Philippe Matthews Show Guru Advice, Author Reviews, Tech Reviews, Entertainment News

A cringe-worthy chorus of “Happy Birthday” is usually all it takes to earn the label of “tone-deaf.” Yet fewer than 1 percent of the population is truly amusical, that is, lacking the ability to distinguish different pitches. [More]

We heard a lot of great questions at Fast Company's Innovation Uncensored event in San Francisco this past November, but there just wasn't enough time for them all. We gave our attendees a chance to pose questions to the speakers post-event, and compiled a cross section of them below. The first question is for David Cush , President & CEO of Virgin America: Virgin America is clearly focused on surprising & delighting customers but has chosen not to have what is arguably a best practice--a more robust loyalty/frequent flier program.

As an investor, I see dozens of e-commerce companies each week. These four qualities separate the great ones from the flops

Launch $1-billion-worth of spare parts to the International Space Station, and you can keep Earth's orbital outpost going for another decade.

Three questions you should ask to define the purpose of your company, and why. In my research into the origins of organizational purpose one thing impressed me about those leaders in the social service sector.

When you think of old age – of people over the age of 65 years – what immediately comes to mind?

How do you rein in your lackluster marketing team?

For millennia, writing has been the preferred way to convey information and knowledge from one generation to another. We first developed the ability to write on clay tablets with a point, and then settled on a reed pen, as preserved from 3000 BC in Egypt when it was used with papyrus.

A team of scientists working at the U.S. Department of Energy's Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) has found that increasing the amount of lithium coating in the wall of an experimental fusion reactor greatly improves the ability of experimentalists to contain the hot, ionized gas known as plasma. Adding more lithium also enhances certain plasma properties aiding the reaction, the researchers found.

Sports expert: Basketball star was "best" person to have illness, because of his ability to alter public perception

Recently, the free service rolled out a variety of services for businesses, including the ability to run specials designed to attract and retain customers. Launched in 2009 , Foursquare now boasts some 10 million users eager to let their friends know when they have "checked in" to a hip new store or favorite restaurant.

Tractor beams -- the ability to trap and move objects using laser light -- are the stuff of science fiction, but a team of NASA scientists has won funding to study the concept for remotely capturing planetary or atmospheric particles and delivering them to a robotic rover or orbiting spacecraft for analysis.

In her new film, Connected, Webby Awards founder and Internet philosopher Tiffany Shlain sees digital connection as the next step in harnessing our collective brainpower--as long as we don’t lose our ability to relate to each other. Is technological connectivity mankind's next evolutionary step

Appsumo, the daily deal site for software, has launched a sweepstakes offering 10 free Dropbox Pro accounts for life. The pro account, valued at $99 a year, includes 50GB of Dropbox cloud storage and the ability to access your files from anywhere and share them with others. Visit Appsumo to read the contest rules and enter for a chance to win the sweepstakes, which ends on October 13

Ric Elias discusses why fear is bad for business at the Inc. 500|5000 Conference