Lessons from the land of cheap broadband

What happens when telcos practically give it away ($13 for 100 megs!)?

NiQ Lai, chief financial officer of Hong Kong's City Telecom (CTEL), stopped by FORTUNE's San Francisco offices this week while on an investor tour. I had one question for him: Short of moving to Hong Kong, how can I get some of what he's selling?

I pay $25 to AT&T (T) every month for DSL that tops out at 1.5 MORE

Green tech: Floating city nears maiden voyage

Royal Caribbean Cruises hopes enviro-friendly Oasis of the Seas can burnish its green image.

The world's largest cruise ship -- featuring 16 decks and an interior Central Park that's longer than a football field with more than 12,000 species of flora -- is drawing ever closer to its home port of Port Everglades, Florida, where it will dock next week and conduct a few test runs before departing on its maiden MORE

California: Too Big Not to Fail?

The state of the state? "A train wreck," says one official.

If the world's eighth-largest economy were a member of the proper religious order, it'd be time to call in a priest to administer last rites.

Name almost any serious malady and the state of California has it: the nation's highest marginal tax rate coupled with an abysmal public education system; the most home foreclosures; a free-falling commercial real estate sector; lame-duck MORE

Microsoft reboots

After the Vista debacle, Microsoft changed the way it makes software. The result – Windows 7 – is winning raves. Can a new operating system (and a new attitude) help the company take on Google?

With Microsoft's founder and chairman, Bill Gates, trotting the globe in a quest to abolish diseases, his handpicked successor, CEO Steve Ballmer, has had most of a decade to move the company beyond its two MORE

IBM's Smarter Planet: the roadshow

Live from New York, it's Sam Palmisano.

The business strategy made possible by $50 billion in acquisitions, hundreds of millions on marketing, and various forms of ecological disaster, is taking the show on the road–to Manhattan's Lincoln Center.

For the next day and a half, IBM's (IBM) Smarter Planet initiative will occupy New York City's Lincoln Center in the form of a conference on developing smarter cities. IBM CEO Sam Palmisano and MORE

Ag-tech upstart is armed to take on Monsanto

Cibus Global uses bioscience to enhance plant genes with a different approach than agribusiness giants.

Israeli crop-protection company Makhteshim-Agan is investing $37 million in San Diego ag-tech startup Cibus Global to spur the development of new strains of crops that will be resistant to various forms of disease, pests, and herbicides.

The investment, which will occur over five years and will eventually allow the Israeli company to acquire slightly more than 50% MORE

iPod challenger? Microsoft Introduces Zune HD

Redmond's MP3 player goes hi-def. Should Apple be worried?

On the heels of Apple's (AAPL)  iPod event last week, Microsoft (MSFT)  is unveiling its latest offering in the MP3 player market, a sleek high-definition device capable of playing HD movies and HD radio known as, appropriately, Zune HD.

Available in 16GB and 32GB versions at $220 and $290, Zune HD features a vibrant organic LED color screen with multi-touch technology. Retail outlets MORE

First electric cars, now electric planes

Electrical aeronautics promises to revolutionize aircraft design.

GM has earned high praise this summer – and deservedly so – for its announcement that the forthcoming Chevy Volt electric car will get as much as much as 230 miles per gallon for in-town driving.

But while Detroit was stealing headlines on the ground, a little-known Chinese company was doing something even more incredible in the skies.

Duke Energy, Echelon team up on $1 billion smart grid project

Last week, the nation's third-largest utility, Duke Energy (DUK) filed an application for $200 million in federal stimulus funds to bolster its $1 billion smart grid initiative in Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky. Today the company is announcing that it has found a partner to supply the guts for the project -- and it's not who you might think.

Sony fires latest salvo in e-reader war

In what is fast shaping up to be a war in the e-reader marketplace, Sony (SNE) has launched the latest salvo, a sub-$300 touch-screen "Reader Touch Edition" and the $199 "Reader Pocket Edition," which features a 5-inch display. The company is also lowering prices of ebooks. New releases and best-sellers will all be $9.99, matching Amazon's (AMZN) price point for the first time.

In addition to lowering prices, adding a touch-screen MORE