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Report: Van Natta to become MySpace CEO

We can expect an announcement very soon that Owen Van Natta will be replacing Chris DeWolfe as CEO of MySpace, All Things Digital reported on Thursday afternoon.

Considering that AllThingsD's Kara Swisher has a very good track record of knowing Van Natta's whereabouts, we're going to take this one as solid. The announcement could come as early as Friday, Swisher wrote, and though there's no word on timing, we're guessing that it'll either be after the market closes or possibly held off until Monday.

Van Natta rose to the tech world's upper ranks … Read more

Green-jobs czar Van Jones plugs energy innovation

WALTHAM, Mass.--Green-jobs advocate Van Jones has gone from being a community organizer in Oakland, Calif., to a community organizer in the White House.

Jones last month was named special adviser for green jobs, enterprise, and innovation in the White House, where he is tasked with coordinating green job-related initiatives among different government agencies. On Thursday at the Bentley University Leadership Forum, he gave a speech on the economic implications of clean-energy policies.

Jones, founder of the Green for All organization and author of the "Green Collar Economy," is best known for advocating job creation for low-income people … Read more

Disease detective plans GPS-enabled asthma inhaler

Thanks to David Van Sickle, we'll soon be able to track (and hopefully eliminate) recurring asthma attack outbreaks. Van Sickle, a scholar in the Department of Population Health Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is working with students in the biomedical engineering program to create an asthma inhaler with a built-in GPS receiver.

The project is still in its early stages, but David's goal is to eventually map out danger zones that could be life-threatening to those stricken with the lung disease. He already has it all mapped out: "rescue inhalers" will pinpoint the location of … Read more

Wired.com lays off 12 percent of staff

For the second time in five months, Wired.com, the Internet arm of Wired magazine, has trimmed its staff.

According to a Twitter post from Evan Hansen, the Web site's editor in chief, the company laid off 3 out of 25 full-time staffers or 12 percent of its workforce.

"Reports of Wired.com 'gutting' greatly exaggerated," Hansen wrote on Twitter, presumably referring to published reports about Wired.com's layoffs. "We cut three staff, five contractors, (and) still have 45 people working for us overall."

Among those who lost their jobs was Eliot Van Buskirk, … Read more

Green-jobs activist to serve Obama administration

Environmental activist and author Van Jones, one of the first to recognize the power of a "green collar" job corps as a tool for social justice, has been tapped by the Obama administration to serve as special adviser for green jobs, enterprise, and innovation at the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ).

Under his new post, which he'll start Monday, Jones will shape and advance the administration's energy and climate initiatives "with a specific interest in improvements and opportunities for vulnerable communities," said Nancy Sutley, chair of the CEQ, in a statement Tuesday. … Read more

Zap introduces zero-emissions, all-electric van

It's not for road trips, but the van that Zap has introduced at the National Automobile Dealers Association convention might just ease the carbon burden for very local transport.

The Zap Shuttle, which can hold five people, is touted as the nation's first 100 percent plug-in, rechargeable electric van. It's meant to replace small shuttle vans that you see going from airport terminals to rental lots and around other short-range areas such as corporate headquarters, college campuses, indoor warehouses, and sports arenas.

The mini-van has optional accessories, such as solar panels, for prolonged use. It has a … Read more

Van Halen meets Songsmith

This is for those of you still recovering from the viral video promoting Songsmith, Microsoft's new reverse-karaoke program that lets you sing into a computer microphone, then creates a simple backing track comprised of synthesized piano and drums.

David Lee Roth. "Running With the Devil." Backed up by Songsmith. Listen here, and you'll never be the same.

In spite of all the scorn Songsmith has gotten in the last few days, mainly because of that painful advertisement, I think it's a pretty cool piece of software. I don't know if it's worth $30--a … Read more

Project Playlist-iMeem merger rumors persist

File this one as improbable, but it's interesting that this rumor continues to crop up. Project Playlist, a little known start-up with 9 million monthly visitors, is supposedly kicking the tires on social media site iMeem, according to music industry sources.

The alleged acquiree, iMeem, which has 20 million monthly visitors, denied the rumors are true. "Project Playlist buying us is like us buying Apple. This is just not accurate," said Matt Graves, iMeem's spokesman and a longtime straight shooter.

So why is this acquisition scenario still being passed around the music industry?

Beverly Hills, Calif.… Read more

Memory goes down the nanotubes

While computers continue to get smaller, they're constantly being pushed to do more. Whether they're doubling as a phone, a camera, or an MP3 player, there seems to be no end to the tasks we expect them to carry out. And as always, we say we want them to "do all that stuff and be smaller."

A limitation of the miniaturization process is that the more computers are asked to do, the more memory they require. One of the computer's basic elements, the transistor, could soon reach its miniaturization limit. The smaller we make transistors, the more susceptible they are to quantum phenomena like electrons tunneling through the barriers between wires. Which, while ticklish for the barrier, can just be really annoying.

This has apparently annoyed researchers at the U.K.'s University of Nottingham, as well, albeit for different reasons. This transistor dilemma has led them to look into the viability of carbon nanotubes to help create fast, cheap, and compact memory that uses little power. … Read more