Given current rates of computer consumerism and technological advances, one might expect to find a lot of computers out there in the world. What happens to these old computers? This Topic in Depth explores this issue, reviews some options for recycling computers, and provides tips for anyone considering purchasing a refurbished computer. The first article from BBC News reports on research which suggests that "the number of personal computers worldwide is expected to double by 2010 to 1.3 billion machines." The second article from Oasis, a project of the Irish eGovernment initiative, reviews some of the issues surrounding waste from electrical and electronic equipment. This next article from PC World gives some ideas for how to dispose of an old notebook computer. One option, of course, is to donate your notebook, which is discussed in this article from Tech Soup. Another resource for information on computer recycling and reuse is this website from CompuMentor ). Given the current market for computers, many are considering refurbished computers. This article from Vnunet explains what a refurbished computer is while the next website provides some tips for buying a refurbished computer. Finally, this article from About.com reports on the recently introduced National Computer Recycling Act

ATutor is an open source web-based Learning content Management System (LCMS) environment. With features like ease of use, adaptability, scope for customisation, the system enables the educators to quickly assemble, package and redistribute web-based instructional content, easily retrieve and import prepackaged content and conduct their courses online. ATutor software is available for free under the terms of the GNU General Public License. It complies with the W3C WCAG 1.0 accessibility specifications at the AA+ level, and conforms with W3C XHTML 1.0 specifications. This website provides documentation, FAQs, download links, installation guidelines etc.

This site provides information about the C++ programming language, ranging from a basic description, a summary of its history to the latest news. It offers useful information including technical documents covering the different facets of C++, tutorials, a collection of source code files, examples for different platforms, a standard library and discussion forums. cplusplus.com is an open resource.

The Discover circuits website aims to enable the designer to find quick solutions for electronic design problems. A resource for engineers, hobbyists, inventors and consultants, this is a collection of approximately 8000 electronic circuits or electronic schematics, designs or diagrams catagorized into about 500 categories. New circuits and/or links are added regularly.

Ecoinformatics.org is an open, voluntary collaboration of developers and researchers with an aim to produce software, systems, publications and services that are beneficial to the ecological and environmental sciences. It endeavors to equip the interested ecologists with technologies that facilitate the use of data for purposes like archiving, discovery, analysis and classification. It provides tools for specifying and modelling ecological data, data repositories such as METCAT, SRB - SDSC Storage Resource Broker and Ecogrid, databasess such as Vegbank, ClimDB and HerpNet. It works towards developing informatics solutions for the ecological and environmental sciences. The site provides details of the projects and has a mailing list.

With vast technological advancements and innovations, it is said that within a few decades, humanity will become capable of surpassing the existing upper limit on intelligence and will develop a potential of technologically creating smarter-than-human intelligence. "This event is called the Singularity by analogy with the singularity at the center of a black hole – just as our current model of physics breaks down when it attempts to describe the center of a black hole, our model of the future breaks down once the future contains smarter-than-human minds". The process, being a product of intelligence, creates snowball effects resulting in smarter and smarter minds. Such enhanced intelligence ensures better solving. The Singularity Institute is a non-profit organization with a mission to direct research into Singularity technologies design, development and implementation of the friendly artificial intelligence and responsible intelligence enhancement. It offers discussion forums, coordinates the related research efforts and publishes material on the Singularity.

Temperature sensors is a free educational website aimed directly at engineers, scientists, technicians and students to help them learn about temperature sensors and how to effectively use them. It is designed to help them best use temperature sensors in applications, to enable them to easily find temperature sensor technical and application details. Coverage includes both simple and advanced applications involving complex physics and mathematics. It provides information on IR thermometers, thermal imaging, RTDs and PRTs, thermistors, thermocouples, thermometers, calibration, standards, measurements, dewpoint & RH, thermal analysis.

