For centuries, diamonds have lured women up the aisle. In the future, they may drive them to work, as engineers find a use for the precious stones in electric cars and other applications.
From ultra-durable drill bits to semiconductors and optical instruments, industry officials say the uses for diamonds are multiplying. The durability of diamonds at high temperatures may even help make the electric car a reality and advances in synthetic production have opened the floodgates to ever more innovative applications.
One of the major advances in synthetic diamond technology is chemical vapor deposition, or CVD, which forms diamonds through a chemical reaction between gases.
CVD can be manipulated to make particular shapes of diamond much more effectively than the older "high pressure, high temperature" method developed by General Electric. That means wafer-thin layers of diamond can be produced for use in microprocessors, as well as thicker diamonds for other purposes.
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Expanding: Telephone and cable TV companies are slashing broadband prices and boosting connection speeds as the two monopoly-prone industries prepare to lock horns on multiple fronts.
Two of the big regional phone companies, Verizon Communications (VZ) and SBC Communications (SBC), are spending billions to replace their copper lines with fiber-optic cables that provide enough capacity to deliver hundreds of channels of cable TV starting later this year.
The cable companies, meanwhile, are rolling out phone service over their cable lines and exploring options to add cell phones to their mix.
The prize is far larger than signing up more high-speed internet users, analysts say. Companies are trying to lock in customers who may soon be offered the convenience of buying phone, cable, internet and wireless services from a single provider out of convenience.
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IPod killer?: Don't call it a comeback yet, but Sony has a new lineup of digital music players that are slicing into the popularity of Apple Computer's iPod device in Japan.
Apple (AAPL) is still squashing Sony (SNE) in Europe and North America, where the iPod has achieved iconic status and where a big selling point is the availability of iTunes, an easy-to-use music downloading service that has not yet been launched in Japan.
While Apple remains the top seller of hard-drive players in Japan, there has been a decisive momentum swing in the Japanese market, with Sony securing the top position for memory-type players the last two months, knocking Apple and its iPod shuffle device into second place.
Translating that success overseas will not be easy, but boosting sales in Japan is an important first step for Sony as it tries to reclaim the lead in the portable audio market it helped pioneer with the Walkman cassette player 26 years ago.
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Marvel madness: Microsoft said it won exclusive rights to develop and publish multiplayer online games starring Marvel Enterprises' super heroes, including Spider-Man, the X-Men and the Hulk.
The deal covers massively multiplayer online game titles developed for Microsoft's upcoming Xbox 360 gaming console and published by the company's game studio.
Online capabilities will be central to new game consoles and Microsoft (MSFT) sees MMO games as a large opportunity.
The Xbox 360, Microsoft's next-generation game console, is due out this fall. The company launched Xbox Live, a fee-based online console gaming network, in November.
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Compiled by David Cohn. AP and Reuters contributed to this report.
