Rebecca Day

I held a garage sale recently and had hundreds of CDs on display. One of the shoppers asked me why I was dumping all my CDs. I wasn't getting rid of all my discs. I was just filtering out those that I bought for maybe a song or two (Journey's Greatest Hits, The Best of Don McLean...). I picked the tunes I wanted, shoved them into iTunes and put the discs up for sale.

A lot of profit, if you're talking about trusted names in consumer electronics. But some of those reassuring brands we grew up with — RCA, AT&T, Westinghouse, and Polaroid — bear no relation to the American companies we associate them with. In many cases, it's Chinese companies looking to make inroads into the lucrative U.S.

There's something about the electronic book that holds a lot of appeal.

Pepcom held its annual Holiday Spectacular this week in New York, where several dozen companies set up booths to promote products that will be in stores for the holidays.

Can an interior designer learn to love a speaker that's not camouflaged in the wall?  One of the founding companies of the huge in-wall/-in-ceiling speaker market is banking on it and even believes a little visibility might be a good thing.