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

Smartphones, MP3 players, tablets, laptops, netbooks--modern consumers never leave the house without more electronics than Robocop. We're addicted to using and spending money on mobile devices, which might explain why automakers lately can't stop trying to capture some of that trillion-dollar market for themselves. To wit: Today Microsoft and Toyota announced a strategic partnership to build the "ultimate 'mobile device.'" Touted as a 1 billion yen investment in Toyota Media Service (a lot more catchy than saying $12 million), the partnership will have both companies team up to build a global cloud platform to support next-gen telematics in Toyota's hybrid and plug-in vehicles

The MyVoice app offers up location-based searchable phrases and helps users easily navigate social situations.

SeeClickFix is a sort of FarmVille for community problems. Call it the FarmVille effect

Controlling the rotation of light – this amazing feat was accomplished at the Vienna University of Technology (TU Vienna), by means of a ultra thin semiconductor. This can be used to create a transistor that works with light instead of electrical current.

While much of the world has been bickering over whether climate change is real or not, climate scientists have been going about their research as usual. But what they have been discovering is revolutionary. Not only is human-driven climate change real; it's even more serious than we thought.Until now, most views of future temperature trends have been limited to this century, as if 2100 AD marked the outer edge of a world beyond which we dare not probe.

Scientists at the Vienna University of Technology (TU Vienna) have developed a method to steer waves on precisely defined trajectories, without any loss. This way, sound waves could be sent directly to a target, avoiding possible eavesdroppers.

A bad merger, like a bad marriage, sometimes needs to end in divorce. When Engadget was acquired by AOL in 2005, it perhaps wasn't the best fit. Last month, editor Joshua Tupolsky announced he was leaving the site, part of an exodus that comprised "as many as eight of the more prominent editorial and technology staff members," in the words of The New York Times

Today, leading publishers including The Washington Post and Time Inc. sent Vancouver-based startup Zite a cease-and-desist letter

I met Jake Cook after sharing content at the innovative HatchFest.org, a creativity/film festival gathering held in Bozman, Montana. Innovation can happen anywhere and developing communities on their talents is something I have a strong passion for.

The Ohio State University Taught by: Michael Camp The inventor-entrepreneur is a romantic figure. But plenty of companies thrive by commercializing the inventions of others. Technology Venturing builds businesses around sophisticated technologies that have not yet found commercial uses

"Until then, this had been just a class project." Samit Gupta is co-founder, with Robert Rushenberg, of the start-up O2 Insights, based in Menlo Park, California. In 2009, he took the Technology Venturing class at Ohio State University.

Today, BMW announced the planned creation of a tech incubator in New York City to seed innovations in mobile and location-based services. The announcement follows the automaker's establishment in February of a venture capital company, BMW i Ventures, with an investment fund of as much as $100 million, and serves as yet another indication that BMW is turning its eye toward the mobile startup scene

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

The nuclear crisis in Japan provides an impetus for Congress to confront a failed national policy on dealing with spent fuel from U.S. reactors, witnesses told a Senate subcommittee yesterday.

Research at Stanford has resulted in a rechargeable "battery" that uses a mix of sea and fresh water and a dash of nanotech to generate electricity. Green power plants at river mouths could be the ultimate result.