In much the same way that the ringtone market grew to allow you to play whatever tune you wanted on your phone, perhaps future cars will be able to sound like whatever you want.

AS a result of advances in rotary press technology in the late 19th century, the cost of printing illustrations fell and advertisements began to include images. This was more than a change in graphic design — it was also “a shift from a culture of production and savings to one of consumption,” Mr. Norris said. “Ads now were designed to induce want.”
Google’s quiet text ads do not induce want — they don’t have the graphic palette and the room to do so. They can say only, “We have such-and-such goods in stock.” And that’s all I really want to know.

Yet a great deal is available with a subpoena, she said, citing a situation in which a client contended that his wife was playing the online game “World of Warcraft” when she said she was home schooling their daughter. Ms. Viken subpoenaed the records from the company that tracks players for the game; they showed that on some days the woman played for 10 hours.

With some assembly and do-it-yourself tinkering, the MakerBot makes, or “prints,” three-dimensional objects from molten plastic, creating a piggy bank, say, or a Darth Vader head from a computer design at the touch of a button.

Facebook’s secret campaign also underscores the long shadow that Google casts over the company. While Facebook has roundly beat its rival in social networking, its executives, many of whom hail from Google, have long feared that its rival will use its dominance over Internet search to slowly encroach into Facebook’s territory.