Technology Slice Blog

Homestead Air Show - For those who miss the Air & Sea Show in Fort Lauderdale, another display of military power will be staged at Homestead Air Reserve Base over the weekend. The Wings Over Homestead Air Show features the U.S. Navy Blue Angels and the U.S. Army Golden Knights parachute team. F-18 and F-15 fighter jets also will perform loops, dives and rolls. Admission is free. Gates open at 8 a.m. Planes will perform from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday and 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on Sunday. The show attracted more than 200,000 people last year. For more information, visit wingsoverhomestead.com. Homestead Air Show

Bipolar Disorder Becomes Epidemic - When a young child's behavior problems go beyond mere toddler tantrums, parents face bleak choices about how to treat them. Should they seek psychiatric or psychological help? Should the child be put on medication or some other behavioral treatment? Should he or she be labeled with a psychiatric illness like bipolar disorder? Slate had a compelling look at the question this week, which, unlike many previous articles on the topic, does not reduce parents who seek treatment to gullible victims of fad diagnoses who simply want to drug away any sign of individuality in their children. (More on Time.com: Special — Kids and Mental Health). Writer Darshak Sanghavi notes that the diagnosis of pediatric bipolar disorder emerged about a decade ago and has since been given a nod of acceptance by the mainstream medical establishment. Unfortunately, drug companies looking to increase sales have used parents' desperation very much to their advantage...

Dell Employees Move To Dell Phones - Dell is hot for smartphones. In a sign of support for its new product line, Dell plans to move roughly 25,000 of its 100,000 employees off of BlackBerry phones and onto its own line of Dell phones, specifically the Venue Pro. In addition, the PC manufacturer will begin pushing its corporate clients to use the Venue Pro, reports the Wall Street Journal. The Dell Venue Pro will soon be available on AT&T as one of the first devices to run Microsoft Windows Phone 7 operating system. Dell is betting big on its new device, but is also dumping BlackBerry for economical reasons. The company will save 25 percent in mobile costs by eliminating its BlackBerry infrastructure, said Brian Gladden, Dell’s CFO. “We actually had a conversation last night around creating a site on eBay where we can actually sell these BlackBerry devices,” he said, referring to the thousands of BlackBerry’s Dell will have to sell or recycle. This move is another blow to RIM,...

Shirley Verrett, Opera Great - Opera star Shirley Verrett, one of the world's most distinguished mezzo-sopranos and known in her prime for a beguiling marriage of vocal richness and riveting characterizations on stage, died Friday. Verrett was 79 and lived in Ann Arbor, where she had taught at the University of Michigan since 1996. Her death was confirmed by her friend and colleague, tenor George Shirley. He said she died in her sleep after a long illness. "She was one of America's greatest opera singers," Shirley said. "She had a tremendous impact artistically and as a person, and in recent years she was a wonderful teacher and mentor for students. She was an extension of the Marian Anderson figure -- dignified, gracious and possessed of an outstanding voice and interpretive sense." Verrett, who came to prominence during the full flush of the civil rights movement, was also known, as critic Tim Page once put it, "for her membership in that pio...