Google, a bellwether of online computing, recently announced OpenSocial — its next generation answer to Facebook, which had previously opened up its platform.

Once best known for making computers and selling them to corporations and government entities around the world, IBM refocused on technical support and professional services in the 1990s, in the process becoming the leading edge of a change that has swept manufacturing companies.

Videoconferencing has been touted as a practical, here-today technology that can save companies from having to fly employees all over. But despite its practicality, adoption of this technology has been minimal.

Anyone who watches television in the United States might logically conclude that this is a nation plagued by allergies, depression and arthritis. Ads for medicines to address such conditions make it seem as though ailment sufferers outnumber the healthy.

Asim Roy, an information systems professor at the W. P. Carey School of Business, was on sabbatical at Stanford University in 1991 when several years of thinking about the operation of the brain and artificial systems inspired him to act.

If you love it when the elite pundits are proved wrong and the instincts of the common man — and common blogger — are proved right, Wonkosphere.com can plug you into a higher state of political awareness.

Social media, including blogs, discussion boards and networking sites like Facebook have changed the laws of nature for communications and marketing.

The dramatic growth of the past half-century has led to higher living standards in much of the world, but has also resulted in urban sprawl, choking pollution and global warming.

Increasingly companies are viewing technology not just as a way to get things done but also as a way to move forward.

With about one billion computers currently in use, information technology rightfully owns some of the blame for the world's sustainability ills. The lifetime toll for a computer includes substantial resources for manufacture and delivery, then more energy consumed in home offices and companies.