Google and NASA

The NY Times today reports on the ultimate exec perk - a NASA runway for the use of the Google jet fleet. It's good to be the founders of Google Earth, and be able to collaborate on NASA research.

New College Institute Update

The recently founded New College Institute of Martinsville now offers tuition assistance to qualified students.
A brief history of this new collaborative institution notes that NCI will be evaluated in the future to determine whether it should remain as the unique educational entity it is today or whether it will become a stand-alone four-year college or if it will become a branch campus of an existing college or university. At present, collaborating institutions include the University of Virginia, Patrick Henry Community College, Averett University, Ferrum College, Radford University, Longwood University, Old Dominion University and Virginia Commonwealth University.

Collaboration tools

Mashable, the social networking news site, just posted a list of 60 online collaboration tools. Toolmakers range from 37Signals to Google. There are 4 tool categories: Business Productivity, Creative Collaboration, Family and Social Collaboration, and Mindmapping. Comments include reviews, and identification of additional online tools.

Also on Mashable, today's launch of NewsGator's new iPhone application was reviewed, and a list of 50 Torrent tools for legal uses was posted.