In 2007, Apple founder Steve Jobs told the world that his company’s phones would be controlled with “the best pointing device in the world … our fingers.”

The automakers Volvo and Jaguar  are testing the possibility of using flywheels instead of batteries in hybrid electric vehicles to aid acceleration and help engines operate more efficiently. The devices could reduce fuel consumption by 20 percent and would cost a third as much as batteries. Volvo will begin road-testing a car with the technology this fall. Read more

Google launched its Facebook competitor, Google+, just over a week ago now. Even though sign-ups have so far been limited to a fraction of Facebook’s 750 million users, it already appears that, for a lot of people, Google+ will become the other social network they need to use. Why? Because a significant fraction of their friends will force them to. 

It’s not just that Google+ has 10-person video hangouts, or that Google+ is magically free of privacy worries. It’s that Google has created the opportunity for Facebook-weary people to perform what one called “a reset on Facebook,” allowing them to escape from Facebook members they’ve friended over the years but don’t really want to interact with—and can’t quite bring themselves to defriend. Read more 

Facebook has revamped its popular chat feature by adding free video calling that can be launched inside the social network’s website. What was most striking about the launch event, held in Palo Alto, was how much CEO Mark Zuckerberg tried to distance his company from those seeking to slow its momentum, Google in particular. Read more

Where the rest of us see subway walls, Tesco’s South Korean supermarket chain Home Plus sees grocery shelves. In a trial run, Home Plus has plastered a subway station with facsimiles of groceries, labeled with a unique code for each product. As commuters pass by on their way to work, they can use a mobile-phone app to take pictures of the products they want, then check out. The groceries are automatically delivered to their doorstep by the end of the work day. With the virtual grocery store, Home Plus has reported a 130 percent increase in online sales. The experiment is just one of the increasingly innovative ways mobile devices are being used in retail. Read more

Plus is Google’s latest effort to conquer social networking. Here’s how it compares to the tools we already use. Here’s a quick score card comparing what’s been revealed of Google Plus so far with the social products already in use by millions of people. Read more