First look: New Chrome Webstore app: PostPost brings awesome news reader to your screen (don’t miss this!)

If you’ve seen Paper.li or Flipboard, you have seen hints of what PostPost is doing, but it takes you into Facebook, among your other networks, and shows you the content in a whole new way. Very visual, great for big screens.

Military-grade artificial intelligence now on the iPhone

Military-grade artificial intelligence now on the iPhone




Funded by DARPA and SRI International, computer scientists Adam Cheyer, Dag Kittlaus and Tom Gruber are working to bring advanced artificial intelligence to mobile devices. Their invention is Siri, a personal, intelligent assistant on the iPhone that allows users to make verbal requests that Siri will process and then act upon, like scheduling appointments, buying movie tickets, and making dinner reservations.

The life of a designer: From Apple to surfboards to digital encyclopedias

The life of a designer: From Apple to surfboards to digital encyclopedias




From his early work, creating the eMate at Apple, to his latest project, developing a digital encyclopedia based on Wikipedia, Thomas Meyerhoffer has been at the forefront of innovative computer design. Smart Planet takes a closer look at his design philosophy and his current work, reinventing the design of surfboards.

How NASA is recycling urine into drinking water

As a life support engineer at NASA Ames Research Center, it's Michael Flynn's job to keep astronauts alive in space, making sure they have the basic necessities like clean water to survive. But launching clean water into space is cost-prohibitive, so for years, Flynn and his team have been working on new ways to recycle waste water into safe, drinking water. SmartPlanet visits Flynn's lab and looks at how he's doing it through a process known as "forward osmosis."






PARC: Purifying water through movement




Meng Lean, a principal scientist at the Palo Alto Research Center, is developing a new method to purify waste water. Using the flowing motion of water and centrifugal force, a portable device uses the method, hydrodynamic separation, to split up waste particles, eliminating the need for a filtration barrier.

DIY biotech lab opens in New York

Science writer Dan Grushkin opened the nation's first community biotech laboratory. At GenSpace, biology enthusiasts pay a monthly membership to use the equipment and training facilities. Contributing editor Boonsri Dickinson talks to Grushkin and takes a tour of the lab.

Dry cleaner goes green with eco-friendly soap

Karl Huie's parents started Pacific Heights Cleaners in 1969. After contemplating changing the company's course for years, Karl finally made the big -- and expensive -- decision to go green during the recession. The payoff? Pacific Heights just logged its highest grossing year ever.

Yahoo's hands-on approach to social responsibility

A lot of companies have employee-giving programs, but Yahoo is putting a unique spin on social responsibility. SmartPlanet takes a look at how Yahoo is empowering its employees to donate money to those in need

PG&E: How EVs could impact the grid

At the Greentech Media Networked EV conference in San Francisco, Kevin Dasso, PG&E's senior director of the smart grid, talks about how plug-in electric vehicles could impact the grid once they are made available to the public. He says the utility is looking at how EVs could roll out in various Bay Area neighborhoods and developing strategies to prevent power outages and service disruptions.

TSA Loses in Court. Must Allow Filming. Cannot Demand ID.

Phil Mocek knows he isn’t required to show ID to fly, and that it’s perfectly legal to record video in publicly accessible areas of an airport. A jury agreed with him earlier this week, acquitting him of trumped-up charges brought against him by TSA and police officers who demanded obedience. He didn’t need to call any witnesses or testify himself; he was acquitted based on the evidence entered against him.

What’s pathetic were the Police lackeys who did not know the law and who were obedient wimps kow-towing to the TSA’s every whim. Too bad the local cops cannot follow the law and instead follow guys who make it up as they go along. They should be called out. The TSA apparently do not know their own rules or know what they are doing. And we trust them to run X-ray machines?

The world’s first iPad DJ?

Rana June Sobhany believes she may be the first iPad DJ in the world. While I’m sure there are many DJs experimenting with the iPad, she may well be the first to have used such a setup for an entire set.




“Solace” Music Video

No computers used, shot the day the iPhone 4 came out. I waited for 9 hours to get the iPhone 4 and then went right to shooting the video! Grueling!

I used two apps to make this: AKAI’s Synthstation and SoundTrend’s Looptastic. Took me one week to compose and record it.

We custom built the iPad mask and the iPhone camera rig

BlackBerry PlayBook video