10 Cool Gadgets You Can’t Get Here–Yet – “It’s true: The coolest gadgets often debut overseas–usually in Asia. Some are cell phones that double as music players or TVs. Others are supersmall yet powerful notebooks or handheld PCs. And some are just weird, like the world’s most disturbing piggy bank…”

11 innovation lessons from creators of WoW – “Blizzard Entertainment, the envy of the computer game industry, has learned 11 lessons on innovation that can help almost any business…”

Earth in crisis, warns NASA’s top climate scientist – “Global warming has plunged the planet into a crisis and the fossil fuel industries are trying to hide the extent of the problem from the public…”

The Boomtown Mirage – “In April 2006, Fox closed on a three-bedroom home in one of the biggest developments in town, Rancho El Dorado. The price had dipped to $212,000, after steadily rising for a year, and Fox put 15 percent down, his life savings. From Chase Bank, he got a so-called 2/28 adjustable-rate mortgage, which meant that for the first two years he would pay 7.5 percent interest and then a higher rate for the remaining 28 years. He knew that he might not be able to afford the higher rate, but as many home buyers did at the time, he assumed that two years down the road his house would be worth significantly more, and that he would be able to refinance. Fox thought he had entered the market during a slight downturn, which, he figured, made it a great time to buy…”

10 Ways the Internet (As We Know It) Will Die – “We often think of the Internet as a platform for unfettered global communication, where information flows freely, innovators can launch new applications at will, and everyone can have a voice. But it’s unlikely that our children’s Internet will look anything like what we have now….”

New Massive Botnet Twice the Size of Storm – “400,000-strong ‘Kraken’ botnet has infiltrated 50 Fortune 500 companies — and now usurps Storm as world’s biggest botnet…”

Android’s New Build: Hands-On Slideshow – “The new build of Android shown on the Qualcomm phone, which was running the 400+ Mhz MSM7201 chip set and was connected to AT&T’s UMTS network, also featured new icons and new applications, including a significantly improved Web browser…”

Japan: PSP outsells all consoles combined – “The Japanese, who were last year snapping up DS units like they were essential life support machines, grabbed an astonishing 129,986 PSPs off shelves in the week ending March 30. That’s more than double that of the previous week, and more than the total sales of all the other current-gen consoles, including DS, which only managed 58,916…”

Home copying – burnt into teenage psyche – “More than half of young people copy the songs on their hard drives to friends and even more swap CD copies, according to research that reveals the huge challenge home copying poses to a music industry already battling internet file-sharing…”

30 Celebrities Who Didn’t Get the Part – “Not all actors are just offered parts. Many audition or express interest and are turned down. Check out Glamorati’s list of 30 Celebrities Who Didn’t Get the Part…”

Newly discovered ‘superinsulators’ promise to transform materials research, electronics design – “Superinsulation may sound like a marketing gimmick for a drafty attic or winter coat. But it is actually a newly discovered fundamental state of matter created by scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory in collaboration with several European institutions. This discovery opens new directions of inquiry in condensed matter physics and breaks ground for a new generation of microelectronics…”

Microsoft Surface: Hands-on First Look

British schools are falling for the pseudoscience of Brain Gym. Why fill kids’ heads with nonsense? – “All of which sounds like hooey to me. And also to the British Neuroscience Association, the Physiological Society and the charity Sense About Science, who have written to every local education authority in the land to complain about Brain Gym’s misrepresentation of, um, reality…” More info:

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