Technology has enriched most of our lives beyond description, making our business and home life much easier and less strenuous. But, as with everything these days, there has to be a downside, and the do-gooders love to inform us of these negatives at every available opportunity. The latest warning is informing that listening to loud music could damage our ears. Well I never, who’d have thought it?

At a time when much of the television news revolves around the analog to digital change and reality television hijinks, YouTube has made some news of its own. The Google-owned video Web site has moved to put full-length television shows on its site for the first time.

Just when you thought that most of the bad news economic news for the week was over, Verizon Wireless has announced that it may increase the per-message fee it charges companies to send customer alerts via text message.

Prices of Yahoo! shares are falling in synch with most other stocks, triggering speculation that the search and portal company could once again become a takeover target. Shares in the company have fallen to $12.29, less than half of the $31 per share that Microsoft offered in their takeover bid in February.

Facebook users can choose from thousands of applications for installation on their profile pages.  Although some of these applications are pretty useful, some of them are not. We’ve picked 40 of these applications that users will be glad to install on their page:

Light emitting diodes have been around since 1920, but really came into their own in the mid-sixties (General Electric) and the mid-nineties (Nichia Corporation and Cardiff University). Now a new wrinkle has been added. Meet the organic light-emitting diode (OLED), first developed in France and improved further by many researchers including Shirakawa, MacDiarmid, and Heeger, who won a Nobel prize in 2000 for their efforts. Continuing research is now turning theory into reality and OLEDs may be nearly ready for prime time.

The biggest idea in technology is finding new ways to team up in order to capture the attention (and the dollars) of consumers. Cell phone manufacturers are joining forces with sites such as Facebook and MySpace to increase the convenience of accessing these popular social sites from mobile platforms. The new alliances are beginning to bypass the traditional avenue of partnership with mobile phone carriers, leading to a fundamental change in business plans.

I’m personally not a big fan of Apple or its products. Oh, I can see the appeal: they’re sleek, stylish, and technologically advanced, but there’s just something I don’t really like about Apple.  So I usually choose its rivals instead. But I’m in the minority, which is why Apple has cleaned up at the 2008 T3 Gadget Awards.

Snap to it, Google, the world looks at you as a leader, and we need you more now than ever, to show us how continued innovation will bring success, even in the midst of a spinning financial market. Now is the time to show off your best ideas and bring the world’s attention back to something sustainable. It’s in your best interests too, Google, especially considering your employees are upset by free falling stock options.

Technology is a wonderful thing, but sometimes, the best solutions are low-tech solutions.  The current financial crunch means that we all need to learn better ways of saving and spending our money.  Making home improvements can help with both.

Earlier this year,  Google became the largest, and certainly the most visible, sponsor of GeoEye-1, a digital reconnaissance satellite in geosynchronous orbit around the Earth. From 423 miles up, the satellite (owned by GeoEye of Dulles, VA) has now sent its first official image back to earth, a high-res photograph of the campus of  Kutztown University in Pennsylvania. The satellite has been undergoing testing and image calibration since its launch on September  6.

Scientists at the University of Dayton have created a peel-on, peel-off glue which mimics the wall-climbing abilities of Spiderman. The substance, based on the feet of the Gecko lizard, is three times stickier than existing adhesives.

Sling Media just released its SlingCatcher set-top box as a companion to the Slingbox system that broadcasts your television and web programs over the Internet. Now Slingbox users can easily watch their shows on a laptop, PC mobile device or in any room equipped with a SlingCatcher.

Social networking has been one of the sectors of the Internet market to have seen the most growth over the past few years, with only Web video possibly coming close to competing in terms of traffic. But the one problem social networks such as MySpace and Facebook have is the lack of revenue inherent in their business models. Not a problem, says Facebook founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, we’re all about the traffic… for now.

Mozilla is pushing ahead with some unique browser innovations in Firefox, and Geode is no exception. It provides a key piece of information, your exact location. This Geolocation specification is one of many new standards from the W3C that Firefox is poised to embrace, and that may help it survive the incoming storm of browser competition between Google, Microsoft and Mozilla.

As we enter the final weeks of the presidential campaign, the negative rhetoric is flying fast and furious.  Whether it is Sarah Palin accusing Obama of consorting with terrorists or the Obama camp claiming the McCain voted to jeopardize Social Security, the distortions, misrepresentations, and outright lies are confusing and disturbing.

The ongoing legal battle over the Real Networks’ ‘legal’ DVD copying software will be overseen by a judge who’s handled previous high-profile computer technology cases. Judge Marilyn Hall (pictured) has already decided the RealDVD software must be withdrawn from sale until its legal status is confirmed.