At the local level, water-user associations responsible for the management and maintenance of irrigation canals have been set up with foreign help.

ECONOMIST: The heavy costs of non-co-operation

Yelp, a popular Web site that hosts user-generated reviews of local businesses, hosted a party at a contemporary art center in San Francisco that was reminiscent of the '90s dot-com extravaganzas.

FORBES: How To Celebrate--Silicon Valley Style

Though Nextdoor is currently free of advertisements, the site plans a directory of local businesses that could link to user recommendations, like a Yellow Pages-Yelp mashup.

WSJ: Nextdoor Review: Social Network Brings Neighbors Together

Among the functions unique in the MINI segment are access to the GoogleTM local search and GoogleTM Send to Car services and reception of user-definable RSS news feeds, the content of which is displayed on the on-board monitor and can be read out using the optional voice output function.

ENGADGET: Mini Cooper Connected app adjusts music based on driving style, stops when airbags deploy

Customers benefit from a new, feature rich user interface that provides one-click access to all of their preferred local and global services but also benefit from a browser that is much faster and more data efficient compared to other browsers, reducing the amount of data consumed by 30-90% depending on the types of services and files accessed.

ENGADGET: Baidu and Orange launch mobile browser for Africa, Middle East