From the Nature peer review blog
In short: wordprocessors embed author details in metadata, and downloads from websites can be tracked using tools such as Google analytics.
Solutions? Well partial ones at least.
Submit your review in plain text, and make sure no metadata is attached. Download data from public repositories, or from Google cache.
Neil Saunders has posted a great tip on using the new iGoogle page to synchronise your internet paraphernalia across computers. I definitely agree with his points. Having to “mark as read” the blog posts you read at home, in your work RSS reader, is a bit of a pain. Online tools, as opposed to installed, are where things are going, and iGoogle is an example of this.
One cool thing that google also offers is a new personalised search. Search results tailored to what you’re interested in, based on previous searches. Does this work with google scholar? It would be cool if you could upload your bibliographic database to google and it weighted your searches based on your article interests.
20% time. Ever heard of it? It’s also called Independent Developer Projects. In a nutshell, if you’re lucky enough to work for Google, apart from all the free food, giant colored balls and Californian weather, you get to spend 20% of your time working on whatever excites you. Related to Google’s aims of course, I doubt you can sit at your desk all day painting bananas red. The blurb on Google Jobs states that Google News, Suggest and Orkut all began as 20% time projects. This blog post is an example