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

You can't download an app these days without it asking for your location--and not just on check-in services like Foursquare and Gowalla. Google Maps, Instagram, Twitter , Square, MenuPages, Shazam--they all want to know exactly where you are whenever you're using the app. Heck, services like Google Latitude won't even let you decline to share your location--it'll just put you through an endless cycle of notifications, almost demanding you to accept its terms.

We continue our examination of the business book First, Break All the Rules with an interview of author Marcus Buckingham. Why did he write the book, and why are managers more important than leaders?

In an era when cars drive themselves and algorithms predict traffic , the robot as a guardian figure is rising: 'Bots are being used in Japan to measure radiation levels from the crippled nuclear reactors, and the video games Rating Board is using automated systems to decide what rating a game gets.

One location, for a growing business, is typically not enough. With enough personnel and capital, many businesses prefer to set up multiple offices to attract different regions of customers. With separate offices how can your business install a network so all the locations can work, communicate, and share information easily, instantaneously, and effectively?

1. What disruptive forces threaten our business? Every business faces external forces that are disruptive or threatening to success or, even, viability

We pronounced the netbook phenomenon all but over last year--they're now merely another class of laptop one can buy, at the cheap end.

1. RIM's embargo on review editions of its PlayBook tablet expired this morning, so the news is full of expert opinion on the tablet PC RIM hopes will revive its future fortunes

1. As the military battle for Libya goes on, a different battle has been won behind the scenes: Rebel forces have successfully hacked Gadhafi's mobile network, and have used it to establish their own communications grid. Gadhafi shut the networks and Internet down weeks ago, to confound the rebels

By using the host of position-relating sensors in modern smartphones, scientists at MIT think they could make the phones and network perform better so your calls don't drop when you're on the move. When you're strolling or rolling through a crowded city chatting on your cellphone, there are a number of things that can get in the way of your call working properly. A primary culprit is handoff between different cell towers.

It's the fashion these days to blame teachers for everything that is wrong with American education. But teachers are still the people in our schools every day, and they know what our schools are lacking. That's the premise of DonorsChoose.org , a website where teachers can ask for specific items for their classrooms, and users can give them money to buy those items.

The social network is hoping hardware companies will take a page from the software open source movement and collaborate to spur innovation. They might be disappointed. Facebook didn’t spend eighteen months and tens of millions of dollars developing more powerful--and more energy efficient--data centers and servers so that it could go into the hardware business

Yesterday we heard about the Open Compute Project. Facebook's director of hardware design, Frank Frankovsky, tells us about part two of the social network’s plan to spur suppliers to build the products it needs.

Many entrepreneurs actually refuse to do financial projections beyond the first year, insisting that no one can predict the future. What they might not know is that investors look at projections not merely as predictions, but more as commitments from the founder and his team.

Many entrepreneurs actually refuse to do financial projections beyond the first year, insisting that no one can predict the future.

The Motorola Xoom has been out for about two months now and has sold an estimated 100,000 units. Whether this is considered a success or not is a matter of debate. For example, Business Insider is declaring it a flop , while BetaNews is declaring it a good thing .