Rob DeMoss never thought that kicking a bowl with Disney characters on it with his 2-year-old son would lead to the invention of a new game. The Menallen Township man is the inventor of Kick Hockey, a combination of soccer and hockey, and is showing off his creation at the Invention and New Product Exposition in Pittsburgh. "I was living in Perryopolis in 1995 and was just kicking a bowl around the kitchen floor with my son, Collin," DeMoss said. "I just had the idea that this could be really fun."

Mr Engelbart and his teams of researchers at the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) shaped the look and feel of the PC, as John Markoff chronicles in his latest book What the Dormouse Said: How the Sixties Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry. Mr Markoff's book raises the profile of Mr Engelbart, well known as the inventor of the computer mouse, and less well known for his seminal work in creating many of the concepts later found in the personal computer.

Two American scientists and an Austrian conductor won this year's Kyoto Prizes, the Japanese awards for achievement in the arts and sciences.