Think you really own the movies, eBooks and video games you've bought or downloaded? Think again.

Updated:22 Jul 2010Author:Ben Bridges

01.Digital Rights Management
Not long ago, you could buy a recording or piece of software and use it as you pleased – you could give it away, sell it or make a copy for your own use. Advances in technology mean it’s become much easier to copy digital media such as music, movies and computer games – and because they’re digital, all those copies are just as good as the original.

Consequently, copyright owners have become more anxious to prevent copying and other unapproved uses; Digital Rights Management (DRM) is the way they attempt to do so.

Updated:14 Jul 2010Author:Kate Browne

01.Introduction
It’s not uncommon to see bottles of shampoo in the supermarket for as much as $16, as more and more “specialist” or “salon” offerings appear on the shelves.

These products usually come in beautiful packaging and smell great, but does the bigger price tag actually mean a better performance? We trialled 11 popular brands of shampoo at a range of price points.

By Lisa McLaughlin Thursday, Jun. 05, 2008
Excess consumption is practically an American religion. But as anyone with a filled-to-the-gills closet knows, the things we accumulate can become oppressive. With all this stuff piling up and never quite getting put away, we're no longer huddled masses yearning to breathe free; we're huddled masses yearning to free up space on a countertop. Which is why people are so intrigued by the 100 Thing Challenge, a grass-roots movement in which otherwise seemingly normal folks are pledging to whittle down their possessions to a mere 100 items.

"Stuff starts to overwhelm you," says Dave Bruno, 37, an online entrepreneur who looked around his San Diego home one day last summer and realized how much his family's belongings were weighing him down. Thus began what he calls the 100 Thing Challenge. (Apparently, Bruno is so averse to excess he can't refer to 100 things in the plural.) In a country where clutter has given rise not only to professional organizers but also to professional organizers with their own reality series (TLC's Clean Sweep), Bruno's online musings about his slow and steady purge have developed something of a cult following online, inspiring others to launch their own countdown to clutter-free living. (See how Americans spend now.)

By STEPHANIE ROSENBLOOM
Published: August 7, 2010
A two-bedroom apartment. Two cars. Enough wedding china to serve two dozen people.

Yet Tammy Strobel wasn’t happy. Working as a project manager with an investment management firm in Davis, Calif., and making about $40,000 a year, she was, as she put it, caught in the “work-spend treadmill.”

So one day she stepped off.

Posted by Michael Schuman Tuesday, August 10, 2010 at 12:49 am

I returned a few days ago from Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia, where the talk of the town – well, at least among economists -- is the “middle-income trap.” What's that, you ask? A developing nation gets “trapped” when it reaches a certain, relatively comfortable level of income but can't seem to take that next big jump into the true big leagues of the world economy, with per capita wealth to match. Every go-go economy in Asia has confronted this “trap,” or is dealing with it now. Breaking out of it, however, is extremely difficult. The reason is that escaping the “trap” requires an entire overhaul of the economic growth model most often used by emerging economies.