Wadler's Blog

Tim O'Reilly on The Open Source Paradigm Shift
http://tim.oreilly.com/opensource/paradigmshift_0504.html

The magic behind google maps
http://jgwebber.blogspot.com/2005/02/mapping-google.html

For ideas about applications students will want to work on,
see Jamie Zawinski's recent rant on "groupware":
http://jwz.livejournal.com/444651.html