hard to make DC's massive data stores transparent and inviting your participation. I first heard about Vivek's push for transparency when he spoke at an Intelligenc...

No matter how hard you try, your mind can’t bend a spoon or channel the powers of a Jedi knight. Thanks to a new headset under development by neuroengineering company Emotiv Systems, however, you may soon be able to do this and more via the magic of video games. (Scientific American)...

A high-tech armband is helping athletes find their rhythm on the basketball court by playing a special tune when the athletes move their arms correctly. The “interactive throwing sleeve” extends from the knuckles to above the elbow and is form fitting, like a compression garment. It has ...