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

The longtime VP tells us how a simple call for a pizza delivery influences the company's thinking on local products and searching. Yesterday Google introduced a new feature for its Google Places pages: Business Photos , which essentially brings Street View into the interiors of businesses.

An endangered New Zealand parrot known as the kaka ( Nestor meridionalis ) has had a much-needed population boost after poisons were used to kill introduced possums, stoats and rodents in Waitutu Forest Common brush-tailed possums ( Trichosurus vulpecula ) were introduced to New Zealand from Australia in 1870 for their fur and meat, but they overran the islands, threatening the country's native fauna, which evolved without any mammalian predators. A survey six years ago indicated that so many female kaka were being killed by possums that the birds were at risk of extinction in Waitutu Forest. [More]

With my waders pulled up to my armpits I sloshed into Tasmania’s Great Oyster Bay and pushed my way to the shallows where the baby bivalves floated by the thousands. Since my arrival on Australia’s remote island state several days earlier, I had lunched daily on the plump, delectable shellfish, ...

Separated from Australia by the 150-mile-wide Bass Strait, Tasmania is a land apart—a place of wild and beautiful landscapes, friendly and gregarious people, a pleasantly temperate climate, wonderful wine and food, and inviting accommodations.The Red Feather Inn (www.redfeatherinn.com.au), in northern Tasmania near the city of Launceston, epitomizes the quaint country ...

The lessons of Perth, Australia, and how they can help us avoid a dismal new water forecast from the U.S. Department of the Interior.

Why can most people remember a color, but only a few can remember pitch? --David Hardie, Perth, Australia [More]

In 2009 six weeks of wildfires in Victoria, Australia, killed 173 people and injured hundreds more, but the fires may have also led to the resurrection of a rare tree that was previously on a path to extinction. Only about 670 Buxton silver gum trees ( Eucalyptus crenulata ) were left in the wild before the devastating Black Sunday bushfires , and they weren't healthy

J.J. Henry and former British Open champion Stewart Cink are atop the Texas Open leaderboard after shooting 5-under 67s, but the spotlight belonged to Kevin Na during a historic meltdown on No

Illustration by Brock Davis Water is becoming a high-stakes business where there's money to be made everywhere you look -- from greasy wool to microchips. In the rangeland of Australia, sheep get frightfully dirty

They say the Masters doesn't truly begin until the back nine on Sunday.

With oddly simultaneous timing, a number of Apple's competitors have made bold statements alleging the iPad is poor in certain ways, not suited for particular uses, or even doomed to fail. You could be forgiven for thinking they're running interference because of fear. We marshall the evidence here.

The world premiere of Paramount Pictures The Tunnel will happen in a few months, but not in a theater--it's going to be released on BitTorrent, for peer-to-peer distribution. Yup, that's the same tech video pirates utilize. The movie is set in a network of abandoned rail tunnels that really exist underneath Sydney, Australia, and from the teaser trailer the film proceeds as a real-life feeling horror/thriller with a nod to the Blair Witch Project

Coal may be the most loathed energy source among sustainability advocates, but it isn't going anywhere, especially now that governments are investing billions in carbon capture and sequestration projects for coal plants. Any country with significant coal reserves and a government that pays little attention to safety and environmental hazards stands to profit handsomely.

Whenever an endangered species lives in just one location, it is at increased risk of being wiped out by a single disease, fire or catastrophic weather event.