Recently, library chief Helen Josephine of Stanford University's Engineering Library said that the students' search through volumes of books to get to a formula that they want is basically at an end because "with books being digitized and available through full text search capabilities, they can find that formula quite easily." In fact, Stanford is building a new library for its School of Engineering with 85 percent fewer engineering books than the old library.

Intel has focused solely on the computer business for so long, we forget it can pursue other avenues of growth as well. Tomorrow, all our devices will be connected and talk to each other and share information. In that new world, Intel has been looking around for another business to acquire to help expand its reach. However, Intel does not have a footprint in that space. So it has decided to acquire its way into the business by merging with one of the lesser known but important players, Infineon.

Sony has updated its e-reader family of devices: the Reader Pocket, Reader Touch and Reader Daily. The new Readers offer touchscreen functionality based on infrared sensors that read taps made by a finger or a stylus. They are smaller and lighter, and have redesigned user interfaces. In some respects, the upgrades represent a significant leap forward. The previous version of the Pocket, for example, didn't have a touchscreen at all. The previous versions of the Touch and Reader had a touchscreen overlay that critics viewed as too slow and unresponsive.

I spent an interesting day at Harvard Law School last week at the invitation of Doc Searls for a conference on the intersection of CRM and VRM, or vendor relationship management. Doc's involved with the Berkman Center at Harvard, which sponsors research into issues of law and the Internet, among other things. He's also one of the authors of The Cluetrain Manifesto, which should be required reading in our line of work. Lots of other CRM folk were there too, including analyst Mitch Lieberman and Ed Sullivan from Radian6.

Shares of Apple closed up 60 cents on Tuesday to hit $243.10. However, Cupertino is still smarting from the downward spiral of the past few weeks, when its stocks took a beating along with the rest of the market. The Dow on Tuesday recovered a fraction of what it lost after a Monday drubbing, and the Nasdaq fell nearly six points. We'll see what AAPL does on Wednesday, when Cupertino will host an event widely expected to usher in new products related to its iPod line. That product family has been given an annual September refresh for the last several years.

Delivering and managing IT continues to be complex. Application demand continues to grow, while the maintenance and support of old applications, as well as the processes involved with new applications, lead to a frustrating user experience and constraints on flexibility and business agility. Many organizations look to manage that complexity through a unified approach in order to reduce IT operational costs and provide better solutions that will allow IT to deliver and manage applications with the flexibility and agility to support increasing user demand.

VMware on Tuesday announced two purchases aimed at furthering its vision of the future of IT. One is Integrien, which offers software that -performs real=time application and infrastructure performance analysis. The other is TriCipher, which offers secure access management and enterprise identity federation for Software as a Service applications. The purchases were announced by Stephen Herrod, VMware's chief technology officer, during a keynote speech at VMWorld 2010, running at San Francisco's Moscone Center through Thursday.

Google continued its shopping spree through the social networking marketplace on Monday, agreeing to purchase SocialDeck, a 2-year-old company that develops games for mobile devices. This marks Google's third purchase of a social networking company during the month of August. These purchases have fueled widespread speculation that Google ultimately hopes to unseat Facebook as the dominant player in the social networking space. However, these acquisitions -- and particularly the purchase of SocialDeck -- could be designed to boost Google's presence on the mobile Internet.

I was at a friend's dual celebration of birthday and wedding anniversary recently, and as part of the occasion someone had prepared two fantastic cakes, which were both amazing to behold and a delight to eat. While the appearance was all to do with the icing, the taste and nutrition were defined by what was under the icing -- the cake itself. The recent market buzz around engaging the social customer is a welcome and necessary reflection that the game has changed.

Corporate America is playing a cruel joke on Linux desktop. Businesses benefit from free Linux, improving their bottom line on the shoulders of Linux -- all the while ignoring (and damaging I think) the Linux desktop. Linux servers toil in back rooms bringing big bucks to companies smart enough to use them. What do these companies install on their employees' desktops? Windows, of course! It is no small irony that some (if not most) of Linux's biggest beneficiaries are Linux desktop's worst sponsors.