The next time you're sipping sake in Tokyo, you could also be watching a live broadcast of your hometown news or the NFC East championship game on your laptop-if you've got a Slingbox back home. The ingot-shaped device streams all of your favorite shows from any video source-such as a cable, satellite or TiVo box-to any PC with a high-speed Internet connection.

Installing a home network is like going to the dentist: You know you´ll like the results, but the process is too onerous even to contemplate. Even so, says Parks Associates, 7.5 million data networks are currently in homes, with that number expected to triple by 2006. And the number of network-enabled entertainment devices is expected to jump from 18 to 125 million. So if you´re on the brink of getting connected, you´re in good company-and it´s really not that bad if you pick the right type of network.

From fishing villages on the coast of the Arabian Sea to New Delhi slums teeming with people and poverty, children are learning the basics of computing—all by themselves. It's an experiment in what Sugata Mitra calls Minimally Invasive Education. "We often make the incorrect assumption that a teacher is required everywhere," says Mitra. If he's right, it could be a boon in India, where more than 40 percent of 6- to 14-year-olds (some 79 million kids) are unable to attend school.