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Sometimes, what futurist Ray Kurzweil calls the “ever-increasing rate of technology” is scary. (Who, exactly, wants to live forever? Or grant robots the same rights as humans?) But when singularity—the theory that technology will improve exponentially until it reaches a state of unprecedented progress—quickens the Internet’s pace by a hundredfold, I will gladly drink Kurzweil’s Kool-Aid. Scientists from the University of Sydney have inadvertently demonstrated this theory by making the Web 60 times faster than current top-notch speeds, and promising to raise that to 100 times in the near future.

Fortune has an interesting profile of Amazon.com CEO and founder Jeff Bezos, who has persisted, and seen his company grow, through the ups and downs of the dot-com economy. Presently he's worth around $8 billion, which isn't too bad. In addition to recounting his rise to prominence, the piece also details his plans to transform Amazon into the Web's biggest retailer of digital media. Hence Amazon's e-book reader, the Kindle, and the company's push into the MP3 space, where it's trying to unseat Apple as emperor. Apparently this is a pretty heated competition: According to the Fortune piece, he refuses to use the word "Apple."

Newspapers are still struggling to find their place in a world increasingly overwhelmed by digital media. Readership is down, ad revenues are down, even revenues on the Web editions of many papers are down. Some papers—the Guardian and Telegraph in London, for example—have even experimented with a printable PDF version of their sites in an attempt to reach those who browse online but ultimately want a paper copy in their hands. At this intersection of print and Web comes another concept, one which is proving both popular with its readership and economically successful: the Flying Pickle.

Everyone at some point wishes she could talk with her "future self" and have some insight into how it's all going to turn out. Unfortunately—unless you count Miss Cleo's tele-clairvoyent services—technology hasn't given us a portal to the future yet. But it has improved upon the time capsule.

Yes that is John Oates (of Hall and Oates fame) playing to a hall full of geeks, flacks and VCers. But he wasnt a random celebrity shill. He was actually doing something useful—showing the audience how to play his classic song Shes Gone, (see a video here) as he does on an instructional video download from tech startup iVideosongs. The Web service is one of 77 debut companies, each given six minutes onstage to explain their technology--and how theyll make money with it.

For more on the proposed Web Toll, stay tuned to PopSci's podcast.

You don´t have to be a conspiracy theorist or a criminal to be uncomfortable with the fact that your online movements are frequently tracked and recorded. Maybe you don´t want commercial Web sites using your browsing habits to inform their marketing, or perhaps you want to post an opinion to an online forum without worrying that it could be traced back to you.

Dept.: Geek GuideTech: DIY Internet Radio Cost: Free-$2,850Time: 10 minutes and upDabbler | | | | | Master

A: Tagging is the act of assigning your own keywords to things online-photos, blog entries, bookmarks-so that you can easily categorize, locate, and share them in the future. One of the best examples is del.icio.us, which lets you save Web bookmarks to a page on the site instead of to a file stashed away on your computer. This way, you can access them from anywhere and let other people see what sites you like.

Everything I needed to stalk myself, I bought on the Internet for 65 bucks. I started with a Google search—instant background checks—and hit the first link it returned, people data.com. I entered my credit card info, and the next day