SO MANY CHANNELS, SO FEW EYEBALLS

For years local broadcast stations looked forward to digital TV as a potential business panacea. The technology would allow them to create so-called subchannels alongside their existing ones that would beam niche programming--from local weather to high school football games--over the air to viewers' sets, theoretically attracting more advertising and helping the local guys compete with cable.
After several false starts, the analog era ended and digital television went live on June 12. And those dreamed-of subchannels? Most of the country's 1,700 ...

When the Sony Walkman went on sale 30 years ago, it was shown off by a skateboarder to illustrate how the portable cassette-tape player delivered music on-the-go — a totally innovative idea back in 1979. Today, Sony Corp. is struggling to reinvent itself and win back its reputation as a pioneer of razzle-dazzle gadgetry once exemplified in the Walkman, which Wednesday had its 30th anniversary marked with a special display at Sony's corporate archives. The Japanese electronics ...

Thirty years ago Sony launched the Walkman, a gadget which revolutionised the way people around the world listened to music but has since been overtaken by an icon of the digital age -- the iPod. The July 1, 1979 rollout of the portable cassette player helped transform the Japanese company into a global electronics powerhouse. Sony sold 30,000 Walkmans in the first two months after its launch, and 50 million within a decade. Three decades on, however, Sony is struggling against rivals such as Apple, which has enjoyed immense success ...