A housing development of futuristic, digital homes went online and on sale in St. George, Utah. The homes are fiber optic-ready and let an owner control everything from heating and cooling to phone service and security through a home network.
The homes are in a community called SunRiver for people 55 and older. Developer Darcy Stewart said the idea was to give residents the latest technology to help make living there fun and convenient. Some 850 of 1,800 planned homes have been completed.
A home's networks also let residents control lighting and entertainment system, access security systems from remote locations and be alerted by e-mail to any problems. A community Intranet also keeps residents informed of local news and events.
Companies like Honeywell, Lutron Electronics and Utah-based TriAxis are major partners in the endeavor.
To gain access to their home network, residents can either use a touch screen mounted inside the home, or connect to it from any personal computer, laptop, personal digital assistant or other device that can display a web page.
About 90 percent of the homes were pre-sold, at prices between $186,000 and $400,000.
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Stuck in the middle: Taiwan's government has asked Google to stop calling the self-ruled island a "province of China" on its Google Maps service.
China views Taiwan as a breakaway province and has threatened to attack the island of 23 million people if it pushes for formal statehood. The two split in a civil war ended in 1949.
Taiwan maintains it is a sovereign, independent state that is officially called the Republic of China.
The foreign ministry has not received a response from Google.
The small pro-independence Taiwan Solidarity Union has urged the public to write a protest email to Google, demanding the search engine describe Taiwan as "an independent state in Asia."
Taiwan is recognized by only 26 states in the world and has no seat at the United Nations.
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The only way to .travel: A new online domain for the travel industry is open for business. Airlines, theme parks, restaurants, tourism offices and others in travel and tourism are eligible for websites and e-mail addresses ending in ".travel."
The new domain could give consumers confidence that they are dealing with a legitimate travel business or group, though the mantra of "buyer beware" applies: Operators of the domain won't be performing any credit or criminal background checks or offering any guarantees.
Tralliance, a unit of internet communications company Theglobe.com, won approval to run ".travel" earlier this year from the internet's key oversight agency, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.
Industry groups such as the Adventure Travel Trade Association and the International Hotel and Restaurant Association have been verifying that companies and organizations belong to one of 18 eligible industry sectors.
Those approved were allowed to register and use ".travel" names.
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Save the radio star: Motorola said it signed up Universal Music Group for iRadio, a wireless music service Motorola is planning for the 2006 first quarter.
The Vivendi Universal-owned label, which has performers such as Eminem and Mariah Carey in its catalog, is the first to make its music available for the Motorola service, which will cost about $7 a month in subscription fees.
The service will include hundreds of channels of preprogrammed commercial-free music and talk stations that can be downloaded from computers to mobile phones and played on the phone, on car stereos or on home stereos. It will also allow users to transfer their own music collections to the phone.
Motorola (MOT), which had hoped to introduce iRadio in the fourth quarter this year, now plans to launch it at the annual consumer electronics show in Las Vegas in January. It expects to kick off the service with a phone that has storage for about 70 hours of music, going on sale with at least one U.S. carrier.
Alfieri said the service could compliment rather than compete with wireless music download services that U.S. wireless phone companies are planning. He said the service could introduce consumers to new songs they could later buy and download wirelessly.
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Compiled by Keith Axline. AP and Reuters contributed to this report.
