A new study by ForeSee Results and the American Customer Satisfaction Index finds that U.S. consumers regard social media sites Facebook and Myspace as lowly as they regard cable providers, airlines and the I.R.S.

Choosing between the slice of pound cake or an apple? Carnegie Mellon researchers studying decision-making want to learn from you — and thanks to the new Carnegie Mellon Research Café, they can. The café is part coffee shop and part behavioral decision research lab, located in downtown Pittsburgh on the second level of Fifth Avenue Place.

Today, by contrast, will live in a wonderful world of media abundance, where every man, woman, and child really does have a soapbox on which to stand and speak to the world. Of course, no one may be listening. And there will always be someone else who will nab greater audience share than you.

In a new report out yesterday, the government's own internal watchdog took a close look at "efforts to quantify the economic effects of counterfeit and pirated goods." ... the Government Accountability Office concluded that it is "difficult, if not impossible, to quantify the economy-wide impacts."

Apple has admitted that child labour was used at the factories that build its computers, iPods and mobile phones.