Here is my weekly selection of articles that were not mentioned here — except if I missed them.

Join? Well, if you have to ask…
Beware the virtual bouncer. This social-networking Web site for the international jet set will expel you for trying to meet people you don’t already know.
Unlike other social networks, aSmallWorld, which says it has 75,000 members, allows them to interact with people in a purely social context, according to some who have joined.
Source: Thomas Crampton, International Herald Tribune, August 29, 2005

Smart lights of future may aid health, communication
Scientists have been taking a closer look at the lighting in our homes, offices, and vehicles, and they’re seeing potential for a way to improve health and a new means of electronic communication.
[But] none of this will happen tomorrow.
Source: Malcolm Ritter, Associated Press, August 29, 2005

Technology Gives Instant Tennis Smarts
The Point Tracker lets fans analyze each point played at the U.S. Open with its real-time graphic animation. It may also give players a key edge.
Source: Pallavi Gogoi, BusinessWeek Online, August 30, 2005

The goal: fabric that can stop a micrometeorite
Materials researchers at Tiax LLC are hunting for the right fabrics, but they are confronting problems that have probably never been considered by the fashion industry. Withstanding temperatures of plus or minus 200 degrees Fahrenheit, for example. Or surviving strikes from micrometeorites flying at a speed of Mach 20.
Source: Robert Weisman, The Boston Globe, August 29, 2005 Issue

CBS News counters bloggers with ‘nonbudsman’
After a controversial run-in with bloggers last year that helped sink “60 Minutes Wednesday,” CBS has hired a “nonbudsman” to write a blog that will go behind the scenes at the news division.
Source: Reuters, August 30, 2005

Online test to discover if you were born to be sad
Researchers at the University of Manchester are testing our genetic disposition to depression with a unique internet test.
The team, based at the Neuroscience and Psychiatry Unit (NPU), in the Faculty of Medical and Human Sciences, has set up a website (http://www.newmood.co.uk ) where would-be volunteers can see how prone they may be to depression by identifying the emotions on people’s faces and also by taking a gambling test.
Source: The University of Manchester, August 26, 2005

Google Is Everywhere
Providing further evidence that Google is everywhere, now it’s coming to the rescue of victims of Hurricane Katrina.
In an effort to help displaced hurricane victims and their families, ad hoc communities of Internet users are using mapping technologies from Google to track storm damage, analyze aerial photos and try to make sense of what little information is available.
Source: David M. Ewalt, Forbes.com, September 2, 2005

See you next week…