Our society suffers from the tyranny of the present. Presentism is the strange affliction of assuming that all our good things were created by ourselves–as if those without our technology who came before us lacked our superior knowledge and morality.

San Francisco was chosen Friday as the headquarters for California’s new stem cell agency, beating out San Diego, Sacramento and Emeryville.

The Sober.P worm is still spreading fast and made up almost 5 percent of all e-mail traffic on Friday morning, according to a U.K. antivirus company.

Noisy neighbours have become a scourge of modern life, resulting in stress, sleepless nights and even violence.

The music industry is singing it loud and proud: songs downloaded from online stores such as iTunes and Napster are saving singles from an early death and rejuvenating the Top 40 chart. But only 4% of legally downloaded music is being bought by women.

Bruce Sterling: The medical industry has been puttering along for decades, steadily improving its products, services, and bottom line - only to be suddenly eviscerated by people from nowhere using simple, inexpensive, profoundly powerful techniques. Disrupters start by serving people whom established players don’t even recognize as customers.

A search for personal data on ZabaSearch.com — one of the most comprehensive personal-data search engines on the net — tends to elicit one of two reactions from first-timers: terror or curiosity.