There was a bit of a stir a while back about an odd-looking boat seen at a marina in Seattle. The Proteus (as it’s called) has now been officially revealed draws less than a foot, has a top speed of 60 knots and a range of 5,000 miles, and suspends it’s cabins on springs to for stability in rough seas. [geekpress]

iConcertCal is a plugin for iTunes that automatically creates a calendar tracking upcoming concerts of your favorite artists. Next I’ll expect an edition that also tells me when the band’s no longer cool, so I don’t end up at passe events. [lifehacker]

I have to admit that despite reading the article I don’t understand how it works. My ignorance is not, however, an impediment to researchers who have encoded an entire image in a single photon. The data storage and transmission implications are obvious. [slashdot]

Ok, so it’ll be a while before we can actually take a trip to orbit on a space elevator, but thanks to the magic of Google Earth and a gang of enthusiasts and advocates, we can at least get some idea of what it will look like. Still got burning beanstalk questions? Why not see if Brian Dunbar from Liftport answered them in a recent interview.

While we’re on the subject of top quality science fiction that you can read for free, I’ll take a moment to commend Blindsight by Peter Watts. Watts writes diamond-sharp super-hard science fiction, and Blindsight has received mountains of critical acclaim, hotly tipped to be an award winner in the coming year. He’s also made it available as a free downloadable PDF file on his website (along with his entire backlist), so go grab it and get reading – you’ll want to buy a copy once you’ve started, trust me.