Reports of the electric car's death may have been greatly exaggerated, at least if San Francisco officials have anything to do with it. Mayor Gavin Newsom is apparently in talks with the Silicon Valley startup Project Better Place about building a city-wide network of charging stations, similar to those being created in Israel and Denmark.

Electric vehicle advocates are hailing the move as a giant leap forward for the cause, if it does indeed occur. But Newsom has had a decent success rate in meeting eco-friendly objectives, including reaching a 70 percent recycling rate in the city, the highest in the country. Most of the city's electricity comes from natural gas, nuclear power and renewable sources like wind and geothermal energy. There are even talks of changing zoning regulations to allow for backyard wind turbines.

The infrastructure won't mean much without the cars. But those are on the way too - Nissan plans to bring the cars to California by 2010, and other automakers are hot on its heels to develop electric cars that will meet California's stringent zero-emission vehicle mandate.

(Photo by Josh Bancroft)

Though robotic soldiers as advanced as The Terminator may still be years away, the British military has announced plans to introduce less-evolved mechanical critters onto the battlefield. British defense company BAE Systems is creating a line of insects, spiders and snakes that can be used by the military as the eyes and ears of the troops.

According to the Daily Mail, the robots will be transported to the battlefield on vehicles controlled by the soldiers. Once there, they can relay information back to the front line. Some creatures will be fitted with tiny cameras, while others will be able to detect the presence of chemical, biological or radioactive weapons.

Prototypes may be on the front line by the end of the year, and BAE systems recently signed a contract with the United States military worth 19 million pounds (about 37 million dollars) to produce the critters for the U.S.

BAE has created a computer-generated video to show what the robots will look like in action. Check out the nasty little buggers here.

A brand signifies nothing until you assign value to it, right? That's the idea behind Brand Tags, which offers insight into consumers' perceptions through a simple game of word association.

Visitors are shown a company logo (Starbucks, Google, Miller Lite) and asked to enter the first word that comes to mind. Once you've added your two cents, you can click to see the way that others tagged the brand. Apparently Converse "used to be cool" and owning a Harley-Davidson may be a sign of a midlife crisis.

For more of a challenge, you can try guessing the brand based on what others have tagged it. So "cheap", "beer", "college"? Yeah, that'd be Pabst.

(Photo by Sumit)

Wi-Fi networks can be found in your home, your office, and your favorite coffee shop. Now, the British Office of Communications (Ofcom) predicts that the same technology may be implanted in human beings – and used to save their lives.

The Times reports that the same Bluetooth technology popular in cell phones could be implanted into people at risk of heart attack or diabetic collapse, allowing doctors to monitor their status. If a person collapses, the "in-body network" would alert a hospital or doctor. The system is currently being tested in Britain. Ofcom hopes to extend the technology’s use beyond medical emergencies to include alerts when patients fail to take their medicine.

The report suggest other uses for short-range wireless technology. Food items could be tagged with microchips that would alert someone if they are about to eat something to which they are allergic. Sensors in cars could communicate with each other and apply the brakes to prevent collisions, or if it's too late, automatically call for emergency services.

The talk of how you should spend that much-anticipated stimulus check (pay your debt! save it all! go nuts on Amazon!) has been unending since the government announced its plans to gift taxpayers with a few hundred bucks earlier this year. A new website gives you a sense of what people are actually doing with their money.

How I Spent My Stimulus lets you post a description of your new extravagant purchases or your less-exciting plans to start a Roth IRA and fill your gas tank.

So what did the first wave of check recipients spend their not-so-hard-earned dough on? Butterfly tattoos, Juicy sweatpants, a cereal shopping spree, and, of course, a trip to Chicago to see the New Kids on the Block in concert.

(Photo by Mark Welker)

Cutting-edge research and technology could change our lives in unprecedented and unpredictable ways. That's one of the underlying themes of The New Yorker's "Stories from the Near Future" conference this week.

Developments in neuroscience and robotics are allowing for the creation of artificial robotic limbs that will give disabled people unprecedented control of motion. University of Washington researcher Yoky Matsuoka's neurobotics laboratory is combining scientific disciplines to make such prosthetic technology accessible and affordable.

In impoverished areas of the Third World, new technologies could drastically improve the lives of people dependent on subsistence farming. MIT lecturer Amy Smith spoke about her work encouraging students to create simple and easily-producible technologies to be used in developing countries. She showed slides of a tool that compresses organic waste into charcoal briquettes, and demonstrated a simple tool that removes kernels from dried ears of corn seven times faster than by hand.

Scientists and researchers were also joined by high-profile public officials. San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom discussed how his city has embarked on one of the most ambitious recycling programs in the world, and has already achieved a 70 percent recycling rate. And New York City police commissioner Raymond Kelly spoke about the massive surveillance system called the Lower Manhattan Security Initiative and other efforts to detect and prevent attacks on the city.

Design was a big topic at this year's conference. Alternative game designer Jane McGonigal discussed how games can be used for scientific research, engaging people in solving real-world problems, and boosting democracy and public participation. British architect David Adjaye called for a new approach to architecture that incorporates the context of cities and local attitudes into building design. And "environmental psychologist" Paco Underhill talked about how poorly airports are designed to meet the needs of travelers, and how easily they could be improved without hampering security efforts.

The conference overall doesn't offer a crystal-ball view of the future. But it does identify the newly-emerging research that could meet today's challenges. And it takes an optimistic view of how those problems can be solved with interdisciplinary cooperation and public engagement.