Horizon highlights – Phoning it in edition

Our regular roundup of sci-tech stories from across the Web includes: How phones became the future of PCs, how robots learned to feel, and how Microsoft improved Internet Explorer. Let’s kick it off:

Innovation's call: Computer makers prepare to stake bigger claim in phones
"The computer industry has hit upon its Next Big Thing. It is called a phone. Emboldened by Apple’s success with its iPhone, many PC makers and chip companies are charging into the mobile-phone business, promising new devices that can pack the horsepower of standard computers into palm-size packages." [via NYTimes]

Digital defenders: Who protects the Internet?
"Pull up the wrong undersea cable, and the Internet goes dark in Berlin or Dubai. See our animated infographics of how the web works!" [via Popular Science]

Video: Robot minds grow by feel
"Turns out a brain needs a body to make a mind. Robots must learn how to conceptualize 'feelings' by touching, hearing and seeing for themselves. We cannot teach them." [via Live Science]

Review: Microsoft ups ante with new browser
"The Web browser is arguably the most important piece of software on a computer. No longer just a tool for perusing or searching for information, it has become, for many people, their principal communications medium, their photo album, their newspaper, social club, bank and shopping mall." [via All Things Digital]

Elas-tech: Faster flexible electronics
"For years, engineers have been trying to make flexible electronics faster and less expensive to manufacture, but this has proved difficult. For instance, organic microwires, which can be used to make flexible electronics, are hard to align as circuits. Now researchers at Stanford University and Samsung have developed a technique that allows them to precisely position organic microwires on a substrate and build complex circuits with relative ease." [via Technology Review]