theodp writes "A week ago, in his How to Keep America Competitive Op-Ed, Bill Gates touted the Gates Foundation-backed High Tech High as the future of American education. One small problem. Two days earlier, tearful Bay Area High Tech High students — recruited by a Bill Gates video — were told that their school of the future has no future. So would Bill be too embarrassed to lay out his education plan before the Senate Wednesday? Nah. Not too surprisingly though, mentions of High Tech High were MIA in Bill's prepared remarks (PDF), which touted Philly's imaginatively named $65M School of the Future, built under the guidance of Microsoft, as the new school of the future. Committee politicians reportedly embraced virtually all of the suggestions made by Gates."

Several readers wrote in with a Wired story about the work Adobe is doing to detect photo forgery. They are working with Canon and Reuters (which suffered massive bad publicity last year over a doctored war photo) and a professor from Dartmouth. (Here is Reuters's policy on photo editing.) Adobe plans to produce a suite of photo-authentication tools based on the work of Hany Farid (PDF) for release in 2008.

Last night, past the red carpet, under the swirling light and through thrumming bass, the Game Developer's Choice Awards and Independent Game Festival awards were handed out in front of an audience of some 3,500 people. The evening went by very quickly, for a nice change of pace, with few speeches lasting longer than 30 seconds or so. There was a marriage proposal (accepted), several humorous skits that were actually funny, and several moments of Shigeru Miyamoto awesomeness. The big winners of the night were Gears of War, which walked away with three GDCAs, and Aquaria, which won the Seamus McNally grand prize from the IGF. Later today Gamespot is going to be airing video of the awards, a first for the event. While there may not be much in the IGF event that captures your interest, definitely check out the GDCAs. The acceptance speeches from Greg Costikyan, The Fatman, Shigeru Miyamoto, and CliffyB should not be missed.