Business & Technology

By CLINT SWETT
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Reports of mishandled baggage _ those classified as late, lost, damaged or pilfered _ soared in September among all U.S. carriers, rising 81 percent, compared with the same month a year ago.

By ANYA SOSTEK
Monday, November 20, 2006
Clay Carlino works on a pirate ship. With cannons that shoot smoke. Surrounded by a moat. Inside a warehouse in an industrial park.

The ship is where Carlino captains a team that designs toys and games for Davison Design & Development, which designs products both for individual inventors and for corporations.

Another group of employees who work on infant products have their desks inside a 26-foot by 16-foot crib, under what might be the largest baby mobile in the world _ they're checking with the Guinness Book of World Records.

By PIA SARKAR
Monday, November 20, 2006
Retailers expect to see more stuffing in their stockings this holiday season, although not quite as much of an increase as last year.

While industry groups measure sales differently, all seem to point to moderate growth in November and December.

Tuesday, November 21, 2006
With Turkey Day around the corner, it's time to start thinking about holiday gifts. What better place to start than the consumer electronics aisle?

The San Francisco Chronicle's Technology team spent weeks aggregating opinions and arguments about tech toys ranging from tiny cell phones to huge HDTVs.

By DAVID TEMPLETON
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Driving city miles can be dangerous and cause hypertension. But that challenge increases greatly when the moving vehicle no longer has a human driver.

In the case of Carnegie Mellon University's Tartan Racing team, the driver is a bank of computers with new-age software, radar devices, sensors, lasers, cameras and global positioning systems, along with various other high-tech doohickeys, gizmos and gadgets.

And the big question is, will it wend its way through the cityscape and return? If so, will it leave a wake of traffic violations and downed utility poles? Will its computers need air bags?

Those are the issues facing the Tartan Racing team, which is busy turning a Chevrolet Tahoe into a robomobile that can compete in next November's Urban Challenge.

The event, which the Defense Advance Research Projects Agency will hold at a Western site to be announced, will require robotic vehicles to navigate 60 mock city miles through traffic to carry out missions without human interaction.

DARPA competitions entice research teams to push wheeled technology to new heights.

Previous challenges offered a top prize of $2 million, but Congress did not fund the award for next year's competition.

By STEPHEN WINDHAUS
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
The Christmas season is near; retailers are at their busiest and, for most, it ushers in the conclusion of another tax year. Accountants and bookkeepers will be busy compiling financial statements and preparing for the tax season.

By STEVE BUCCI
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
These are specialty consumer reporting agencies, which report on whether consumers bounce checks and pay late on their rents, gambling debts, medical bills.

By David Milstead
Sunday, November 19, 2006
E.W. Scripps is among a group of more than 150 newspapers from seven companies that have struck a wide-reaching alliance with Internet giant Yahoo.

The first step in the partnership, announced this morning, is designed to bolster classified advertising sales, with local help-wanted ads becoming part of Yahoo's HotJobs site.

By David Milstead
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
E.W. Scripps is among a group of more than 150 newspapers from seven companies that have struck a wide-reaching alliance with Internet giant Yahoo.

The first step in the partnership, announced this morning, is designed to bolster classified advertising sales, with local help-wanted ads becoming part of Yahoo's HotJobs site.

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Saturday, November 18, 2006