HONG KONG, China (CNN) – What do they say about clouds and silver linings?  Well, in the world of technology, there is an upside to the economic downturn: Cheaper gizmos and gadgets.

The popularity of the netbook is a good example of that, according to Jim Erickson, senior editor of business and technology at TIME magazine.  "These are very small, very cheap, very basic personal computers," he told me at an electronics store in Hong Kong.  Erickson believes netbooks are sure to be popular with budget-conscious students this back-to-school season.  "Just about any netbook selling for less than $300" is a good buy, says Erickson.

His picks?

1) Asus Eee PC 1005HA. "The screen has gone up from 7 inches to 10 inches," Erickson says.  "Keyboards have started to spread out a little bit so they are easier to type on."

2) Acer's Aspire One D250. "Very connectable," he explains.  However, he says the shorter battery life - two hours versus the Asus model's six hours – makes it a less attractive choice for those who want to take notes on their netbook during long lectures.

Here are some of Erickson's other faves for this autumn:

1) HTC Android-powered mobile phones such as the Magic.  These phones are similar to Apple's iPhone with "touch sensitive screen and scrolling."   However, Erickson says HTC phones are generally more affordable and the Google operating system gives users connectivity with Gmail and Google maps.

2) Creative Vado Pocket Video Cam VF0570. "It's a cheap, one-button video camera for taping lectures," Erickson told me.  The Vado is less expensive than other pocket cameras such as the Flip Mino, he says, and has a user replaceable battery.  (You can swap the battery after two hours of shooting in high definition.)  Erickson believes the new iPod Nano, which has incorporated a small video camera, is also likely to be a strong competitor to the Flip.

3) Sony Reader. "For textbooks and reading PDF documents such as notes," Erickson says.  The new Sony Reader has Wi-Fi and competes with other e-readers such as the Amazon Kindle.  Erickson is a fan of the technology which he believes will eventually allow students to carry all their heavy textbook reading in a single portable device.

What devices do you recommend? Share with CNN.

CNN – It's official. Yahoo's Search is soon to become Bing. In the hours that followed Microsoft's announcement of its deal with Yahoo, talk has turned to whether they can realistically achieve their goal of taking down Google.

Google's search engine has near total market dominance in the United Kingdom, with around 90 percent of users choosing Google, compared to around 65 percent usage in the United States. When CNN's Adrian Finighan went out on the streets in London he was hard pressed to find anyone who didn't use Google's Search Engine.

The success of Bing will hinge on whether or not it’s able to persuade users to switch search brands. I have to admit I'm a little bit skeptical.

Google is so popular that it's a verb as well as a household name. There are few brands that achieve this kind of popularity. I can only think of a handful of others: Hoover and, as a Brit, Sellotape.

What do you think? Should Google be worried by the deal? We'll be looking at the story again on Thursday’s World Business Today.

Remember the anticipation that used to come with turning on a new computer? The graphics were cooler, the load-time faster and the new features in the operating system inspired awe.

When did that end? Starting up my latest laptop was a less than thrilling experience. Sure it was new and shiny, but the user experience was essentially the same as the computer I'd had before. Faster, yes, but the difference to me as a relatively average computer user was negligible. Look I love my new laptop, but it simply is not leaps and bounds ahead of my last one.

So that got me thinking - what would make my mouth drop open these days when it comes to a new laptop? There is only one thing that really frustrates me anymore: battery life. What good is wireless Internet when you can only be so far from a power socket? A 16-hour transcontinental flight and a four-hour battery life do not a happy work trip make.

Acer CEO J.T. Wang is betting other consumers feel the same way. The Taiwanese company has just launched a series of laptops they say have eight-plus hours of battery life. "Eight is a magical number, according to market studies." says Wang. "Because eight hours represents a whole day computing and you don't have to bring a big adapter."

Apparently, the battle to build a better battery is a battle of the bulge – it all comes down to weight. Building a lighter, more powerful battery appears to be more challenging than building lighter, more powerful chips.

As for me, I don't know if an eight-hour battery life is enough. I want 16. Or 24.Honestly I'd be happiest if I never had to plug the thing in at all.

How many hours of computing time would keep you satisfied?

If it looks like a duck and sounds like a duck it's probably a duck, right? Wrong. Just ask the Rolls-Royce motor company. It is mightily unimpressed by a concept car produced by Chinese carmaker Geely, on display for the first time at this year's Shanghai auto show.

At first glance you can see why.

Chinese automaker Geely unveiled its GE in Shanghai.

Geely has produced the GE which looks uncannily like the Rolls-Royce Phantom: from the iconic bonnet (hood) ornament - the Spirit of Ecstasy - to the stately and equally recognizable grille. Even the rear end tapers in on the Geely.

Now you may have expected Rolls to shrug it off, to look down its aristocratic nose and smile benevolently at an upstart paying it a sort of back-handed compliment.

Absolutely not. In the whispering, highly refined world of top-end luxury marques, Rolls was pulling no punches.

"Yes, I've had a good look at it," said Richard Carter, head of worldwide communications for the fabled British carmaker, now owned by BMW.

"It's a copy and we are frankly disappointed with Geely."

Geely's response is to say it's absolutely not a copy. It's an entirely original design, and what's more they really don't want to get into a discussion about it.

Take a look at the pictures and decide for yourself.

