This holiday geek-giving season is proving to be my most challenging one yet. Prices for the best toys are high, and the availability for some of them is iffy.

  Personal care I have been avoiding the dentist, telling myself my hi-tech toothbrushes are doing the hygienist's job, deleting any evidence of my coffee and cigar consumption.

  HANDS-FREE CALLING I always try to get my wife Lisa off the phone when she calls me from the highway on her commute home from Providence. (Rhode Island drivers make their Massachusetts counterparts seem downright cautious on the road.) "It's OK," she always says. "I've got my headphone in."

  Wearable displays Myvu's new headset for video iPods makes you feel as if you are sitting in front of a large TV, in a darkened room, rather than staring at a tiny screen in the palm of your hand.

  Coming off a setback at the hands of the cable television industry, the head of the Federal Communications Commission moved to reassert himself yesterday by proposing that the commission quickly adopt a rule that would prevent Comcast , the nation's biggest cable company, from growing larger, commission officials said.

  The cellphone world is poised for disruption, and local start-up Vanu Inc. is positioning itself to take advantage of the transformation.

  Roaring with the constant din of traffic and enveloped in fossil-fuel exhaust, the Massachusetts Turnpike corridor seems an unlikely path to a future of clean, renewable energy.

  Verizon Wireless plans to open its network to devices and software from any company, becoming the first US mobile-phone service provider to promote unrestricted access.

  A Nigerian entrepreneur based in Natick says the One Laptop Per Child Foundation of Cambridge stole his company's design for a multilingual keyboard.

  If soaring oil prices don't provide enough encouragement to develop alternative energy, MIT has come up with an extra incentive: $200,000 in cash.

  WASHINGTON - The country's top communications regulator scrambled to save face yesterday as fellow members of the Federal Communications Commission scuttled his effort to expand government control over cable programming.

  AT&T Inc. says it plans to offer a version of an iPhone next year that runs on a faster wireless network so users can get speedier results when surfing the Web.

  Morgan Stanley said Thursday that co-President Zoe Cruz, one of the most powerful women on Wall Street, will leave in the latest investment bank management shake up since the summer's credit turmoil.

  Microsoft Corp.'s Windows XP operating system is about to get faster and Windows Vista isn't, according to a report that caused a stir online this week as industry watchers speculated that a zippier XP could keep customers from upgrading to Vista.