Toyota Motor Corporation has finally put an end to the rumors flying around regarding the Prius by unveiling the newly redesigned model, which gets 50 miles per gallon, beating the current Prius and its 46 mpg combined rating.

 YouTube is looking to get their foot in the political door as the company plans to offer its online audience a peek into the political world that is Capitol Hill. The U.S. House of Representatives and Senate will both have an equal opportunity to reach out to the public using one of its favorite video websites.

 Last week, the FCC was asked by President-elect Obama's transition team to delay the switch, which is scheduled for February 17, 2009. Over the weekend, Kevin Martin, the FCC Chairman, replied in a public statement that "postponing this shut off could confuse consumers."

 We've all heard of sleep walking or even sleep driving, and cases of narcolepsy are also well known as nodders sift through their day in most unenviable ways. However, what about sleep emailing? An upcoming article in the Sleep Medicine journal will cite details of a sleepwalking state which shows how individuals can send emails in their sleep, even using higher functions for passwords and procedures.

 In collaboration with the Center for Probing the Nanoscale at Stanford University, today IBM announced a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner with 100 million times better resolution than convention MRIs - down to nanometer scales. The new device operates on samples, not large scale bodies. However, with such high resolution it has basically become a 3D replacement for the scanning tunneling electron microscope able to see proteins and viruses at scales down to 4nm.

 Despite Apple's withdrawal from this year's Macworld Expo (the move that nearly killed the event entirely right there and then) IDG, the show organizer, has pulled itself together and is now moving forward with plans for Macworld 2010 - even without Apple. At the same time, CES organizers have seized the opportunity and are now openly inviting Macworld attendees to exhibit at CES 2010 in an all new Apple-related area. Online sources also cite "friends at Apple," who claim that the company planned to ditch Macworld in order to "go large" at CES next year. Apparently, a Stevenote at CES may also be in the works.

 A three month study began last Wednesday as a geoengineering expedition set sail for the waters off Antarctica. Despite UN objections, the Indian-German expedition is seeking to validate one theory on CO2 sequestering. Can iron injected into the ocean waters help a massive plankton bloom solve man's CO2 problem and subsequent global warming?

Greenpeace released a new edition of its Green Electronics Survey that ranks the greenest gadgets and computer hardware submitted by manufacturers. The organization concluded that all manufacturers that participated in the survey have made progress in one way or the other: Hazardous materials are being phased out and recycled materials are more and more part of the production; power consumption is decreasing and green energy policies are becoming much more transparent. Unfortunately, there are very few products published in this survey, but it is somewhat surprising that Apple and other high profile companies such as Nintendo and Microsoft declined to submit their products for testing.

 Yesterday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) published temperature data for 2008. In the United States, the temperature was "0.2 degrees [Fahrenheit] above the 20th Century average [of 53.2 degrees F]." Also, "The average [U.S.] December 2008 temperature of 32.5 degrees F was 0.9 degrees below the 20th Century average."

 President-elect Barack Obama has been described as always being joined at the hip to his Blackberry - literally. And, even though it’s been said he’ll have to give it up before stepping into the White House as President, he's working to keep that from happening.

 NASA announced yesterday that in May, 2006, a huge unidentified light source was visible for 200 days. The spectrum of light it showed up in does not correlate to any known phenomena. NASA is at a loss to explain its origins.

 The VTech most people know got its reputation from home phones and kids' electronics. The company is breaking that mold at CES this year, unveiling a WiFi music streaming device, the IS9181, priced at around $200.