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"Our reporter builds a handcrafted cellphone using widely available parts and online instructions"

"After all of the hand-wringing over the announced shuttering of Google Reader on July 1st, is there still hope for the beleaguered content aggregator? If you look between the lines of Google's movements as of late, you might notice that we aren't really witnessing a slow, painful, public funeral. Perhaps what we're being asked to attend is a digital reincarnation. Like other social networks, Google's still new-shiny social network Plus is an RSS feed creator and reader, all in one. "

"Anyone who says you can't get real work done on a Web browser-or in a browser-based operating system, for that matter-hasn't seen some of the latest Chrome apps. Rising above glorified bookmarks, the cream of Google's Chrome Web Store can stand toe-to-toe with desktop software. More are offering offline functionality, too. Coming soon: 'packaged apps' that look and act more like traditional software."

"he next time you find yourself wondering about the highest use of linguistics, or enduring the insulting grunts and groans of petulant adolescents and wondering how such noises could even be described, bring the two worlds together. Clearly, linguistics exists just so we can give a technical description of those hard-to-spell sounds that erupt from callow youths. Here are seven examples (with three bonus variations)." check out the video below!

"Should I turn my desktop computer off during a lightning storm? I've heard stories about lightning striking a house and ruining thousands of dollars of computer equipment. These people had all the anti-surge stuff and it didn't help. They even had the computer off; the on switch was still sending mains power to it from a wall. "

"Woolworths and Coles have taken the supermarket war to the cloud, with the two giant Australian retailers taking diametrically opposed options via Google Apps and Office365."

"The first thing that stands out upon arrival at Hellerup School, where 640 students between the ages of 6 and 16 study on the former site of the Tuborg brewery in Denmark, is the absence of a fence separating the school from the street. Inside, there is no office to greet visitors. Instead, small shoes litter the floor and children of all ages sprawl on couches doing homework, play foosball or run about the open space that substitutes for classrooms. "

"If we want to produce innovative products and services, there are lessons to learn from what Apple did."

"George Cole, in part three of his series on 1:1 computing, looks at 'BYOD' "

"The new wave of educational tools include fresh ways of deploying phone and tablet apps, online games and videos, and social networking. The goal is to create effective learning tools, new methods of grading, and virtual classrooms of unprecedented sizes-even numbering in the tens of thousands online. While these goals have certainly been attempted before, the latest crop of mass-market, interactive learning tools are also intended for mass-market, global consumption. And enjoyment. "We should try to bring back the joy of learning because you want to learn, not because someone is going to give you a grade at the end of the semester," Schocken said in a recent interview."

"As of the Mountain Lion version, Apple's Mail is better than ever at helping you manage your email. And Google's Web-based Gmail is also pretty good-but how do you combine the two in just the right way so as to get the best of both? The answer is simple-follow my guide below, wherein I describe my favorite way to balance a few features and compromises to make Mail and OS X work best with the Gmail Way."

"Google co-founder Sergey Brin has been yakking about Google Glass for more than two years. Yet until this week, we didn't know even the most basic facts about the platform. Google spilled some beans in an earnings call this week. The company also published facts about the hardware, software and licensing. And finally, users started receiving actual units, and have been blabbing about them on social media."

"Synthetic material capable of performing some of the functions of living cells has been built using a specially modified 3D prototype printer. Developed by researchers at Oxford University, the new materials, called 'droplet networks' could eventually be used to replace damaged human tissue or deliver drugs to specific locations."

"The explosion in 3D printing technology is now empowering those engaged in materials science research, education and commercialisation to do things not previously possible. These advances will have a staggering impact - they will accelerate the thought-to-thing process, delivering practical solutions sooner, but they'll also empower scientists to make unprecedented fundamental advances in science."