This is a website by W3C working group. Currently, W3C is working towards expanding the access to the Internet interactively through key pads, spoken commands, listening to prerecorded speech, synthetic speech and music.This will allow any telephone to be used for accessing appropriately designed web-based services. This will also enable effective interaction of the web content in the cases where the mouse and keyboard may be missing or inconvenient. The website provides introduction, current research status, FAQ, a tutorial for VoiceXML and a mailing list.

Library of Life is the first permanent record of all human life. Until today, history has remembered only the smallest fraction of those who have lived. The aim of Library of Life is to compile the life stories of millions of people around the world, to create the world's first official record of life.Library of Life is wonderfully versatile, you can use it in hundreds of different ways. For more details, visit the site.

One and a half decades into the process of economic liberalisation and global integration, India, today, is well established as a credible business partner, preferred investment destination, rapidly growing market, provider of quality services and manufactured products; and, stands on the threshold of years of unprecedented growth.

Achievements. Successes. Growing consuming class driving demand. Vibrant democracy. People who dare to dream. Indians and India have a story to tell. IBEF collects, collates and disseminates accurate, comprehensive and current information on India. In the overall nation branding campaign for India, IBEF plays three well defined roles viz.Forum for brand vision development ,Co-ordinator of strategic marketing initiatives and India Resource Centre.

Working with stakeholders from across a wide spectrum of business and academia, IBEF follows a consultative and inclusive process in developing contemporary global business brands for India Inc.

Media X is a network of interdisciplinary researchers, faculty and students at Stanford University who study and design interactive technology. Media X "influences the next generation of interactive technology relevant to commerce, learning and entertainment." Their work focuses on challenges related to people and technology, such as ease of use, natural forms of input and output, social and emotional responses, enhancement of learning, and interaction strategies in business. Numerous research projects are listed with links to additional information on each project, some with their own website. Other features of the website include a listing of upcoming and past events hosted by MediaX and a list of the researchers and industry, foundation, and government partners and their websites.

Project Honey Pot, created by Unspam, LLC, is "a distributed system for identifying spammers and the spambots they use to scrape addresses from your website." Webmasters can install the free software on their website and begin collecting information on the exact moment that spammers harvest information and the IP address that gathered it. Project Honey Pot also works with law enforcement authorities to track down and prosecute spammers. Information they gather is shared with developers and researchers in order to inform the building of the next generation of anti-spam software. Participation (and access to the software) requires completion of a short online form. Data and Statistics on the Top 25 Global Spam Harvester and Top Harvester User Agents are posted online without registration. At the time of this report, Project Honey Pot was in the early stage of its public beta and anticipate posting additional statistics on trends and other statistics in the future. Note, the website is partially supported by paid advertisements that are not necessarily endorsed by the Honey Pot Project.

The Laboratory of Applied Informatics Research (LAIR ) at Indiana University, Bloomington (IUB) conducts research on information retrieval, machine learning, and human-computer interaction. The website provides links to information on various projects that address topics such as "agent-based information management, agent-user interaction, concept discovery and analysis, and information customization for effective online information delivery." Project descriptions, technical reports, and related resources are posted for each of the 10 projects currently supported through this laboratory. Some course syllabi and course materials are also posted in the Courses section of the website.

Global System for Sustainable Development (GSSD) is a project of the Global Accords Consortium for Sustainable Development that is "dedicated to internationalization of knowledge access, provision & sharing for 'reducing the gap between knowledge & policy.'" Housed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), GSSD is "a multi-dimensional knowledge networking system" that combines public and private networks to provide a continually evolving cross-referenced knowledge base for informing decision-making and policy in the domain of "sustainable development." The Using GSSD section of the website provides information on the organizing principles used to develop the database, demonstrates the functionality and architecture of the system and other aspects of the project, such as the multiple mirror sites that are in languages other than English. Reports and working papers from the GSSD are also posted. Visitors can search the holdings of the database using a text search or based on other parameters, such as issue area or industry type, and are invited to submit websites to be considered for inclusion.

