Spotlight Features

The music industry isn't what it used to be. The rapid advent of new digital audio technologies has created a wealth of options and opportunities -- as well as panic, consternation and sometimes radical change -- for recording companies, broadcasters and musicians, not to mention the listening audie...

Many of us are aware that the United States has a large trade imbalance with China. We also realize that a significant part of this trade imbalance has to do with the enormous amount of textiles that China is exporting to us. The fact is, we shouldn't blithely think that China's exports to us might ...

Getting cheaper and better cable services to consumers has been difficult because the laws governing the sector have proved tough to change. This week, officials in two states announced key decisions that may significantly change the terms of the debate. Both announcements involve cable franchise re...

Anyone who believes that the recent political maneuvers to keep the net neutrality issue out of the legislative agenda this year have been successful is sadly mistaken, promise backers of the concept. After a recent defeat, the Democrats have introduced a new bill that seeks to ban phone and cable c...

Buyers winning name brand merchandise on an auction site for a great price may not get the real deal -- and that can be a big deal in terms of costs to the companies, the auction sites and the duped consumers. Anyone buying products with brand names like Microsoft, Gucci, Nike, Canon, Nokia, Louis V...

The battle for market supremacy between Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3 has entered the next phase, one where high definition features will play a key role in determining the winner. "Console and software vendors are working to take advantage of the new capabilities that high-definitio...

I am a bit of an economics junkie. My interest in the dismal science carries over from my interest in evolution and can be summarized as, why things are the way they are and how they got that way. I am currently finishing up a book that gets me where I live, Why Most Things Fail: Evolution, Extinc...

U.S. companies that have not globalized their production or service operations are prime acquisition candidates for Western and overseas investors. Following an acquisition, the new owners can gradually shift some or all of an acquired firm's work offshore to competitive locations, making the entir...

For the last two weeks I've been talking about desktop operating systems, including why Linux is on the wrong path to be a true desktop operating system and comparing Linux to Windows Vista and Mac OS Leopard, where I concluded that Apple will have in 2008 the best opportunity in its history to grow...

Streaming digital audio and video, MP3 ripping and CD burning, podcasts, webcasts, satellite radio, digital audio broadacasting and now streaming mobile wireless: The rapid advent of new digital audio technology has created a wealth of options and opportunities for technology providers, new and esta...