Welcome to The Faster Times update. In today's edition, we bring you Google's miniskirt, Apple's power, MDG diseases, Banksy, and Paul Giamatti. Enjoy!

Like an aging mother in a too-short skirt straining to fit in with her teenaged daughter, are Google’s efforts with social just making it look desperate and sad?

iConomics is a word I’ve created to capture the state of doing business in a world that Apple ($AAPL) owns and the rest of us just live in.

Regular readers know that I am a fairly astute observer of market trends and themes. While lots of ink has been spilled about Apple’s ascendancy, no one has really yet formulated a good list of takeaways from it all. Below are what I view to be the key lessons for companies in the Era of Apple…

Global funding for neglected diseases, including some targeted in the Millennium Development Goals, rose to $3.2 billion in 2009 and funds were better distributed between diseases, according to the third G-FINDER report. The funding rise of nearly a quarter of a billion dollars between 2008 and 2009 came alongside a $50 million drop in funding for non-profit organisations that coordinate product development partnerships for neglected diseases.

“The Los Angeles Times” has confirmed rumors that the ever-mysterious street artist Banksy “is definitely in the hood,” after a slew of his pieces popped up around Hollywood. With the Oscars weeks away, and Banksy up for best documentary, “Exit Through The Gift Shop,” bloggers everywhere are speculating as to whether he will be attending the pomp and circumstance. While unlikely, we live in a world where the Speaker of the House can’t stop crying. Sh*t is crazy. And Bansky likes to defy expectations.

For the “Barney’s Version” campaign, publicists have been supplying critics with paperbacks of the Mordecai Richler novel from which the movie derives. Nice gesture, but it seems like an act of contrition: Sorry about that; here’s what you missed. Yes, yes, movies must be movies and books are books; it’s not a contest. But of course it is.