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

1. Despite the fact that Verizon's CEO revealed his company wouldn't be appealing the union of AT&T and T-Mobile (and that he thought regulators would approve) Sprint has just revealed it will appeal to Congress to halt the telecoms deal.

The U.S. State Department will be funding an anti-jamming program for the BBC World Service in repressive regimes. But statements given before Parliament show that the real target is China's "Great Firewall." The cash-strapped BBC World Service has a new patron: The United States State Department.

Some attendees of SXSW might have wondered what Ric Grefé, the executive director of AIGA , was doing here. After all, the almost 100-year-old organization originally known as the American Institute of Graphic Artists had begun as a club for print designers, and Austin was currently hosting a gathering of thousands of proudly un-ephemerate creatives.

Twitter and other social networks have, of course, been remarkable tools during past uprisings and disasters.

The threat of cyber-war--and of a catastrophic hacker attack to Germany's industrial or military infrastructure--is spurring the creation of two new high-level government organizations. The Federal Republic of Germany has just released a comprehensive cyber-security strategy that will create two high-level government agencies devoted exclusively to cyber-war

U.S.

We continue our examination of the business book In Search of Excellence with an interview of author Tom Peters. Why was it so successful, what is the book's legacy and what does a restaurant owner in Chicago have in common with Jack Welch? What was the impetus for you to write In Search of Excellence

Will seismologists ever be able to reliably predict the exact location, time and magnitude of earthquakes like the one that just devastated Japan and sent tsunamis racing across the Pacific Ocean? If so, they might be able to save many lives.

This past December, a leaked EPA document revealed that the agency allowed the widespread use of pesticide known to be toxic to honeybees, despite warnings from EPA scientists.

China has won international plaudits for its commitment to green goals. It has pledged to reduce carbon emissions by at least 40 percent per economic unit by 2020 and is also adding alternative energy sources such as wind farms and nuclear power plants faster than any other country. But the nation is also in the midst of unprecedented economic growth--and an unprecedented surge in the use of energy, which for China means coal

The Palo Alto-based company is rapidly expanding in India and China with a simple tool to save farmers and governments large amounts of water and cash. China is getting ready to invest over $600 billion in the next ten years in water conservation , as announced in its latest five-year plan . Why?

Each day, Inc.'s reporters scour the Web for the most important and interesting news to entrepreneurs.

IBM announced the first batch of cities this week awarded grants as part of the company's three-year, $50 million Smarter Cities Challenge . The recipients --including New Orleans, Newark, Rio de Janeiro, and Jakarta--are diverse, to say the least. So how did they end up with IBM's attention, and what happens now?

China announced wide-sweeping health care reforms this week , focusing on building more hospitals, reducing the price of common drugs, banning smoking from public spaces, and increasing state insurance subsidies. China--despite heavy reliance on government funding for social programs--has developed a curiously excessive reliance on the sales of drugs to fund hospitals, a feature of its health care system that doesn't quite sit right with the nation's overarching philosophy--or with its citizens. "I think that no matter what kind of hospital, you should rely on medical technology and improved services to gain income," said Sun Zhigang , the National Development and Reform Commission's deputy director.

Nuclear power is evil. Solar power is our savior.