A firm formed by Silicon Valley executives is trying to produce in commercial quantity genetically-modified bug waste that is similar to crude oil but cheaper, cleaner and renewable. LS9 Inc. is planning to build by 2011 demonstration-scale and commercial-scale plants that will produce the so-called Oil 2. 0, which is composed of excrement from altered industrial yeast or nonpathogenic strains of E. coli bacteria. So far, the company's laboratory can produce the biofuel in small amounts, enough to fill a beaker, but has yet to test a 264-gallon (1,000-liter) fermenting machine that can produce the equivalent of one barrel of the fuel per week.

The anti-theft device on a stolen MacBook allowed its White Plains, NY, owner to recover the laptop after thieves stole it. When the woman's MacBook was stolen, she activated the Back To My Mac screen sharing feature, which turned on her webcam and captured photos of the thieves.

The 1998 movie, "Fight Club', based on the book by Chuck Palahniuk, published in 1996, may have seemed far fetched, but it struck a chord with men who say they feel emasculated by the mundaneness of the corporate, high-tech world. ESPN reported that since 1998, a fight club has been meeting once a month in Cornell educated software engineer, Gints Klimani's, garage. Fifteen men, mostly white, middle-aged technology workers meet to beat each other using fists, toilet seats, and cookie sheets. The group improvises weapons, even stabbing each other with dulled knives.

It all began 30 years ago today. The mother lode of all spam - the bane of everyone's online existence - was first sent out via the U. S. Defense Department's Arpanet by a salesman named Gary Thuerk. The first junk mail or "Spam" as we know it today, was an invitation for a demo of the new system-20 mini computers being marketed by the Digital Equipment Corp.

Consumer magazine Which? has found that computer keyboards can be a home to bacteria that may cause food poisoning symptoms and stomach upsets. Tests made on 33 keyboards at its office here showed four posed a health risk, with one being host to five times more germs than the office's toilet seats.