Web Experience
The iPhone features the best web experience of any handheld device. Since the G1 hasn’t yet been released, it’s difficult to tell whether it will offer a strong alternative. The marketing materials look good. But of course, marketing materials always look good.

Conclusion
The new Google offering will be worth looking at, especially if cut & paste works as well as it does in the video.

Inspiration From Nature
Dr. Daniel Nocera is inspired by nature. “There are these green things outside called leaves on plants,” he says. “They store energy while the sun is shining so they can use it when the sun goes down.”

Nocera reasoned that he could develop a man-made way to mimic nature’s process. He tells more in this 2-minute video.

A few Evernote features:

• Capture information in a variety of formats: notes, web clips, images, text.
• View your information from any web-connected PC, Mac, or handheld.
• Optical character recognition. If your image contains text, the text is searchable.
• Store up to 40MB for free. Pay five dollars per month to store 500MB.

Special thanks to Kevin Zolkiewicz for steering us to Evernote!

Usefulness
A typical road warrior might travel with a laptop, cell phone, PDA, MP3 player, digital camera, etc. Each electronic device requires its own power adapter. Each adapter brings extra weight, extra fuss.

But with a wireless power system, you drop the devices on a power pad and let them sit overnight. In the morning everything is charged. No chargers, no fuss.

View the concept in this video:

Intel believes the technology will find its way into laptops in the “not to distant future”. Executives at WiPower state that wireless-powered devices will be sold in the same manner as bluetooth-enabled devices today.

See how Google Docs enhances the educational experience in this 4-minute video.

From the Classroom to the Boardroom

We can see how students can learn collaboration with the right electronic tools. Now, how do we use these techniques in the professional world?

• Proposals. Does it really make sense to email draft proposals back and forth between engineering, production, and marketing? Why not pull everyone together on one document?
• Design Specs. Many minds, working together, can accomplish more and they can correct each others mistakes.
• Financial Analysis. One team member understands leasing. Others understand customer markets overseas, legal issues, and logistics. Pool their expertise into one very powerful spreadsheet model that each team member can update at will, 24 × 7, from anywhere on the planet.

The Future of Collaboration
One powerful quote from a student: “Instead of bothering about emailing documents back and forth, I just save it in Google Docs and I’m good to go in Hong Kong, India, wherever I am.” These young people are already thinking globally! What brainstorms are they likely to unleash?

Nicole Kuepper is an engineering PhD student in the school of photovoltaic and renewable energy at the Australia’s University of New South Wales. An article in the Sidney Morning Herald reports the discovery came about in a brainstorming session.

“I love working with passionate people who want to help address climate change and poverty by thinking and experimenting outside the square,” quotes the article.

This isn’t just about having lights to read at night. Electricity also allows people to refrigerate critical vaccines. Kuepper’s passion for “thinking outside the square” could very well save lives.

Here’s a basic run-down of Twitter: As a Twitter member, you can post public messages (or “tweets”) of up to 140 characters long. These messages can be anything you’d like: A random thought, a question for others, or a link to an interesting blog post you just read. You can “follow” Twitter members you find interesting to have their newest messages appear in an aggregated feed. Whenever you want to reply to, or refer to, another Twitter member, prefix their user name with an ampersand symbol (for example, @twitter) and a link will automatically be created to their Twitter feed.

The secret to Twitter is to not use it to simply answer the question “What are you doing?,” but instead as a platform for sharing valuable content.

Twitter as a conversation

Twitter can be a great tool for bouncing around ideas and getting questions answered. Tony Hsieh (@zappos), CEO of popular Internet shoe retailer Zappos.com, frequently uses Twitter to gather feedback from users about new ideas or features on their site.

Twitter as a promotional tool

Companies like 37signals (@37signals) and Pandora (@pandora_radio) have begun using Twitter as a way to share knowledge, communicate with customers, and promote their latest offerings. Coudal Partners (@Coudal) will often provide special coupon codes for their products exclusively to Twitter users. The Chicago Tribune even created the “Colonel Tribune” persona (@coloneltribune) to leverage social media services like Twitter.

Twitter as a support tool

Cable companies are often notorious for their poor customer service. However, Comcast is using Twitter to actively seek out those in need of assistance. Frank Eliason (@comcastcares), Customer Experience Manager at Comcast, uses Twitter to help customers experiencing problems with their service.

After recently having problems of my own with Comcast, I contacted Frank’s team for assistance. Within hours, I received a call from the Head of Executive Customer Service at the regional Comcast office to arrange a technician visit. After the issue was resolved, I received a call from another executive support representative informing me that I’d be receiving a credit on my bill to make up for the service issues.

Getting on Board

Twitter is quickly becoming a compelling tool to communicate with others in exciting new ways. By sharing valuable and unique content on Twitter, you’ll be developing a new way to promote your organization and constantly gauge what your customers think about your products or services.

Humans use a large amount of electricity to support IT and other technologies. When we find more sources of fuel, we help to offset our usage.

Extracting the Jatropha Oil
The jatropha fruit is about the size of a golf-ball. Seeds inside the fruit can be pressed to release jatropha oil, which can be refined into biodiesel fuel. A small-scale pressing machine looks like something you would see in Starbucks.

Using the Jatropha Oil
The next video shows a Mercedes Diesel powered by jatropha biodiesel fuel.

Refining & Payback
The biggest drawback of any bio diesel fuel is the refining process. Some bio diesel sources require so much energy in refining that they are barely worth the cost.

However, jatropha is different because there are fewer steps in the refining process. Time, energy, and money are saved.

Recognition
Special thanks to Tonya L. Johnson for bringing jatropha to our attention.

Stages: Where We Are Now

Kelly breaks the growth of the Internet into these stages:

1. Linking computers – the beginning of the Internet.
2. Linking pages – the stage we’re currently in.
3. Linking data – the stage we’re entering. Attaching other devices to the web, starting with phones.

Kelly believes that we are entering a stage where every unit of information, every bit, will be part of the web. True? Time will tell.

Paul Graham is the founder of YCombinator, a venture capital firm with offices in Cambridge, MA and the Bay Area. Graham tells how to create a successful startup in this 30-minute video from Startup School 08.