] Israeli scientists have devised a computer that can
] perform 330 trillion operations per second, more than
] 100,000 times the speed of the fastest PC. The secret: It
] runs on DNA.
]
] A year ago, researchers from the Weizmann Institute of
] Science in Rehovot, Israel, unveiled a programmable
] molecular computing machine composed of enzymes and DNA
] molecules instead of silicon microchips. Now the team has
] gone one step further. In the new device, the single DNA
] molecule that provides the computer with the input data
] also provides all the necessary fuel.

Computer Made from DNA and Enzymes

] SAN FRANCISCO (TMS) - The parties at Salon.com have been
] rather lean lately.
]
] Late last year, the pioneering online magazine celebrated
] its seventh anniversary with a small gathering in its
] downtown office here. In 1999 Salon had leased two floors
] in a new office tower just off Market Street. With bare
] concrete underfoot and exposed ducts and wiring overhead,
] the office was all dot-com swagger with stunning city
] views to match Salon's ambition as a public company that
] would leverage its brand into spinoff businesses in
] everything from television to software.
]
] Those grand visions never came to pass. Instead, the
] greatly shrunken Salon staff in November was lifting
] margaritas in toast to its unlikely survival. "Almost
] from the beginning," Salon founder David Talbot wrote in
] a note posted online, "our little magazine has carried on
] its back a host of doomsayers, idly kicking our sides
] with their heels as they enumerated the reasons our days
] were numbered. No one wanted to read serious articles
] online, much less pay for them. Only sites that
] specialized in finance or tech coverage would survive. We
] were too literary, too edgy."
]
] Talbot wasn't at the party; he was on the road trying to
] raise money to keep the lights on.

The Beaufort Gazette: Salon.com clings to dot-com swagger

] Harvard University has given the former software
] executive a fellowship at its Berkman Center for the
] Internet and Society, part of Harvard Law School, in
] order to head up the new Blogs at Harvard Initiative.
] Winer, who studied math at Tulane University before
] collecting his master's degree in computer science from
] the University of Wisconsin, will instruct Harvard
] students and faculty in the art of posting daily
] dispatches to the Web.
]
] Before becoming blogging guru to the academic elite,
] Winer founded and was chief executive of Millbrae,
] Calif.-based UserLand Software, which specializes in
] content-publishing tools and services. He wrote or
] contributed to a number of relevant specifications,
] including SOAP, XML-RPC, RSS and OPML. He is perhaps best
] known for launching Scripting News, one of the Internet's
] longest-running Web logs

Blogging Goes To Harvard

] Updating a Weg log, already simplified by automated
] blogging sites, is now as easy as picking up the phone.
]
] The latest trend in the increasingly popular Web log--a
] personal or professional online diary--is audioblogging,
] the posting of audio clips instead of or alongside text
] entries. In addition to providing a new means of keeping
] bloggers' fans up to date, the audioblog is inspiring
] software developers and start-ups to raise a whole new
] crop of tools and services.
]
] Along with audioblogging, plain-text blogging is
] undergoing a subtle transformation as people begin to use
] their cell phones and other mobile devices to send
] written updates to their Web logs. This technique is
] sometimes called "moblogging," short for mobile blogging.
]
]
] One application developer said moblogging would
] accelerate the transformation blogging has already
] wrought on the dissemination of news and personal
] experience.

Dialing for bloggers | CNET News.com

] Microsoft next week plans to begin testing a radically
] new instant messaging and communications product aimed at
] teenagers and young adults who grew up using the
] Internet.
]
] The new software, called Threedegrees, creates a
] peer-to-peer social group in which people can chat, share
] photos, listen to music and meet friends. Concurrently
] with the test, or beta, program, Microsoft also plans to
] release the Windows Peer-to-Peer Update for Windows XP.
]
] To use Threedegrees, prospective testers must be running
] Windows XP with Service Pack 1, the peer-to-peer update
] and MSN Messenger 5 installed on their computers. The
] software allows people to create groups, in which up to
] 10 people can participate in the same instant messaging
] session. Group members also can share animation and
] photos or listen to music.

Microsoft aims to tap 'Net generation' | CNET News.com

] Microsoft is set to release a beta version of its new
] messaging service. This is not a standard upgrade to its
] Messenger software; this is the product of NetGen, a
] division of Microsoft that is developing software aimed
] at the Net generation, i.e., teenagers and young adults
] who have grown up using the Internet.
]
]
] The software, called Threedegrees, aims to create
] peer-to-peer social groups of up to 10 people. This
] allows for groups of friends to communicate with one
] another in their own groups so they can chat, share
] photos and video, and listen to music together. There is
] also a feature called Winks which allows one user to send
] animations to the rest of the group as an extra form of
] communication, much like the emoticons seen in the
] standard Messenger software. Individuals are not limited
] to one group, but can join several different groups with
] a range of people they know.

Geek.com Geek News - Microsoft's Threedegrees IM software

] A radical new design that promises to revamp and rewire a
] decades-old staple of electronics -- the battery -- may
] also be the elusive blueprint for powering so-called
] "micro-electromechanical systems," or MEMS, futuristic
] devices no wider than a human hair.

Yahoo! News - Tiny Battery May Power Next-Gen Gadgets

] After several near-deaths and consequent re-births, Shift
] magazine, the financially troubled but influential tech
] culture magazine, may have given up the ghost for good.
]
] The board of directors of St. Joseph Media, which
] controls Shift's publishing company, Multi-Vision
] Publishing Inc., yesterday announced that the magazine's
] upcoming March issue, already printed, would be its last.
] It will be on newsstands in two weeks.
]
] "We thought we could improve the product and make it
] profitable once the technology sector recovered from the
] decline that it entered earlier in the year," St. Joseph
] group president Greg MacNeil said in a release.
]
] Staff were told of the decision yesterday morning, though
] editor Neil Morton and associate publisher Kevin Siu
] found out last Thursday.
]
] "I didn't see it coming at all," said a shocked associate
] editor Jose Lourenco. "Things were going great ... ad
] sales were picking up and we were planning ahead to
] expand certain things."

TheStar.com - Shift magazine publishes its last issue

] Salon is running a story about a new independent film
] that is being produced by a few folks who are into
] blogging. As part of the plan to get publicity for the
] film (which appears to be working) they hired a blogger
] to hang out on the set and blog the experience. The
] question, then, is does Hollywood get blogging? The
] answer, in this case, is "not yet". Everyone on the set
] wants input into what the blogger is writing, which is
] delaying any posts from going up for approximately three
] weeks. The blogger has a list of rules over what she can
] and can't write about, and is mostly being told to stay
] out of the way. On the whole, it sounds like the
] publicity stunt is more around this attempt to blog,
] rather than the blog itself.

Techdirt:Hollyblog - Can Hollywood Get Blogging?

] NEW YORK (Reuters) - Veteran rocker Bruce Springsteen's
] Sept. 11-influenced album "The Rising" and the mellow,
] jazzy singing of Norah Jones on her debut album "Come
] Away With Me" were early Grammy Award winners on Sunday.

Yahoo! News - Springsteen, Jones Each Win 3 Grammy Awards