Technology

A $7.2-billion provision in the economic stimulus bill to extend high-speed Internet service to the rural U.S. and other underserved areas has been hailed in Congress as the 21st century equivalent of government programs that brought electricity and modern highways to every corner of the country. Others think the benefits may be overstated -- especially the notion that every dollar invested will produce a $10 boost to the economy.

Boston Red Sox second baseman Dustin Pedroia strides to the plate and begins his ritual. Tap the bat twice on the ground. Circle it overhead. Adjust the gloves. Stand straight, bat upright, awaiting the pitch. A voice interrupts: "And cut!" Pedroia is in a Sony Corp. studio in San Diego, suited up in a spandex bodysuit studded with 55 white sensors.

The head of the nation's cyber security center has resigned amid persistent turf battles and confusion over the control and protection of the country's vast computer networks and systems. Rod Beckstrom's decision to step down as director of the National Cyber Security Center comes as the White House is conducting a broad 60-day review of how well the government is using technology to protect everything from classified national security data to key financial systems and air traffic control.

An alarm that would warn pilots earlier of dangerously slow aircraft speed could have helped prevent a plane crash that killed 50 people in February, safety officials told an investigative panel Thursday. National Transportation Safety Board member Debbie Hersman raised the idea on the third and final day of a hearing into the crash of Continental Connection Flight 3407, which went down near Buffalo, N.Y., killing all 49 people aboard and one person on the ground.

How long does it take to get to Saturn at, say, the speed of light? With Wolfram Alpha, the online "computational knowledge engine" that launched Monday, the answer -- 75 minutes -- can be found in a fraction of a second. Web users can submit customized questions to the service, and Wolfram Alpha will try to work out the answer on the fly. The chance that a healthy 35-year-old woman will contract heart disease in the next 10 years? One in 167. The temperature in Washington, D.C.

Microsoft's new Bing "decision engine," unveiled Thursday by Chief Executive Steve Ballmer, is being positioned as an alternative to the busy, confusing search engines of today. This more elegant and intuitive approach to search will help consumers distill useful information on commerce-friendly topics such as shopping, travel, health and local business, Microsoft said. The Redmond, Wash., company has long been trying to boost its share of the Internet search market. Its search tools captured 8.

Caltech and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory on Monday officially joined Los Angeles' effort to create a clean technology business and research corridor along the Los Angeles River. The city hopes to tap JPL's scientific expertise in climate change and environmental engineering to help pinpoint new alternative energy resources and better manage the city's water supplies. The work will include hunting for new sources of geothermal energy and measuring the snowpack in the Eastern Sierra Nevada.

HD Radio, introduced amid much hype in 2004 as a way to digitally improve the sound of FM and AM stations, has never much caught the ears of U.S. radio listeners. Special receivers -- most of which are relatively expensive, tabletop models -- have to be bought to pick up the HD Radio signals. And the sound improvement, while noticeable, is not all that startling on FM. "For most people, FM is quite sufficient," said Richard Robinson, an analyst at research firm iSuppli Corp.

At a bend in the Ohio River, a bulky new device is being attached to a 30-year-old coal plant near the small town of New Haven, W.Va. The device is being housed in a building four stories tall and bigger than a football field. A 150-foot-tall exhaust stack -- so wide that it would take six adults with their arms fully stretched to reach around it -- will reach into the sky. And pipelines will run out of the building and into saline aquifers two miles underground. The entire contraption will start up as early as September.

Tikam Chand wheels up on a rusty bicycle, navigates past a tangle of pedestrians, the odd beggar, a pile of garbage and kiosks selling Coke in battered green bottles, and unties a 50-pound camera that took its first photograph around the time President Lincoln was assassinated. It's been doing daily duty ever since, much of it on this stretch of sidewalk in front of the maharaja's palace -- used first by Chand's grandfather, and then by his father and now, for the last three decades, by Chand.