codeboaz / Boaz Gurdin

It's interesting to see how companies evolve and repurpose the core competencies they developed along the way. 3M going from sand to sand-paper to glue to post-its. Auto companies going from cars to finance. IBM going from making computers to IT consulting. Amazon going from e-commerce to data center hosting. And now Google going from search to data centers to energy.

For now Google Energy seems to be experimenting with buying energy for their data centers. Let's see how far they take it and if they open it up as its own business like Amazon opened its data center hosting as their own product.

Also it will be interesting to see how well Silicon Valley can adapt its labor expertise from software and hardware to clean energy.

Ergonomics and legibility are important, and Pixel Qi's hybrid LCD/e-ink display (with future possibilities to lay a touch layer on top) could be a significant step forward in making electronic reading easier on the eyes. As always with hardware innovations, I'm waiting to see whether the software will be paired with these products to make them usable end-to-end for consumers.

"The display technology allows computers and cell phones to switch back and forth between HD color video-mode and ultra-readable, black-and-white e-reader mode in an instant, saving battery life in the process."

"Pixel Qi was founded by Mary Lou Jepsen, the MIT-trained electrical engineer who helped create the $100 laptop for the One Laptop Per Child project, so the fact that affordability was a priority in developing the LCD screens comes as no surprise."

The slate will be the most interesting computing form factor this year, assuming the software can catch up to make it useful. It's ergonomic for reading and with an attached keyboard it can be good for writing too. The iPad may set the bar at first, but the slate form factor will soon become comoditized just like the smartphone form factor is no longer just the iPhone.

Love the "hubs" in Windows Mobile 7. One-ups the iPhone and Android home screens by focusing on information. Beautiful use of layouts that and typography that purposefully overflows the screen.

Adobe's CTO on why the iPad needs Flash and is technically capable of running Flash like Android and other devices.

Alas it arrives. Nicely polished apps and a great $500 price point. With iWork Touch, it seems like a suitable replacement for most people's home desktop or laptop. But it needs to support Flash.

Restaurant food sharing site and app by a team from Adaptive Path. I've enjoyed foodspotting (posting snapshots of what I eat) on Yelp recently.

Supreme Court says no more limits on corporate lobbying donations. They're right that the donations are protected by free speech. And corporate money was already going to politicians indirectly. Citizens have a right to balance the power of corporate interests in topics like healthcare reform, but they'll need to find a different legal way to do it.

""Chronic care is the big issue in health care right now," Walgreens innovation officer Colin Watts told Fast Company"

Patients will be able to get diabetes checkups and affordable walk-in health care from nurse practitioners at Walgreens.

Google threatens to shut down its Chinese operations and stop censorship on google.cn after discovering attempts to hijack the Gmail accounts of human rights activists.