In a move that could shake up the American solar industry, General Electric plans to announce on Thursday that it will build the nation’s largest photovoltaic panel factory, with the goal of becoming a major player in the market. “For the past five years, we’ve been investing extremely heavily in solar,” said Victor Abate, vice president for G.E.’s renewable energy business. “Going to scale is the next move.” [Full Article]

Like everyone else, government officials want to look good. That often leads them to enact policies that promote favorable movements in the indexes by which they are judged. But when those indexes are imperfect, bad choices often result. And that’s nowhere more evident than in economic policy. [Full Article]

Matt Paxton likes to refer to himself as an “extreme cleaning specialist.” Over the years, the president of Clutter Cleaner—a Richmond (Va.) business that’s often featured on the A&E reality show Hoarders—has witnessed a lot of bizarre behavior. He’s cleaned homes littered with, among other things, dead cats and human excrement. Yet one Rochester (N.Y.) house sticks out most. It belonged to a retired office assistant from Eastman Kodak—and it was filled with office supplies. [Full Article]

Are You an Office Hoarder? So you like collecting staple removers? This nonclinical quiz will determine whether you need an intervention. [Take the Quiz]

The toy maker Mattel is revamping its best-selling Barbie franchise by emphasizing her longtime beau, Ken. The company is bolstering awareness of Barbie’s companion—who celebrated his 50th birthday on March 11—using social networks like Facebook and Twitter and a series of just-completed webisodes in which wholesome-looking young male contestants vied to be the new symbol of a modern-day boyfriend. [Full Article]

Because electronic information seems invisible, we underestimate the resources it takes to keep it all alive. The data centers dotting the globe, colloquially known as “server farms,” are major power users with considerable carbon footprints. Such huge clusters of servers not only require power to run but must also be cooled. In the United States, it’s estimated that server farms, which house Internet, business and telecommunications systems and store the bulk of our data, consume close to 3 percent of our national power supply. Worldwide, they use more power annually than Sweden. [Full Article]

The Original Crime Family  It may center around a man who would be pope, but new Showtime series “The Borgias” is anything but holier than thou. Rodrigo Borgia (Jeremy Irons) bribes, threatens and poisons his way to the papacy with the help of handsome eldest son Cesare. Meanwhile, Rodrigo’s hot-headed second son Juan is busy finding his way into fights or beds, and his wide-eyed daughter Lucrezia (who’d eventually become infamous for poisoning future husbands) only has eyes for her older brother Cesare. It’s a family story so twisted that Mario Puzo turned to it for inspiration when he was creating the family at the heart of “The Godfather” Trilogy. You can read more about the show and how you can take advantage of special Borgias promotions at metrosource.com.

Uomini Men, So Little Time  Dolce & Gabbana Uomini is celebrating its 20th anniversary with a volume featuring hundreds of breathtaking photographs of the male figure by reknowned photographer Mariano Vivanco. He accomplishes much with this book—celebrating of the human body (clothed and unclothed), referencing archetypes of Roman and Greek art, examining the ways various models meet the lens, and—in the process—creating one of the sexiest collections of images we’ve seen. Sneak a peak at dolcegabbana.com.

Light Enough to Travel  It’s the time of year when winter melts away and thoughts turn to travel — from heading out on Spring Breaks to planning Summer Vacations. So we turned to health and fitness expert Rick Dinihanian (who, in his 60s, has a better body than most of us had as teenagers). Rick advises a three week course of travel preparation — including a fitness test to measure your progress and a regimen of regular cardio, stretching, massages and more. You can read about it at his blog, which also includes videos of him performing some of the exercises — it’s especially helpful if you’re less than well-acquainted with the bevy of machinery at the gym.

Ed Davis wanted to have a word with his customers. He was shepherding his small California manufacturing company, Ceilume, through a transition from a custom job shop to a maker of vinyl ceiling tiles, and he needed to begin selling directly to consumers. That raised a perception problem: many people associate ceiling tiles with the ugly, dusty and stained mineral-fiber tiles that have loomed over offices for generations. Mr. Davis, Ceilume’s president, wanted to tell consumers that his company’s vinyl products were different. He decided to try online video. [Full Article]

Social media like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube have been embraced by Madison Avenue as effective new ways to reach consumers. But what happens when behavior on social media is deemed antisocial?

