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Courtesy of Aesir What if your phone could live forever?

Ethonomic Indicator of the Day: 45% -- The amount of fracked natural gas the U.S.

Fifty years ago today Yuri Gagarin became the first human ever to journey into space --a symbolic moment that psychologically, technologically severed the human race into those who lived before that moment, and after it. Google has a special Doodle for the occasion, and Gagarin-mania and space-themed posts will be everywhere today. Poyekhali ! 1.

Amazon has announced it will begin selling an ad-supported version of its Kindle eReader starting May 3rd. The "Kindle With Special Offers" will sell for $114, an 18% discount from the current $139 sticker price

The ad-fortified WiFi-only e-reader will save you $25 but beg you to ultimately spend more with its sponsors.

We had a feeling that BrightSource Energy was destined for big things when Google first announced it was investing $10 million in the solar thermal startup in 2008. After all, Google only invests in impressive ( TechnoServe , eSolar ) and profoundly weird ( wind power from kites , anyone?) companies.

As a taxpaying American citizen, you are entitled to write your local public or school library and formally request that they remove a book from their shelves.

It's down to the final four in the U.S. nationals of the Microsoft Imagine Cup, in which student entrepreneurs develop apps and other products using Microsoft software. They all got there with a little help from what Microsoft called "academic evangelism." Alex Ryu, now a senior at Penn, was doing an internship in the healthcare field in India when he noticed two things: that many women forgot to come in for certain appointments, and that mobile technology was ubiquitous, even in rural areas.

Garage48, the biggest name in 48-hour hackathons in Estonia, is coming soon to several African countries. When you think of startups, what cities come to mind

The company recycles everyday consumer tech to aid activists and imprison dictators. When a crisis map won't cut it, they're the A-Team to call

Carbon and water footprint measurements have become almost commonplace among large corporations, at least in part because of prodding from organizations like the Carbon Disclosure Project . But these measurements only tell part of the story

Remember how the Beastmaster could see through the eyes of his pet eagle? DARPA does.

A young hacker has built a mini Arduino-controlled self-balancing robot that looks for all the world like a mini Segway. It's remote-controlled by a WiiMote, it's cheap, and the chap in question is just 17 years old

Google's launching a new quiz powered by its search engine's skills at finding information, with questions published in The New York Times right above the skill-requiring, brain-taxing crossword puzzle. Either this is some seriously weak-sauce PR, or Google is positioning itself as the puzzle arbiter of the next generation. "Traditional trivia games have a rule that you can't cheat--you can't look things up in books, you can't ask your fiends and you certainly can't ask Google" begins Google's blog posting about the new A Google A Day quiz

Remember a few years ago when everyone decided that using algae as a biofuel feedstock would be the best thing ever? Well, progress on that front is moving so slowly that companies have realized that that might not be where the money is