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

In the beginning, Web site owners posted words and pictures on their pages. Today we refer to that primitive time as Web 1.0.

Japan's Fukushima disaster did more than just ravage the surrounding area with radiation; it also freaked out every other country that relies on nuclear power. Germany's reaction was perhaps the strongest--the country is now working without three quarters (16 GW) of its nuclear power while plants undergo safety reviews (some plants are offline for maintenance outages). How is the country faring

INQ just revealed that its so-called Facebookphone is getting a location-based services layer supplied through Foursquare , with the check-in game deeply embedded in the OS. This move adds all sorts of additional powers to the phone without requiring running an app, and it's a real coup for Foursquare.

Today, Comcast finally upgraded its mobile app, Xfinity TV, and now offers roughly 6,000 hours of On Demand content to subscribers who own the iPod Touch, iPhone, or iPad. The top players are all present--HBO, Showtime, Starz--making streaming premium content on your mobile device a cinch

Toyota is working on a social networking service--with Microsoft's help--so that drivers can interact with their cars. Imagine if KITT had a Twitter account. Toyota's working on a new feature called "Toyota Friend," part of a private social network that connects you--with Microsoft 's help--to your car.

As natural disasters increase, insurance companies are paying out more and more. To keep costs down, the industry wants the government to be better prepared.

Who the hell still uses MapQuest? Unless you're driving down the highway listening to "Da Da Da" circa 1997, with printed-out directions sitting on the passenger-side seat of your Volkswagen Golf Cabrio, you've likely moved on to better mapping software from Google or Bing. Unless you're Arianna Huffington, that is, and you own a hefty stake in AOL, which purchased MapQuest in the early aughts

A very hot solution to that pesky solar energy problem known as sunset. Solar power: works great when the sun is out. It works less great when the sun isn't out, which happens every night, as you may have noticed

"My life and biz is so intertwined in every way that it's hard to make that clean separation on and offline." That's what Candace Alper (@ NameYourTuneCDs ) said on Twitter when I asked about the importance of separating your personal and business life on Facebook. As an entrepreneur who runs a made-to-order children's CD company, she is comfortable mixing business with pleasure online

A short discussion with the man behind Hotspot Shield about web anonymizers, the Arab Spring, and why expats in Dubai aren't happy with firewalls. Fast Company recently had the opportunity to speak with David Gorodyansky, CEO of AnchorFree , on the use of his company's popular Hotspot Shield software during the Arab Spring. Although Hotspot Shield is best known as a product used to access services such as Hulu and the BBC iPlayer across national borders, it also played a crucial role in organizing uprisings in Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya.

Sure, there are a plethora of baby-naming apps on the iPhone.

Liberty Media's offered $1 billion to buy Barnes & Noble. But it's not because of the bookseller's massive, inviting physical locations--the proposed purchase is most appealing because of one item the store offers: the Nook. Just another sign that the era of the ebook truly has arrived

The Fast Company reader's essential source for breaking news and innovation from around the web--updated all day.

An Apple patent gives us some clues about the cloud-based iTunes we're all expecting any moment now--namely, how it'll make streaming content a seamless experience.

E-books realize their unbound potential faster than expected as pixels push past paper in Amazon sales. Oh, and, hey, look! Kindles for sale! Since April the first, for every 100 print-and-paper books Amazon has sold, it's also sold 105 e-books, according to a fresh Amazon announcement . Kindle e-readers arrived, along with a small but fast-growing digital bookstore, in November 2007--by July 2010, Amazon notes, Kindle book sales had surpassed hardcover book sales, and then six months later beat the paperback books sales rate