In print: local NHS improves itself, the 'digilanti', Microsoft's techfest, Twitter, Ultima's inventor and much more

This week's print edition of the Technology supplement is online too..

• Fitter, healthier, more productive
  Britain's medical practitioners are making lifesaving technological advances at local level - by effectively ignoring the costly NHS IT programme, explains Michael Cross.
• The unsung guardians of the internet
  An army of 'digilanti' - unpaid loners at their PCs - are trying to keep the web free of spam and scammers.
• Hi Mom, ths Microsoft TechFest is gr8 :-) PS hv u seen Zune Buggy?
  Microsoft Research showed off nifty ideas from SMS 'stickies' to virtual cars.
• The serious business of making online games fun
  Richard Garriott, The man behind the Ultima series, sets out where he sees the MMO genre going and how his new game, Tabula Rasa, fits in.
• If old media can do a wiki, why can't gamers?
  Aleks Krotoski: Earlier this year, Penguin and DeMontfort University launched One Million Penguins, an attempt to converge traditional book publishing with Web 2.0. Millions of people (not penguins) made this WikiNovel a flailing, abstract, Dada-ist vision of interactive literacy.
• Games
  Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 | Diddy Kong Racing | Spectrobes
• Newly Asked Questions:
  • Is anyone sure what time it is in the United States?
    It's been made much harder by the imposition of Daylight Savings Time (DST) three weeks earlier than normal - an idea the US Congress voted for two years ago, hoping that getting everyone out of bed an hour earlier would lead to energy savings of 1%.
  • What is Twitter, and is there any reason I should care?
    It's a kind of social networking site, and is generating huge amounts of buzz among the web's early adopters thanks to a simple conceit. All twitter.com does is ask: "What are you doing?"
• Read me first
  Nicholas Carr: Feel free to call my blog a parasite, because I'll take it as a compliment.
• Lost? Follow me in, to the social future
  Victor Keegan: Visitors to the site, Lost.eu, will find an ambitious target - to sign up 7m people so it can claim to be "the largest online game ever".
• Technobile
  Mat Smith: Is it too much to ask of modern design that a microwave be equipped with simple buttons?
• If we can't sort out spam, what hope do we have for tackling global warming?
  Charles Arthur: Dave Rand doesn't have the air of an optimist defeated by reality, though one would have thought that someone who set up a company in 1994 with the expectation of purging the internet completely of spam within five or so years might look less happy with how things have turned out.
• Free data? Mustn't talk, minister tells OFT
  Government hides behind unwritten 'purdah' convention ahead of polls.
• How the tiniest sieve in the world could improve dialysis
  A super-thin membrane full of minute holes at first seemed a mistake - until the scientists thought again.
• Ask Jack
  Send your questions and comments to Jack.Schofield@theguardian.com. Published letters will be edited for brevity, but include full details with your query.
  Please visit our Ask Jack weblog for daily updates.
• Newsbytes
  Be's 24-meg broadband | Plug and watch | Log in from USB | Is that you, dear? | For bright sparks | TV to chew on? | Norton turns 360
• Letters and blogs
  Send your letters, comments, questions and rants to tech@theguardian.com, and please include your post town.
• Siteseeing
  Hitwise explains: What do you do after checking email?