More than 3,100 companies flocked to the Consumer Electronics Show to hawk their wares this year, and the show's host estimates that 20,000 products are launched there. Many of the small companies founded for the show won't be back next year, but their hustle is infectious and some become huge.

For the first time, groups can apply for Internet addresses with their own suffixes. The one U.S.-created organization empowered to regulate the global Internet planned this expansion, which highlights the debate over whether another entity, such as the U.N., should take over Internet governance.

YouTube's future success depends on increasing the amount of time people spend watching videos on the site. The Google-owned website plans to roll out more than 100 new, professionally produced channels in a push to draw viewers away from television, and onto the Web.

The agency that governs domain categories like .org and .com is forging ahead with plans to sell new names despite some vocal opposition from regulators. For a registration fee of $185,000, applicants could register a suffix like .music or .Nabisco. But that could lead to problems, opponents say.