Cisco CIO Rebecca Jacoby

Even in these tough economic times, tech giant Cisco offers employees some pretty sweet benefits: Employees can visit on-campus doctors and dietitians, drop off dry cleaning, or get an oil change, and now they can pick the kind of computer they want to use at work.

That's right – Cisco has started letting workers choose from a handful of laptops, including an Apple MacBook Pro. Only don't call the program a perquisite. Rebecca Jacoby, Cisco's (CSCO, Fortune 500) top information technology officer, says the initiative, launched last year, should actually save the company money. The fact that employees involved in the pilot program are deliriously happy with it – Jacoby and her peers even get love notes from satisfied road warriors – is a bonus.

Of course, that new freedom requires companies and employees alike to make sacrifices. Since Cisco began offering a choice of machines last June, roughly a quarter of employees have opted for Macs, yet they are pretty much on their own for tech support. (An in-house online community for Mac users gets a little help from Jacoby's department.) Cisco, in turn, has to make a slightly higher upfront investment for the workers who want Macs, which are pricier than PCs.

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Anthropologist Genevieve Bell helps Intel understand what people around the world are doing with technology – and what they'll want to do next. Photo: Intel

While traveling in China, Genevieve Bell figured she'd have no trouble getting a cell phone. With cash, a passport and official documents from her employer, she went to a local shop where phone packages lined the walls, and asked for one.

I don't have any, the shopkeeper said.

She noted that she could see boxes of them all over the store.

They're bad phones, he said.

I'm only here three weeks, she confided; it can be a terrible phone. But he still wouldn't sell her one. "It was like a really bad Monty Python routine," she recalls.

The problem, it turns out, wasn't the phones — it was the phone numbers. Numbers carry symbolic significance in China (8 and 3 are good, 7 is awful) — and when this particular shopkeeper had run out of good numbers to match with phones earlier in the day, he stopped selling phones altogether. Come back tomorrow at 9 a.m., he said, and I'll sell you a phone with a suitable number.

The encounter illustrates how technology and culture blend in new ways in a global society powered by cell phones and PCs. It also serves as an example of why Intel (INTC), a company known for employing computer scientists, employs Bell, an anthropologist.

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With a line of stylish new drives and a TV marketing campaign, Seagate hopes to make digital backup more popular than … well, flossing. Image: Seagate

Aaron Levie runs his own online storage and collaboration company, so he sounds a little sheepish when he admits that, before he founded Box.net, he didn't back up the files on his computer. He's not alone. Recent studies show that at most, 17 percent of PC owners use external storage for backup, slightly higher than the percentage of people who floss daily.

This statistic, as you might imagine, annoys storage executives as much as the flossing number annoys dentists. More

The standout new feature in iTunes 8 is Genius, which builds music playlists based on the listening habits of the iTunes community. Image: Apple

It took me a while to get around to it, but I've finally downloaded the iTunes 8 update, and played around a bit with the Genius song recommendation feature. After a test drive, I've decided it's the best thing Apple has (AAPL) added to its music management suite in quite a while.

Genius solves my "iTunes laziness" problem. I've got 4,000 items in my library, I listen to genres as diverse as gospel, alternative and hip-hop, to and I'm too lazy to make good playlists out of it all. I used to count on the Party Shuffle feature to save me, but got tired of how it would end up throwing in random Christmas carols at the wrong times of year. More

Guests settle in for the Apple iPod event at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. Photo: Jon Fortt

Apple is expected to update its lucrative iPod line for the holiday season. Image: Apple

Apple 2.0: Steve Jobs photos: then and now

The event is about to begin. We're in San Francisco waiting for Apple (AAPL) to unveil updates to its iPod lineup, an annual ritual that sets the stage for the electronics maker's holiday season. Last year the company sold more than 22 million iPods during the fourth calendar quarter, 5% more than the year before. For the company to show growth again in a down economy, it will need new gear. Refresh this page for updates.

The lights have dimmed and the event is about to begin.

Steve Jobs has walked out onto the stage, looking as gaunt is he did at his last appearance. He seems to have a bit of a limp, and his voice is weaker than usual. In a nod to the concerns, he says, "Before we begin, I just wanted to mention this:" Onto the screen flashes a message, "The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated."

Now, on with the show. More

Click above for video of AMD vice president Patrick Moorhead talking about how the chipmaker will face the competition from Intel and turn things around.

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Dell's first "iPod killer," the Dell Digital Jukebox, was discontinued in 2006 …

… while Apple's iPods continue to dominate the MP3 player market with a 70 percent share. Photos: Dell, Jon Fortt

From: Jon Fortt

To: Michael Dell

Subject: Taking down the iPod

Dear Michael,

You might remember our recent chat at Fortune's Brainstorm Tech conference, when you shared with me a theme you've sounded before: "I think the sign of a great company is that it can kind of learn from its mistakes," you said, "and go on to greater heights."

You were talking about Dell's (DELL) PC business, where you've tweaked the direct sales strategy in response to a changing market. But you could just as easily have been referring to your company's tentative plans to release another MP3 player this fall to compete with Apple's (AAPL) iPod. I think if you follow your own observation, you'll delay the product launch. Dell's not ready to make this mistake again. More

When is great not good enough? When you're Hewlett-Packard's printing group.

A few years ago, the $28 billion business, headed by veteran Vyomesh Joshi, was the goose that kept laying golden eggs. It supplied most of the company's profit while the PC group lost money and the corporate technology group struggled. Now new leadership and smart acquisitions have fixed the PC and corporate businesses, and printer sales are showing signs of weakness. More

Click above to see some of the futuristic technologies Intel is cooking up in its labs.

Earlier this week at Intel's (INTC) annual research day in Silicon Valley, the company showed projects that could influence the way we live tomorrow.

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Click above to see video of my interview with Intel CEO Justin Rattner.

Earlier this week at Intel's (INTC) research day in Mountain View, I got a few moments on camera with Chief Technology Officer Justin Rattner where he talked about innovation, WiMax, and the relationship with Apple (AAPL).

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