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Home wind turbines are generating a fraction of the energy promised by manufacturers, and in some cases use more electricity than they make, a report warns today. The results of what is thought to be the most comprehensive study undertaken of the industry show the worst performers provided just 41 watt-hours a day - less than the energy needed for a conventional lightbulb for an hour, or even to power the turbine's own electronics. More - Many home turbines fall short of claims, warns study

Smarthouse reports: "Mobile phone company HTC is set to launch a brand new phone touch phone that will take on the Apple iPhone and the new Pre offering from Palm claims a senior executive of Telstra." Telstra staff say: More - HTC will take on both iPhone and Palm Pre

Anyone who searches for information on the web will land on MetaFilter eventually, probably without realising what it is. Nowadays, the web is designer driven, and priority is given to bold headlines, large photos, and illustrations. MetaFilter is the opposite: there are no pictures at all, and what might be headlines are in the same small print as the text. Here, it's the quality of the information that counts, not the quantity of the display. More - The shock of the old: MetaFilter may be just what you need

It's about time the Toyota Prius had some competition. Last night, Honda launched its much-anticipated Prius-killer at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit last night. The Insight, a petrol-electric hybrid that will go on sale next year, will be the company's first affordable hybrid for the mass market and a direct competitor for the Toyota Prius at a cost of less than $20,000 (£13,500). More - Can Honda's new Insight beat the success of Toyota's Prius

The unveiling of Peter Mandelson's avatar in Second Life is part of Labour's push to beat the Conservatives in the political use of new technology, but it also has a symbolic significance. Unlike the rest of Second Life, where people drop a decade or two from their looks or masquerade as animals, Peter Mandelson will actually look like Peter Mandelson. What you see is what you get. More - Peter Mandelson ushers in a virtual New Labour revolution

More - Disagreement over Google's carbon footprint

Rarely has a political website launched to such fanfare. The beta launch of Derek Draper's LabourList has received blanket coverage in the blogosphere and also made it into the mainstream media. It is a measure of the increasing profile (and perhaps influence) of the blogosphere that the launch of such a website is covered at all, let alone in two Sunday newspapers and today on Channel 4 news. But launching a website is easy. Making it work is more difficult, as many will pay testament to. More - Iain Dale: Will Derek Draper's new Labour website give me some competition? I hope so

Further proof, if we needed it, that the Daily Mail has no sense of humour. Some wag created the inevitable spoof account for the Mail on Twitter, which resulted in various diverting tweets including: More - We know the Daily Mail has no sense of humour. But Twitter?

Can two Google searches really produce as much carbon dioxide as boiling enough water in an electric kettle for a cup of tea? That's what Alex Wissner-Gross, an environmental fellow at Harvard University, is claiming. "Google operates huge data centres around the world that consume a great deal of power," says Wissner-Gross in forthcoming research about the environmental impact of computing, which calculates that every Google search produces 7g of CO2. "Google are very efficient, but their primary concern is to make searches fast and that means they have a lot of extra capacity that burns energy." More - Leo Hickman on the carbon cost of Googling