Professors at North Carolina University originally built the software called Author to help children read by creating new fairy tales. All it needs are a few details about the plot and characters, and Author s massive database of grammar and sentence construction turns them into masterful prose. The scientists say that with a few tweaks of the program, Author could make reporters obsolete. Now it's beginning to happen. Notebooks accounted for almost 25 percent of PC sales last quarter, and that number should continue to climb.
Design plays a large part, as laptops get lighter and thinner.
But manufacturers are putting more emphasis on them as desktop sales decline. A night out at the movies may not only get cheaper, it might get easier. That s because you may not need to leave your home. Last week, Hollywood s film industry agreed to allow distribution of movies over the Internet. Pricing for new and archived movies hasn t been set yet , but it's predicted films could be downloaded in about 40 minutes using high-speed connections like Roadrunner.