We all know Facebook has 500 million users--heck, it's even advertised on movie posters now. But many often forget another service that boasts more members than Mark Zuckerberg's social network: Skype. Today, the Internet-phone service announced Click & Call, its first foray into advertising. And with more than 560 million registered users worldwide, Skype's new service is almost guaranteed to be a success.

In roughly 24 hours, nearly 6,000 people have registered to participate in an experiment we started called The Influence Project. It's been written about by TechCrunch, The Huffington Post, The New York Times, and a score of personal blogs. While it hasn’t taken off the way as quickly as the David After Dentist or Yosemitebear Mountain Giant Rainbow videos, it's off to a good enough start to bust our servers (briefly). But like anything that gains traction on the Web, the reactions have been mixed, ranging from the vitriolic to the pretty damn amusing.

Never mind all of those quick fixes and videos about iPhone 4 reception dropping out when you hold the new phone a certain way. Never mind the fake Steve Jobs letters telling a customer to relax (or not). In a newly released letter to customers, Apple -- the real Apple -- says it's figured out why some iPhone 4 users are experiencing lower bars in their reception when the phone is held a certain way....

We've all heard the stories of Google's extraordinary treatment of its employees--amazing food, tons of time off, great child care--and now you can add one more to the list: equalizing a tax break denied to same-sex couples.

For the tech-obsessed (and, increasingly, normal people), bedside tables, desks, and coffee tables are a hazardous jungle of electronic detritus. Smartphones, media players, game controllers, remote controls, portable gaming consoles, digital cameras, e-book readers, and more, plus cables, result in giant power strips and unattractive clutter.

As turmoil continues to roil economies both large and small, as politicians struggle to figure out how to deal with the conditions of the 21st century, and as the United States and the West heads into what Paul Krugman describes as no less than "The Third Depression", a new way of thinking about management and innovation is making the rounds.

It's a tall feat for an advertiser to stand out in Times Square, which is swathed in giant plasma-screen billboards. But today, a taste of what billboards might become is being unveiled--and the billboard reaches out and grabs the crowd, thanks to technology borrowed from high-tech spy cameras.

Russian president Dmitry Medvedev wrapped up his whirlwind tour of Silicon Valley yesterday, and while it’s fun to imagine Steve Jobs giving him the five-cent tour of One Infinite Loop or Ev Williams and Biz Stone teaching him how to tweet, Medvedev’s mission was to round up investors for Skolkovo, his attempt to clone a Russian Silicon Valley and diversify its economy away from oil and minerals.

The Hulu subscription rumor is like a slightly less annoying version of the Verizon iPhone rumor: They'll probably both happen eventually, but pop up in news stories thanks to analysts and blind sources and possibly the shape of the steam rising from a voodoo stew-pot.

Architecture just might be this season's Biggest Loser. The Architecture Billings Index, a gauge the American Institute of Architects uses to show the industry's strength (or weakness), indicates that business has now been in decline for a record 28 months in a row. Moreover, in issuing its latest report today, the institute reports that May's rating fell from the month before. The weakest area geographically is the West. By sector, it's institutional.