WSJdpatton writes: "The collision between two satellites last month has renewed interest in some ideas for cleaning up the cloud of debris circling the earth. Some of the plans being considered: Using aging rockets loaded with water to dislodge the debris from orbit so it will burn up in the atmosphere, junk-zapping lasers and garbage-collecting rockets."
WSJdpatton writes: "Fishing in the stream of consciousness, researchers now can detect our intentions and predict our choices before we are aware of them ourselves. The brain, they have found, appears to make up its mind 10 seconds before we become conscious of a decision — an eternity at the speed of thought. Their findings challenge conventional notions of choice, writes WSJ's Robert Lee Hotz."
WSJdpatton writes: "Here's a data dilemma for companies: Are the customers and users they engage with representative of the population at large? That question is common online, where it's cheaper to find people but harder to ensure they represent Internet users as a whole — let alone all Americans. Two examples surfaced this week, writes Carl Bialik on The Numbers Guy. An Internet-monitoring firm's estimate of Google's first-quarter performance appeared to have been contradicted by Google's earnings report. Meanwhile, an Amazon unit, which provides popular but widely criticized measures of online traffic, updated its algorithm because the people it was tracking weren't typical of the Web at large."
WSJdpatton writes: "Marriage often requires coping with the loss of some individuality, whether it's adopting a spouse's last name or setting up a joint bank account. Now, some couples say it can be equally tricky to navigate intimacy in the digital sides of their lives. They are running into thorny questions regarding how much to share and how much to keep separate in areas ranging from email addresses to online calendars.
For some young newlyweds, this means a debate over whether to combine their blogs. Longtime spouses, meanwhile, say perennial arguments about who has more closet space are now joined by bickering over which TV shows get deleted to make room on the TiVo."
WSJdpatton writes: "Walt Mossberg tested the iPhone for two weeks, in multiple usage scenarios, in cities across the U.S. His verdict is that, despite some flaws and feature omissions, the iPhone is, on balance, a beautiful and breakthrough hand-held computer. Its software, especially, sets a new bar for the smart-phone industry, and its clever finger-touch interface, which dispenses with a stylus and most buttons, works well, though the lack of physical buttons can be a hindrance."
WSJdpatton writes: "IPhones can be used for email, but many businesses don't plan to sync them with internal systems used to power Blackberries and Microsoft mobile devices. Employees eager to use the cool new gadget, however, may pressure IT departments to support iPhones even if it means incurring more costs and changing policies."
WSJdpatton writes: "Intel is mounting a long-term campaign to turn personal computers into more reliable tools for calling and conferencing, writes Don Clark. Instead of exploiting the Internet to lower communications costs, the next phase is about adding new features, says Steve Grobman, an Intel director of business-client architecture involved in the effort. Among the benefits for business: broader access to online meetings with advanced features such as TiVo-style playback, instant captioning of conversations — or even translation into multiple languages, Mr. Grobman says."
