The Chevy Volt brings a lot to the table: 40 miles of electric-only operation, sporty design, and the flexibility to travel beyond that, using gasoline. But what about people who don’t like to drive in the first place, and do the vast majority of their traveling within a congested city? Automated driving with podcars may be one answer.

AC/DC are an old school, classic rock band from Australia that has been going since the early 1970s. Being of that generation, the members can’t really see the need for digital formats, choosing instead to stick rigidly to physical formats. Not that it matters because their new album, Black Ice, has been downloaded over 400,000 times in just five days. Does this prove the error of their ways?

A Californian company has landed a deal to supply computers for 1.8 million schoolchildren in India. It’s touting the sale as proof there’s a viable commercial alternative to the much-publicized $100 laptop program for the developing world.

NBC can’t seem to make up its mind whether to embrace the scary world of internet based television or shun it. First the company uploaded the ‘Tina Fey as Sarah Palin’ skits itself to garner some viral video buzz, then it yanked another skit lampooning George Soros and the Sandlers under what is believed by some to be the threat of legal action. Now NBC is talking about having its own site dedicated to playing Saturday Night Live videos, as well as some original content from the SNL writing team.

The FCC has signaled that it will move forward with plans to auction off wireless spectrum to build a free wireless Internet after refuting T-Mobile’s claim that the network would interfere with its operations. Is T-Mobile worried about interference from the network or the free competition to its wireless data services?

Technology has enriched most of our lives beyond description, making our business and home lives 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 us 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 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.