What would big cities be without all the screaming neon? (OK, some would argue ‘vastly more tasteful’, but bear with me.) But all that neon burns a pretty packet of power in the name of advertising. Mule Lighting’s ‘LED-Flex’ could replace traditional neons, providing a 70% decrease in power consumption and increased versatility of use…after all, you can’t tie a neon tube in a knot.

In a fitting tribute to the memory of the recently departed SF luminary Octavia Butler, a charitable organisation has been set up in her name to fund scholarships for SF writers of colour to attend the famous Clarion writing workshops that helped her own career.

The Economist takes a look at what characterizes successful open source projects, and the answer is not immediately obvious: strong controls on who contributes. The article makes open source projects sound less like a new structure, and more like a new way of organizing.

I have a feeling the Celestro SkyScout is the kind of gadget that makes life too easy. Point the SkyScout at a heavenly object and press a button to find out what it is, or ask the SkyScout to locate a planet for you and follow its instructions to find it in the sky. Feels like cheating. I much prefer freezing with a red masked flashlight, trying to figure out which way is north.

Is there such a thing as a sustainability geek? ‘Cause I’m pretty sure I am one. Anyway I love reading about gadgets like Philips’ new woodstove, which uses a fan (powered by the heat generated by the stove) to burn wood hotter and more efficiently, decreasing the amount of wood a family needs and decreasing the amount of particulate pollution emitted. It’s aimed at people in third world countries who use wood as their primary means of cooking and heating?