DENVER--Google is taking advantage of the presence of innumerable state and federal bureaucrats attending the Democratic convention to engage in some old-fashioned product pitchmanship.

DENVER--During the primary campaign, Hillary Clinton lashed out at her rival, saying she was the only candidate with the right plan "to create 5 million new, green collar jobs." She dismissed Barack Obama thusly: "My opponent doesn't have much experience creating jobs at all."

Let's say Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama sent every one of those "here's my V.P." text messages from his own cell phone. And let's say his mean, nasty carrier charged him 10 cents for each one. According to Nielsen's numbers, his bill would've been $290,000--that's because the statistics firm says that the SMS campaign stunt reached 2.9 million people.

"Barack has chosen Senator Joe Biden to be our VP nominee," read the Obama campaign's early morning SMS message to his supporters. Trouble was, even by that time, many already knew it, and some weren't even getting the message.

Within the next 10 years, the U.S., China, Israel, and a host of private companies plan to set up camp on the moon. So if and when they plant a flag, does that give them property rights?

Google is investing $10 million in "enhanced" geothermal systems--essentially technology for tapping underground heat--which it says is one of most promising forms of renewable energy.

The 2008 Olympics in Beijing are over for Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, the founders of would-be Facebook rival ConnectU who earned spots on the U.S. rowing team. The identical twins ended up placing sixth overall in the men's pair event; they don't take home any medals, but it's still a more than respectable finish. To get there, the pair had to make it through two rounds of heats, a semifinal, and then the grand final; just making it to the last round is a big accomplishment.

The world watched in awe as China put on what some say was the best-ever Olympics opening ceremony ever. The proceedings culminated with the lighting of the Olympic torch by one of China's sporting greats, Li Ning, who was hanging from a wire high above the crowd. Who would have thought that at the same time, one of the stadium's projectors was displaying the famous Microsoft Blue Screen of Death?

Monday night offered me the first chance to really test NBCOlympics' live video. It was the first time I was home to watch the events and there was something live that I wanted to see more than what was on one of the television channels.

NASA's plans to launch new manned missions to the International Space Station three years after the space shuttle retires in 2010 aren't panning out.

The three students were set to highlight security holes in the automated fare collection system used by the city's transit service, at a security conference on Sunday.

Russia's actual physical invasion of Georgia has garnered much of the headline space devoted to the two countries, but the conflict is playing out online as well. Attacks against the Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili's website first occurred in late July, but gathered relatively little attention. Security investigators from the United States Computer Response Readiness Team (US-CERT) monitored the attacks, and stated that they did not appear to be a test run for a major assault.

Scientists say they are a step closer to developing materials that will render people and other objects invisible.

Google recently opened its Wikipedia competitor, styled "knol" or unit of knowledge. I wrote a definition of what is cleantech to put up on knol, and upon reflection, it's probably an overview worth passing around. Especially since given my own sites CleantechBlog.com and Cleantech.org, and CNET's work here on the Greentech Blog, we have been significant contributors to defining the sector.

The Home Office has rejected claims made by The Times newspaper that Dutch researchers have been able to fake microchipped UK passports.