Two large marketers, Aflac and the Chrysler Group, are struggling to answer that uncomfortable question in the wake of incidents that took place within days of each other. The incidents, involving remarks on Twitter that were judged to be tasteless, inappropriate and insensitive, point out some inherent risks of social media. [Full Article]

With small and fast laptops, powerful smartphones, tablets and readily available Wi-Fi, working on the road — on planes, in airports and hotel rooms — has never been easier. But security experts say these conveniences also make the offices away from home more vulnerable to serious security threats.

“It’s a huge, huge issue for companies and employees and growing more each day,” said Bruce McIndoe, president of iJET Intelligent Risk Systems, a travel risk management company. “It’s a ripe environment for hackers and criminals.” [Full Article]

A new study shows that readers find their minds wandering when using iPad versions of magazines. Publishers had always figured that the iPad magazine, being an interactive experience, would necessarily be different from the print incarnation, with readers bouncing around a bit. But the reality exceeds even that expectation. [Full Article]

David Autor, an M.I.T. economist who has done excellent research on the labor market, has been the focus of blogosphere discussion lately. Tyler Cowen says he deserves much more attention than he gets. Paul Krugman discussed his work in a blog post and column. Michael Luo featured Mr. Autor’s work in a Times article last summer. The very brief version of Mr. Autor’s argument is that the middle of the American job market is being hollowed out. [Full Article]

Do you treat yourself as well as you treat your friends and family? That simple question is the basis for a burgeoning new area of psychological research called self-compassion — how kindly people view themselves. People who find it easy to be supportive and understanding to others, it turns out, often score surprisingly low on self-compassion tests, berating themselves for perceived failures like being overweight or not exercising. [Full Article]

The Oscar show on Sunday was predictable, dull, formulaic and repetitive. And that was just the commercials.

For the third year in a row, most of the sponsors of the Academy Awards broadcast on ABC played it safe rather than broke new ground. For instance, many spots were recycled from other live television events this month, like Super Bowl XLV; some even made their debuts last year. [Full Article]

Best Trends  Just as the fashion industry has its runway shows; so does the design world have its showcases. Two important ones have already occurred—setting the trends for 2011. January’s imm Cologne forecast a move toward natural materials (including lightly treated or untreated wood) and natural fibers—occasionally contrasted with flourishes of color or metallics for contrast—but leading to an overall color scheme of greys, blacks and whites. Similar trends were on display at the Stockholm furniture fair, especially sustainable materials and monochromatic colors; SFF also featured a Northern Lights Fair, which shows us how these trends are manifest when it comes to how we light our homes; there we saw a trend toward LED lighting—a versatile and sustainable lighting source—and even a lamp made out of a kind of sturdy paper-like substance called DuraPulp.

Judy Blooms  This April marks the 50th Anniversary of Judy Garland’s legendary concert at Carnegie Hall at which she suggested she would “sing ‘em all and stay all night.” In celebration of it, the New York Pops will be filling Carnegie Hall with her music again this March 11, along with special guests Ashley Brown, Heather Headley and Karen Olivio. You can learn more about the concert at the New York Pops’ website, order the remastered recording of Judy’s original extravaganza or get Rufus Wainwright’s valiant attempt to recreate it.

Blonde’s Ambition  Outspoken Aussie Tabatha Coffee was undoubtedly the breakout star of the first season of Bravo’s hair-stylist competition Shear Genius. She may not have won the season, but her fabulous taste and outspoken personality earned something even better—her very own show on Bravo. Tabatha’s Salon Takeover just finished airing its third season of making over the most dysfunctional salons in the country, but you can catch up with it on Bravo’s website. She’s also just released her very surprising and very entertaining memoir It’s Not Really about the Hair, which I highly recommend.

Royal weddings can generally be counted on to produce plenty of pomp and circumstance, not to mention — later on, of course — a possible future king or queen. In Britain, the approaching wedding of Prince William, second in line to the throne, to Kate Middleton, his longtime girlfriend, comes with a whole new set of expectations. [Full Article]