The Smarter Cities series is supported by IBM. Read more about building a smarter planet on the IBM A Smarter Planet Blog

See the original post here: 
Smarter Healthcare: How Social Media is Revolutionizing Your Doctor Visits

In a move that will once again lead some to question to longevity of the URL shorteners used to shrink links on sites like Twitter, the popular Cl.igs service has announced on its blog (via CenterNetworks ) that it is shutting down. The service has tens of thousands of users and directs tens of millions of URLs per month. The site’s founder writes: On Sunday, 25 Oct 2009 at 12:00:00 GMT, the service will stop accepting new short URLs and will stop logging analytics.

More:
Cli.gs URL Shortener To Shut Down

Just over a week ago, Twitter announced its fifth round of funding . While not officially disclosed, the recent cash infusion is estimated to be around $100 million . Twitter’s new estimated worth?

Read more from the original source: 
Twitter’s Value: 5 Eye-Popping Stats

…at least according to an infographic put together by Information is Beautiful .

Read the original here:
Women Rule the Social Web

History is littered with good ideas that didn’t work out because they were ahead of their time. Tablet PCs didn’t work out a decade ago, but with technology advances, they’re poised to make a comeback . Microsoft’s local information web site Sidewalk.com was a bust in 1997, but now sites like Yelp and Google Maps offer local information that many people couldn’t fathom living without.

Read more from the original source:
Facebook Wave: Why Facebook Should Clone Google Wave

A month ago, we covered Wikitude , an augmented reality app for Google Android. Augmented reality takes virtual data, places it on your phone, and allows you to interact with it using your compass, camera, and GPS. The end result is the ability to see virtual items and information in the real world

Read more here:
Augmented Wikipedia Reality Has Arrived on the iPhone

Time flies fast, and new browsers replace old ones. Firefox , Chrome , Safari , Opera and, of course, even Internet Explorer have been upgraded and updated countless times in the last couple of years.

See the rest here:
In Case You Forgot: IE6 Still Holds 25% of the Browser Market

Most sci-fi fans remember the movie Minority Report , and the scene where Tom Cruise manipulates data on a large, vertical, virtual screen using only his hands and fingers. Although I prefer to do my computer work sitting down, it was the stuff geek dreams are made of, and now Apple has applied for a patent that sounds eerily similar. AppleInsider has the details , but the gist of it is this: Apple’s multitouch functions currently implemented on the iPhone and on Macbook trackpads are nice enough, but aren’t good enough for a larger screen (a larger screen on a mythical Apple tablet device, that is).

Read the rest here: 
New Apple Multitouch Patent Enables Typing on a Large Screen

This post is part of Mashable’s Spark of Genius series, which highlights a unique feature of startups. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here . The series is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark

Continued here: 
HOW TO: Get Real-Time Traffic Reports on Your iPhone

Still hunting for a Google Wave invite ?

See the original post:
Want a Google Wave Invite? There’s a Website for That