Looking more like a whirly gig than a wind turbine, the Energy Ball is a new Swedish wind turbine specifically designed to be quiet and efficient.  Home Energy, the company that created the Energy Ball, primarily designs green energy systems for the home.

Giving biofuel a whole new meaning, one dance club is taking alternative energy and green practices seriously. They have instituted a new method of generating power for their dance club - using the patrons own sweaty gyrations as a source of electricity.

10 years ago today, two Stanford University students called Larry Page and Sergey Brin applied for incorporation of a company with the odd-sounding name of Google. The application was accepted two days later, on September 7th, 1998. Since then, the pair have become billionaires, and the name Google is one almost everyone in the world will have heard of.

Science is comparing human  and computer puzzle solving skills in an online puzzle game called Foldit.  Different puzzles consisting of different strings of proteins and amino acids are available for players to solve.  As you fold and manipulate the protein/amino acid, you get points. 

Microsoft’s first commercial featuring Jerry Seinfeld has him shoe shopping with Bill Gates has him querying the company’s Founder as to whether their computers will become, “moist and chewy like cake.” Bill Gates signaled in the affirmative by adjusting his shorts in quite possibly the most awkward screenplay of all time.

The ‘One Laptop Per Child’ scheme has had a major boost with Amazon signing up as a distributor. Customers will be able to buy the low-tech, low-price laptop for themselves with a second machine then sent free of charge to a child in the developing world.

Google was touting it’s cloud computing initiatives today at the Office 2.0 conference in San Francisco, pointing out all of its recent product introductions large steps forward in taking software to the clouds.  The areas of productivity and collaboration for small businesses were in the spotlight as Google explained how it’s taken the burden of maintaining such software away almost completely.

Honda introduced its original Insight in 1999 as the first mass produced hybrid vehicle in the United States. In 2006, Honda retired the model due to sluggish sales. But now in the face of increasing hybrid popularity and competition from Toyota and GM, Honda has decided to rework the Insight and has just announced a new 5 door hatchback version which aims to sell for less than the Toyota Prius.

Blu-ray managed to successfully see off the challenge of HD DVD to become the standard storage format of choice in the field of high definition movies earlier this year. But it could be that Blu-ray is a dead man walking, and the end of the format is already possibly in sight.

Today TiVo is releasing its new HD XL model with 1 TB of data storage which equates to 150 hours of HD video. This model is the ultimate TiVo DVR companion for high end HD television home theaters.

Wordpress is an excellent CMS for blogging, but many don’t realize that with the addition of a free magazine-style theme, your Wordpress site can be transformed into a much more content-intensive portal.  Many themes even include additional modules that work in unison with the theme to give your site things like feature-article galleries, advanced avatar support, and different image options such as thumbnail support.

Events like this make progress in energy efficient vehicles and other green initiatives that much more important. 19 miles of ice just broke free in Canada, underscoring the effects of global climate change.

Though Google Apps is nowhere near as popular as Microsoft’s enterprise collaborative suite, its still managed to reach its first milestone.  One million enterprise users have made the transition to Google Apps so far with many more on the horizon.  With the addition of features like Google Video and other future enhancement, the future only looks brighter. 

Google’s Chrome browser is already making waves for PCs, but where it should really shine is when it’s coupled with Android to provide a new realm of mobile browsing.  The fundamental technologies showcased in Chrome will make Android’s browser that much more unique, and open up a new world of mobile web-based applications.

Songza is an online music service that offers you the chance to listen to millions of songs online for free. It does this not through advertising or exclusive deals with the record companies, but by simply streaming the audio of a song that is already on YouTube. Simple, brilliant, and devastatingly effective.

Google Chrome, Google’s first foray in to the cut-throat world of Web browsers, was leaked on Monday when a cartoon made its way in to the hands of a technology blogger. The Beta version of Chrome is now available to download from Google, but how does it perform?

Yesterday Google announced the latest version of its Picasa photo album software which uses facial recognition to track who is in each photo. Anyone can tag a photo with your name and Google will keep that facial fingerprint of you indefinitely.