From the “What’s Next?” Department

By Brad

PC World Staff’s 10 Gifts for the Hard-Core Techie - looking for something to give that special tech enthusiast this year? Stumped? Well PCWorld.com offers a good place to start your search. Gadgets, kits, and hacks for the geek who has everything.

Five New Innovations Promised By IBM - as networkworld.com reports, the ability to “talk” to the Web, information collection and retrieval systems that alleviate forgetfulness, and solar technology built into asphalt, windows and even paint are among the advances IBM sees emerging from its research labs in the next five years.

Yahoo: The Soap Opera Continues - amidst headlining news involving talks of cutting (or not cutting) a deal to outsource search to the Microsoft Corporation - including the latest from the blog at barrons.com - as well as informing 1500 employees of layoffs, Yahoo unveils a new toolbar for Web Browsing. As reported here by Rueters.com, Yahoo unveiled a new toolbar on Monday; the latest step in its strategy to make its products more open to users and third parties. The Yahoo toolbar available later this week will allow users access to a selected group of programs from the toolbar without leaving the page they are on.