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It’s an important day in Chicago: the TEDxMidWest event is in full swing. An elite, more on that word later, crowd of people are currently packed into one of this city’s better theaters, listening to some of the world’s best talk about what they love. I love TED. Honestly, I do. I’ve seen dozens of TED talks online, and have watched with great satisfaction as TED has spread its brand, effectively, under the aegis of TEDx program, allowing for the idea (of ideas) to seep across the world....

Here’s an interesting idea – what if websites had personalities of their own?The Search Operatorsis a thought-provoking site that turns Google into a lazy staff member that can’t quite be bothered to get anything right. Enter search queries and it will yawn. Hit ‘I’m Feeling Lucky’ and you’ll be out of luck. Even the search results you do get will be not quite what you wanted. Built using HTML5 Canvas, Processing....

Google is pretty much in every nook and cranny in our lives – we rely on it for email, calendars, documents, and now even social networking. All that’s missing is for Google to make me my morning cup of coffee. Or how about making me a boyfriend? This hilarious little skit fromComedivais all about Google’s latest service: G-Male. The perfect boyfriend service is, of course, by invitation only. So what do you get when you sign up for G-Male?...

Didn’t think it was possible? Researchers from Queen’s University in Ontario, Canada are here to prove us wrong. We kid you not, technology can do it and chances are, we might even see them in smartphones and other devices in the future. Human Media Labjust revealed a smartphone prototype called PaperPhone that uses a thin film E-Ink display that literally bends like a plastic sheet. It does everything a smartphone does, but aside from being extremely thin, it adds an alternative input method called bend gestures....

There was sometalka few months ago about whether or not certain large technology companies should consider buying up chunks of the failing music industry in order to get around the regular headaches of such things as licensing and access to content. Since then I’ve been wondering how this might actually work in reality and whether it would really benefit the acts themselves, as well as the listening public. The first thing to consider is that – if any one of these large tech companies were to purchase a major label or even take the brave steps of setting one up themselves – it would not, either at first or likely ever, be part of their core business....