The University of Texas at Austin, one of America's largest single campuses, has helped that city become a leading high-tech centre.

ECONOMIST: Beyond oil

But now it is a major high-tech centre.

BBC: Taiwan's noise pollution dilemma

The Prince seems genuinely enthusiastic about helping to boost East London as a centre of hi-tech endeavour.

BBC: Tech City - by Royal Appointment

While prosperous Portland is the centre of a high-tech boom, that boom has bypassed poorer rural communities reeling from downturns in logging and agriculture.

ECONOMIST: And, despite ever-expanding waistlines, it is not alone

Another company created by Cambridge University Engineering Department and supported by Cambridge Entrepreneurship Centre is working on a hi-tech replacement for rear-view mirrors on vehicles.

BBC: pipe cleaner

It did so by jettisoning its traditional base and moving into the centre-ground, investing in focus groups and hi-tech surveys to gauge attitudes (see article).

ECONOMIST: British politics

Tech Hub will develop start-up businesses and Infinity, a provider of data centre services, will be based there.

BBC: London 2012: Olympic Park venue future secured

But Dennis Henigan, legal director of the Centre to Prevent Handgun Violence, replies that gun manufacturers already have access to low-tech safety devices, such as combination locks.

ECONOMIST: Anti-gun lawsuits (2)

Progress, Reuters news agency notes, has been slow on two trademarks of Mr Medvedev's modernisation drive: efforts to create a high-tech innovation incubator at Skolkovo, outside Moscow, and to turn the capital into a global financial centre.

BBC: Profile: Dmitry Medvedev

The high-tech glass pavilion, built in just over a fortnight on open ground in front of the convention centre where the meeting is to be held, is powered by photovoltaic panels which cover the whole of its sloping south-facing wall.

ECONOMIST: The power of the sun