Copying is nothing new in the auto industry. The Japanese did it, the Koreans did it and the Chinese are now doing it, said Michael Dunne of auto research house, JD Power.

It's a long-standing joke in the auto industry that R&D stands not for Research and Design, but Receive and Duplicate.

But why is Rolls-Royce so sensitive? After all, it's not likely anyone will buy a Geely GE (if it ever makes it to production) in the mistaken belief it's a Roller. And Rolls-Royce says it can't imagine the car, even if it were in production, having an impact on its own profits.

What Rolls' action does show, according to Dunne, is just how concerned the global auto industry is by the imminent arrival of China on the world stage.

He added that it will take perhaps three to five years for China to start competing against the likes of the mass-produced family cars from Europe, Japan and Korea. It will take longer at the luxury end.

But in the meantime the non-Chinese automakers are sending a message to China that it cannot take anything for granted as it makes its way up the value chain.

It's a tough industry, especially in these times, and no one is going to get a free ride.

Rolls-Royce, quite understandably, defends its reputation vigorously against anyone who uses its designs without asking. This is no exception.

The question, though, is what can Rolls-Royce actually do about it.

"Western auto makers have taken Chinese carmakers to court in the past over what they see as major copyright infringements, but so far they have never won a case," said Dunne.

But, if the reaction of Rolls-Royce, is anything to go by they are not going to stop trying.

SEOUL, South Korea - I am in a van driving back to Seoul from LG Chem's car battery plant in Daejeon, south of the Korean capital, and I can't help thinking how the global auto industry might be transformed by 11 sheets of black paper wrapped in aluminum foil. At least that's what LG Chem's new car battery cell looked like to me.

The Korean company is making the cells for GM's new hybrid electric car - the Chevy Volt. The Volt is not yet in production, but the manufacturing lines are churning out cell after cell that LG Chem engineer Jeon Byong Hee says will go for rigorous testing at the company's labs and GM's facilities. If successful, the Volt could help breathe new life into the nearly defunct American automaker.

The LG Chem campus is huge and the car battery factory immaculate. Just to enter the building, you have to leave your shoes at the door - as if you're visiting a Korean home. To see the production lines, we had to put on protective clothing and a pair of clean slippers before our bodies were blasted with air to blow away any potentially polluting particles.

My favorite room was the cavernous "formation" room - what manager Ham Jae Gyung describes as "a mother's womb". Batteries, Ham explained to me, "breathe" and need to come to life - much like humans. In the "formation" room, fastidious engineers in pristine lab coats oversee rows of what look like towering floor-to-ceiling metal bookcases. These contraptions charge and discharge stacks of battery cells until the batteries begin to operate on their own. New car batteries are born here every day.

LG Chem's engineers are thrilled they are working on a project for GM. Volt project leader Shin Youngjoon said he was "happy" and "proud". Ham said winning the job validated his team's hard work. "We are a pioneer in this area," he told me. Developing batteries for cars is "new land" - land that can be conquered by anyone with the wherewithall to compete. "We are confident," Ham told me.

And the good engineers at LG Chem will need that confidence as their company invests in a shaken industry on the cusp of a new era.

BARCELONA, Spain - Cell phone manufacturers and network operators may be able to ride out the recession as consumers view their handsets as an essential rather than a luxury, but there's a potential dark cloud on the horizon for the mobile technology industry - the capacity crunch.

As our appetite for mobile internet and data services continues to grow, thanks to devices like the iPhone, mobile service providers are soon going to fiind that their networks won't cope with demand.

Too much traffic will clog the wireless highway and the networks know that they have to invest heavily in their infrastructures to head off the problem.

In the current economic downturn they'll find it hard to raise the required funds by borrowing and are reluctant to pass on the cost to consumers who are unwilling to pay more.

The most likely solutions, mobile advertising and peak time network congestion charging are also unpallatable. So there's no easy answer to this thorny issue, which is one of the main talking points here at this year's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Watch more about the capacity crunch

I've just completed my first two big CEO interviews planned for this week at the Mobile World Congress, and they couldn't have been more different.

First it was Microsoft's Steve Ballmer, who is here to launch an upgrade to the Windows mobile operating system (look out for my TV reports for details).

Steve's a cool guy and gave us a great interview, but before we could talk to him we had to negotiate the huge, highly efficient Microsoft media machine.

We were placed into the care of no less than four different minders before being ushered into the great man's hotel suite overlooking the conference venue for our 10-minute audience which was over all too quickly.

Contrast that with the welcome we got at RIM, the makers of BlackBerry devices.

I know it's a much smaller company, but the atmosphere at their show "chalet" was so much more relaxed and informal.

Joint CEO Jim Balsillie was his usual, cheerful and irreverent self and gave his time generously, even when I asked him awkward questions about stock options which have been getting RIM into the news for all the wrong reasons. (You can see both interviews throughout the week on CNN or here at cnn.com.)

Otherwise, it's been a crazy first morning here at the Congress. First job of the day was an early call on a company called Tellabs, which helps mobile operators get the best out of their networks.

They told us about a survey they commissioned in which they asked mobile consumers about their future plans. The results have given the mobile telecoms industry confidence it can weather the worst of the economic downturn.

It showed that while people may be reluctant to splash out on a handset upgrade in the near future, they aren't planning to cut back on the number of calls they make or the amount of data they use.

It would seem that we just can't live without our beloved mobiles and in a recession our phone bills will be considered by many as essential spending.