Garching, Germany (Scicasts) - Faster, smaller and more energy-efficient – that is what computers of the future should be like. A new phenomenon stands to make a major contribution in this direction: It needs 100,000 times less current than existing technologies, and the number of atoms needed for a data bit could diminish significantly.

Armonk, NY (Scicasts) - This week, IBM formally unveiled the fifth annual list of innovations that have the potential to change the way people work, live and play over the next five years. The "Next Five in Five" list is based on market and societal trends which the company expects will transform our lives through technology. IBM also claims that such major expectations are based on emerging technologies from its own Labs around the world that can make these innovations possible. [See Video below]

Maxiwill.com -- Researchers from Intel Labs demonstrated an experimental "single-chip cloud computer," a 48-core Intel processor that rethinks many of the approaches used in today's designs for laptops, PCs and servers. According to Intel's announcement, this futuristic chip boasts about 10 to 20 times the processing engines inside today's most popular Intel Core-branded processors. Intel's new experimental research chip uses a similar approach to cloud computing where cloud datacenters are comprised of tens to thousands of computers connected by a physically cabled network, distributing large tasks and massive datasets in parallel. The video below describes this process in detail.

Web 2.0 is arguably the biggest buzzword in the software and the IT industry today, and rightly so. The idea of providing users with almost full control and freedom to manipulate and customize online applications and software packages took the world by storm. Business and IT sectors all over the world have picked up the pace on this and have produced hundreds of highly creative and powerful online tools and applications. Not to mention most of which are free! Another element of Web 2.0's success.

For over 15 years computers have played a crucial role in our world and have revolutionized our lives to such an extent that we feel we simply can no longer live without them. This statement may seem dramatic and may be argued by some, but let’s face it, we have become so dependent on computers that even for the simplest piece of information the first source we turn to is, you guessed it, the Internet, via computers.

Latest independent tests commissioned by Greenpeace have revealed a variety of hazardous chemicals in both the external and internal components of Apple's iPhone. This comes after Apple has specifically pledged to phase out all PVC plastics and brominated flame retardants (BFRs) by the end of 2008.

In case you are wondering, this is not a typo, or indeed it is not an official term. I used Wi-Free simply to refer to a completely wire-free environment. Yes, including electrical wires. The global hype over wireless connections to access the Internet and other networks, virtually from anywhere, is not showing any signs of slowing down.

The International Council for Small Business (ICSB) has revealed the results of its Global Technology Study conducted recently in collaboration with Dell.

Earlier this week in San Francisco, Apple's CEO, Steve Jobs, kicked off Apple's 2007 Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) highlighting some of Apple's major developments in its upcoming Mac OS X Leopard and iPhone mobile device.

Sun Microsystems and Google earlier this month announced an agreement to promote and distribute their software technologies reaching millions of users around the world.

Palm and Microsoft announced late last month a long awaited strategic alliance, as Palm licensed Microsoft Windows Mobile operating system for an expanded line of its Treo smartphones.

Following in the path of IBM in the patent commons, Sun has granted the global open source community access to more than 1,600 patents, the single largest grant in intellectual property history.

After years of standing its grounds in the commercialised software market, the world largest patent holder, IBM, has finally conceded, allowing 500 of its 40,000 patents to be accessed by open-source developers. The pledge which opens access to key IBM innovations, is applicable to any individual, community, or company working on or using software that meets the Open Source Initiative (OSI) definition of open source software now or in the future.