This website highlights research at Brown University on game technology. The Brown "Games" Group "investigates new algorithms for real-time interactive 3D environments." The group's work, which focuses on video game applications, also has implications for simulation, training, scientific visualization, and computer-assisted design. Papers discussing the group's approach to creating realistic images and other theoretical issues relating to creating 3D environments are posted online to download free along with graphic representations and video clips.

KEEP stands for "Knowledge. Exchange. Exhibition. Presentation." The KEEP toolkit, developed by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, offers "a set of Web-based tools that help teachers, students and institutions quickly create compact and engaging knowledge representations on the Web." Some specific features of the toolkit include: the ability to select and organize teaching and learning materials; templates that provide conceptual frameworks, categories, and guiding prompts/questions to assist in analysis; and tools to create "visually appealing and intellectually engaging representations of material" that can be easily shared online or in print. The toolkit is intended to make it easier to share ideas for peer review, assessment, collective knowledge building, and building a "community of practice and reflection." The features are described in the Tour section and case studies provide some examples of ways that partner institutions and faculty have used their tools. Access to the tools is free but requires registration.

The Association of Teachers of Mathematics (ATM), based in the United Kingdom, "believes in providing teachers with the resources to help them develop their mathematics teaching in creative and broad-thinking ways." This section on Resources OnLine offers a variety of resources, some of which are available only by purchase online. Some of the free online resources include sample files and programs from ATM CDs on spreadsheets and Interactive Mathematics, as well as some games involving shapes and probability. Films available in Macromedia Flash Player format demonstrate topics such as Polygons, Exploring Halves, Tangrams, and Euclid's Pythagoras Proof. A link to ATM's Convex Polyhedra Website shows 50 of the convex polyhedra that can be made with regular polygons and groups them into 10 families and some suggested activities to try using the images. Some articles from ATM Journals are also available online.

NOISE stands for New Outlooks In Science & Engineering, a U.K.-wide campaign funded by the Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) that "aims to raise awareness of science & engineering among young people by making these subjects more relevant and accessible." The website provides career information as well as articles on ways that science is applicable to a range of areas in life such as health, travel, sports, entertainment, and the environment. A section called Serious Science organizes the articles by scientific field, such as mathematics, physics, chemistry, IT, materials, life sciences, and engineering. The articles provide a nice overviews of innovations in robotics, aircraft technology, and architecture, just to name a few. Other features include a free newsletter distributed via email and animated e-cards to send to friends.

Science Through the Centuries is a history project highlighting people and places that have contributed to the University of Cambridge "tradition of excellence." The tradition includes Isaac Newton, Darwin, and Stephen Hawking. The section on Newton includes a short discussion of "the birth of computer science," while the section on Darwin includes a link to "the largest single collection of Darwin's letters" and a website maintained by the University Library. A science tour map is posted online for those who visit Cambridge University and want to locate some of the buildings and structures mentioned in this historical review.

National ICT Australia (NICTA) is building Australia's pre-eminent Information and Communications Technology (ICT) centre of excellence. This website aims to provide a comprehensive insight into NICTA's research and education programs, collaborative work, and our future aspirations. NICTA was formed by the Federal Government’s Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts and the Australian Research Council. NICTA’s consortium partners are the Australian Capital Territory Government, the New South Wales Government, the University of New South Wales, and the Australian National University. A national laboratory has emerged from this powerful union based on the foundations of research, commercialisation, education, and collaboration. With a focus on fundamental and use–inspired research, NICTA attracts, develops, and networks exceptional talent for Australia’s future prosperity. NICTA’s research efforts focus on the technology challenges facing industry, community, and the national interest. The central drivers of NICTA’s research are the Priority Challenges. The creation of technology for use in society, the market, and the environment inspire the Priority Challenges. NICTA’s two initial Priority Challenges are Trusted Wireless Networks and From Data to Knowledge. NICTA brings together exceptional people from research and industry to create an ICT research centre of excellence that generates national wealth.