Social Media Brought Together
A new device called MagnetU will let you broadcast your social media (including Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn) profiles to everyone around you. The device will also alert you when it detects a profile in the area that is similar to yours. Great for extroverts; not so great for those who like some privacy.

Online Memorials
Working from an idea already in use in Seattle, a Regina, SK company, Remco Memorials, is offering a way to bring up memorials on smartphones while visiting a grave. The company will provide a QR code to be added to grave markers that, when read by a smartphone, will go to a webpage that can be added to by family and friends with the password.

Canadian R&D Spending to Rise
Canadian firms are intending to increase their research and development expenditures, the first such increase since 2007. However, Canadian R&D is still lagging in terms of GDP. Most of the R&D work (approximately 75%) is done in Ontario and Quebec.

Samples Missing
Geeks interested in sapce exploration may want to develop a tracking system for NASA, who has lost or misplaced 500 samples of material from space since 1970. The missing pieces, including moon rocks and meteorites, were part of the 26 000 samples loaned out by NASA. Some of the missing samples may have been returned but not checked in.

Kill Your Cable and Phone
Washington, DC, is funding a 100-gigabit network to be made available to universities, businesses, and anyone willing to resell the service. Such a service bypasses the backbone that was built by a telco or a cable company, and was created to serve areas of Washinbton not served by those companies. A step like this could be the first in turning high speed Internet service from luxury to public good.