In The News: MySpace is close to launching local versions of its site in Canada and Mexico as part of an aggressive international expansion, with South Korea and China believed to be next on its list. An inventor in Salt Lake City, Utah has filed for a patent for a computer system that monitors electronic programme guides along with closed captioning text allowing parents to more effectively censor TV content at home. Tribune Co. partners with video start-up vMix for user content. A pundit predicts mayhem as vid-cams proliferate in the hands of the masses. A nightmarish Big Brother film documenting the plight of an artist targeted by the FBI as a suspected bio-terrorist is screened simultaneously in Park City and virtual world Second Life. MTV moves from reality shows to the virtual world of 3-D avatars. The Cleveland Cavaliers deem paper tickets "arcane" and provide completely paperless transactions. Virgin Galactic strikes deal with Swedish government. A closer look at what the '$100 laptop' will be... Children who live within 500 metres of a highway have significantly weaker lungs by age 18 than those living further away. Carbon monoxide may protect against MS symptoms. At Davos, the squabble resumes on how to wire the Third World. NEC invents (SPIT) "Spam over Internet Telephony" catcher. iTunes' DRM technology is declared illegal in Norway. A new social-networking robotic teddy bear meets potential mates for you and looks for a match. Spanish scientists are building a robotic wheelchair controlled by thought. Starbucks is still taking a suicidal PR approach to the controversial coffee documentary Black Gold. Blue Line Innovations is developing real-time energy feedback products for domestic energy consumers. ValueWiki aims to be the wikipedia of investing. Sony files for Light Controller joystick patent. The Chilean Library of Congress has decided to release all of their content under Creative Commons license. Davos ends with proposals aimed at climate disclosure standards, Israeli-Palestinian business, and a big business focus in Sub-Saharan Africa. The Sacramento Bee will introduce a new Web site focused on California government and state politics for $499 a year. (All Below)

T O D A Y ' S  S P O N S O R S

T H E   N E T W O R K

John Baldecchi, Producer
on The State of Development

A R O U N D    T H E   G L O B E

Cloning

South Korean Scientist Eyes Disease Cures From Cloned Dogs
By AFP, Seed
A South Korean scientist who helped to produce the world's first cloned dog has said he would create cloned canines susceptible to diseases affecting humans in order to develop cures. Read full article...

Developing Cures

Traffic exposure disrupts teen lung development
By Roxanne Khamsi, New Scientist
Children who live within 500 metres of a highway have significantly weaker lungs by age 18 than those living further away. Read full article...

Corporate Responsibility

Starbucks Stirred By Fair Trade Film
By Ashley Seager, The Guardian
The spokesman, Tadesse Meskela, who is the subject of Black Gold, together with the film's English makers, brothers Nick and Marc Francis, are a serious irritant to some of the world's coffee giants - in particular Seattle-based Starbucks, whose annual turnover of $7.8bn (£4bn) is not much lower than Ethiopia's entire gross domestic product. Mr Meskela runs the Oromia Coffee Farmers Cooperative Union in Ethiopia, representing about 105,000 coffee growers, and struggles to get the best price - although it is nowhere near high enough to earn them a decent living. He says the country's premium coffees - Yirgacheffe, Sidamo and Harar - can sell for fair trade export at about $1.60 a pound. After deducting costs, the growers get about $1.10. Roasters can sell the coffee on at $20-26 per pound. Coffee retailers make about 52 espressos from a pound of coffee, worth up to $160 a pound. Read full article...

Global Warming Solutions

Real-time Energy Feedback Technology
By Sarah Rich, WorldChanging
Combining all these digits onto one little screen is the PowerCost Monitor from Blue Line Innovations, a Canadian start-up focused specifically on developing real-time energy feedback products for domestic energy consumers. According to their research, immediate feedback can result in 10-20% energy savings. Read full article...

International Diplomacy

Oprah’s academy: Why educating girls pays off more
By By Stephanie Hanes, The Christian Science Monitor
JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA - At the end of each school year, when she says goodbye and wishes her students success in high school, Martha Mohulo can't help but worry. A veteran primary school teacher in Soweto, she knows the dangers lurking in this sprawling, struggling township - perils such as violence, AIDS, and teenage pregnancy. Read full article...

Tech Trends

Sony Light Controller
By Barry Fox, New Scientist
Sony has been hit hard by PS3 delays and the runaway success of Nintendo's Wii games system, which uses a Bluetooth radio link to connect a hand-held controller to the console. Now Sony is patenting designs that would make a PlayStation controller work just like a Wii, based on a much simpler principle. The patent application boils down a simple, yet catchy, idea. In addition to all the usual buttons found on a hand controller are four LEDs on its front, arranged in a rectangle of bright spots. A webcam sitting on top of a TV screen then watches the way the rectangle changes shape as the player tilts and twists their "photonically detectable" controller up and down, and from side to side. Software in the console translates these shape changes into motion commands with a game. The LED light is also modulated, like the infra red from a TV remote control, to send different button commands to the console. And the modulation is uniquely coded so that several people with different controllers can play in the same game together. Read full article...

National Identity

Pot Is Called Biggest Cash Crop
By Eric Bailey, Los Angeles Times
The $35-billion market value of U.S.-grown cannabis tops that of such heartland staples as corn and hay, a marijuana activist says. Read full article...

Transparency

Fighting Crime Using Videos On YouTube
By Ian Austen, New York Times
Other police forces have also discovered YouTube. Some have looked into apparent crimes that appear in YouTube postings, and a police force in England used the site to distribute an appeal for help from the parents of a murder victim. Sgt. Lasso, however, believes he may be the first investigator to directly employ YouTube as a crime-fighting tool. Read full article...

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January 29-February 4