A while back, at the funeral of a 90 year-old neighbor in Sunnyvale, her sons recounted how this elegant and brilliant woman, early in her marriage, amused herself on Sunday afternoons shooting rats at the local town dump. Obviously, times have changed. Here's the story of how a mouse infestation taught one contemporary Silicon Valley Mom that she's not as tough as she thought she was (but, apparently, still tougher than her husband . . .)

Remember those vending machines in Japan that photographed the face of the customer, determined if he or she was an adult, and only then allowed that person to buy cigarettes? Turns out those 4,000 machines can be quickly defeated by merely holding up to the lens a magazine photograph of an older person. That's a whole lot cheaper and safer than paying some wino outside 7-11 to buy you booze and smokes . . .

from BrandChannel: Blogger Dan Schawbel (PersonalBrandingBlog) looks like he's twelve years old in the accompanying photo -- and obviously is pitching his own services in this article. Nevertheless, it is one of the best (if conventional) tutorials we've seen yet on how an individual can best market himself or herself in the digital world. Schawbel has done his homework, and the compilation of quotes from other authors and marketers is alone worth reading the article.

From Baseline: Here's a nice tutorial, written by blogger David Strom (Strominator) describing the technology called 'Two-Factor Authentication". This is the technique by which users are identified and verified, as the name suggests, in two different ways: by something you know, like a user name and password; and something you have, like a token. This is proving to be a particularly useful tool for IT folks wanting to keep laptops from becoming doorways for phishers and the like to sneak into an enterprise infrastructure and raise hell.

Online music retailer Rhapsody is launching a $50M marketing campaign in hopes of challenging the industry dominance of Apples iTunes. The company plans to sell downloads through its partners Yahoo and Verizon Wireless. Interestingly, songs will be available in the MP3 format so that users can play them on their Apple iPods. Rhapsody had previously focused on monthly subscriptions rather than individual downloads. The company believes that embracing iPod, rather than competing with it, will drive sales of their music offerings.

Increasingly fearful that their chokehold on US patent law is weakening, tech giants like Google, Verizon Communications, Cisco Systems, Ericsson, and Hewlett-Packard are pitching in to battle inventors.

At $5 for a gallon of gas, it is no longer a rational approach to business resource management to impel most office employees to spend time and gas (not to mention spewing millions of pounds of carbon compounds into the air) commuting an hour each day to an office complex where we warehouse them--heat them in the winter, cool them in the summer--only to have them spend the day emailing to (or otherwise networking with) colleagues in next door cubicles. Companies should set aside one day a week for employees to work remotely. Let's call it "Third Place Thursdays." Opinion from Tom Hayes, Edgelings

Sales for the global semiconductor industry rose 7.5 percent in May, year over year, boosted by sales of consumer electronics. However, while sales rose, revenues didn't keep pace due to the falling prices for memory products. Does this mean the price competition phase of the cycle has started?

A recent study by Harvard University and Dartmouth College goes through the data and suggests that a high level of regulations matters a whole lot—in a bad way—to entrepreneurs. It took a study?

Oracle Corp. is still trying to to put a price tag on damages from an intellectual property lawsuit it filed against rival SAP. The Redwood City software giant claims that an SAP subsidiary got their hands on a large volume of Oracle's customer service info and the company has said their estimate of damages could top $1B.

A big week for Telecom: First Nokia aquires Symbian and now Virgin Mobile USA has agreed to acquire Helio mobile phone division from SK Telecom and Earthlink for an investment that totals $50 million. What does it mean for you?

Final damages have been settled by a San Francisco judge in the dispute over who came up with the idea for social media utility Facebook. The social networking company has agreed to pay an undisclosed sum of cash and stock to college friends of Founder Mark Zuckerberg who have claimed that Zuckerberg used their ideas for the company without compensating them. A tentative deal had been struck in February but challenges have held up the final judgment.

He went from Harvard drop out to one of the richest men in the world and along the way changed how the world lives, works and plays. After a week of goodbyes, Bill Gates moves on to his next challenge, leaving the company he created and a legacy as complex as the man.

Today's typical data center is 1,000 times as large and uses 1,000 times more kilowatt-hours than a typical data center in 1972. And it's only going to escalate. Research shows the cost of powering data centers worldwide could grow from $18.5 billion in 2005 to $250 billion by 2012.