As with more urgent matters like health care and global warming, the US has been and remains well behind the times in pocket-change convenience.

The Serenity universe is dusty and messy, peopled by thieves, prostitutes, suck-ups, disgruntled veterans, and garden variety assholes.

Behold a true Irish poet of the back alleys.

imstar* turns instant messaging into an immersive adventure with games, life experiences, and lifelike avatars.

It speaks for the romantic, the idealist, the lover, the hopeless (or hopeful) devotee, the Icarus, the Abelard in us all.

No one had ever offered to fill an iPod up with legal music, at a realistic price. Now someone has.

Stardate 1984: I'm just out of college. Still wearing my Ronald Reagan protest beard.

It's about love - its presence, its absence, the troubles it makes for us and the rescues it alone can effect.

A fine-sounding and lovingly presented encapsulation of rock's greatest improvisational band at their earliest peak.

Seriously good music for grown-ups.