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

Scientists at CalTech are perfecting a technique that converts water, air, and sunlight into different kinds of fuel that could power everything from car engines to fuel cells in cell phones. It sounds almost too good to be true, from an environmental stand-point.

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

A new study from the John Muir Trust--not the sorts who would attack wind farms just for the fun of it--debunks five important industry claims. As interest in renewable energy grows, wind power companies are rushing to build giant installations; it sometimes seems that a new "biggest wind farm ever" arrives every month (the most recent one is in Germany, to replace all their scary nuclear power). But wind farms of all sizes may not produce as much energy as advertised, according to a new report ( PDF ) from the John Muir Trust.

Nobody goes to McDonald's in the U.S. expecting to buy chicken nuggets made out of healthy, fairly-treated chickens; they just want crunchy nuggets, no questions asked.

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.

The students, alumni, and professors at MIT are a brainy -- and busy -- bunch. To mark the university's 150th year, we tracked a handful of smarty-pants with ties to the school. Infographic: MIT's 150th Birthday

01 / NYU For opening up a second campus in Abu Dhabi. There, NYU is shepherding the most successful and ambitious attempt yet to export overseas a full-fledged American liberal arts university.

Intel's investing in the student tablet company, and will be taking over hardware operations. What's next?

Since the elections in November, newly elected Republican governors have been falling over themselves to return federal funding earmarked for high-speed rail.

1. Late yesterday Facebook revealed a surprisingly green core to its computer operation--efficient server and infrastructure designs that consume less energy than comparable data centers, and are 38% more energy efficient and 24% more cost effective than its previous configuration. Better yet, for the ecologically minded, Facebook is making the design of its infrastructure open source to encourage other folks to use it--it's called the Open Compute Project

The State Department has launched a new microblog on Tumblr. We have a few lighthearted suggestions on how our diplomats can enter the world of LOLcats and F**k Yeah fansites

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

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.

Lawmakers in Europe are concentrating their efforts on one aspect of online privacy that may be being overlooked in the rush to "check in" everywhere, and are suggesting your real-time (and historic) geo-tracking data may be as personal as DNA. Digital privacy is seriously in the spotlight at the moment--and in the U.S