Editor’s note: MG Siegler covers the high-tech industry for VentureBeat. He's filling in for LTW Editor Rick Smith today.

SILICON VALLEY - At last month’s World Wide Developers Conference, Apple’s chief executive Steve Jobs did an onstage test of the iPhone 3G download speed versus that of its 2G predecessor. There was really no comparison, the 3G model blew the other one away.

But many in the audience, myself included, really didn’t find the 3G speed all that impressive either. That should soon change.

When the iPhone 3G launches next Friday, AT&T’s 3G network will be ready with download speeds of 1.7 megabits per second. That may sound good, but that is also the maximum, it’s probably unreasonable to expect speeds of that nature at all times. This means that those of us used to broadband speeds are still likely to be at least slightly underwhelmed.

However, within a few months

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. - The North Carolina Biotechnology Center is launching a program that could foster more commercialization of research work being done at the state’s universities.

This time, however, the focus is minds, not matter.

Called the NCBC Industrial Fellowship Program, it is designed to help scientists in postdoctoral work “transition” to private-sector jobs in the state’s life science industry. Across North Carolina, more than 50,000 people work in biotech-related companies.

The program will cost the Center about $500,000 a year, a spokesperson said.

Accelerating commercialization of discoveries and advances made in university research labs continues to be the focus of efforts at the institutions as well as government agencies and private sector investors such as venture capital firms.

“This is economic development one person at a time,” said Rob Lindberg,

Editor’s note: Today’s Skinny is written by MG Siegler of Silicon Valley-based VentureBeat.

SILICON VALLEY - While the iPhone 3G has eliminated two major complaints about the original iPhone: lack of 3G network support and lack of GPS, other complaints are rising up. One, which has also been around since the device’s inception, is its lack of a physical keyboard. With the iPhone 3G now squarely aimed at business users as well as consumers, with features such as Microsoft Exchange support, these complaints are being amplified.

Apple may be listening, too. The company is currently working on prototypes for an iPhone with a physical keyboard, according to a new report from The Register. Such a version would not be out until next year, but the report claims some versions already exist and are nearly functional.

I don’t know about this one.

While Apple chief executive Steve Jobs is not above changing

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. – Have you already “Googled” something today from your crackberry or other mobile device or your laptop or your desktop PC?

Going Googling is contagious, isn’t it? The world’s most powerful search engine and Internet company links us to what we seek in milliseconds.

So is Google also making us “stoopid”?

That’s the thrust of a fascinating cover story in the latest issue of Atlantic magazine by Nicholas Carr. (His latest book is “The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison t0 Google.)

In so many ways, Google has become a crutch for us – just as Windows and other word processing programs have helped with such basics as grammar and spelling. If you don’t think you are addicted to Google, try to avoid using it for a day. Ok, 12 hours. Well, 3 hours. How about 60 minutes?

I sometimes do some work at a firm that doesn’t

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. — Oil prices set another record Friday, topping $140 a barrel. Brace yourself for higher prices at the pump. But not all news on the energy front is grim.

On Thursday, advocates for energy produced by other means scored a victory when Duke Energy disclosed plans to buy a wind power firm for $320 million. And earlier this week, SAS disclosed plans to build a five-acre solar farm on its campus in Cary. The power produced will be sold to Progress Energy.

These steps to further embrace “renewables” show that Duke and Progress are deadly serious about finding ways to augment coal, nuclear and natural gas as energy prices continue to skyrocket.

The Duke deal for Catamount could add, over time, more than 2,000 megawatts of power to the grid. And the company says it is pursing projects that could generate more than 7,000 megawatts.

That’s a staggering total based on the estimate