Michigan's forthcoming Web-based platform that will help students and their families make college and career connections might initially sound like another Facebook knockoff.

But the state, which purchased the portal for $1.15 million, insists that the Michigan College Access Portal (MiCAP) is not a clone of Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter or any other popular social media sites. In fact, ConnectEDU, the Boston-based company building the portal, refuses to even call it a social network..

Cincinnati-based Procter & Gamble Co. is experimenting with a system that allows workers to use their personal laptop computers for work, according to a report in Computerworld.com, a tech news site.

P&G made the decision, according to the report, because many of its younger workers prefer using their own machines...

The Federal Communications Commission's National Broadband Plan, scheduled to be publically presented to Congress next week, may have something for everyone, but a new intriguing bauble is the suggestion by the FCC that Congress will be asked to "consider use of spectrum for a free or very low cost wireless broadband service."

The comment touched off a wave of speculation. Where will the spectrum come from? Who would be eligible for free broadband? Given that Congress shot down an earlier proposal for free spectrum, what will Congress do with the new proposal?

Google Inc. will sell the online services of other business software makers in an effort to fill its own product gaps and persuade more companies to rely on applications piped over the Internet.

The online store that was announced late Tuesday marks another step in Google's crusade to convert the world to "cloud computing," the idea of running applications in Web browsers instead of installing them on individual hard drives. The information entered in the programs also is stored in data centers run by third parties such as Google.
More than 50 software makers have agreed to sell their Internet programs through Google, which will keep 20 percent of the sales. The prices are expected to range from $50 annually to several hundred dollars annually per user...

Mailing 435,000 property tax bills is a big enough task with a staff of eight. But two years ago when Phyllis Roberts noticed nearly 14,000 returned bills, the Franklin County (Ohio) Treasurer's Office customer service supervisor knew the department could be more diligent.

"Ultimately it's our job to get that bill to the taxpayer," said Roberts, who blamed most of the returned mail issues on clerical errors and an aging real-estate computer system. "We could type in Timbuktu and it didn't care. If it was a new ZIP code, it wouldn't recognize it..."

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — In a meeting at Google in 2004, the discussion turned to an e-mail message the company had received from a fan in South Korea. Sergey Brin, a Google founder, ran the message through an automatic translation service that the company had licensed.

The message said Google was a favorite search engine, but the result read: “The sliced raw fish shoes it wishes. Google green onion thing!...”

On a windy morning in downtown Washington, a hundred Georgetown Law students gathered in a hall for David Cole's lecture on democracy and coercion. The desks were cluttered with books, Thermoses and half-eaten muffins.

Another item was noticeable in its absence: laptop computers. They were packed away under chairs, tucked into backpacks, powered down and forgotten.

Cole has banned laptops from his classes, compelling students to take notes the way their parents did: on paper...