World Briefing

FINDINGS
MIXED SIGNALS

There's optimism about the economy, and then there's acting on it. Executives at American multinationals showed a spike in optimism in PricewaterhouseCoopers' latest management survey. In May and June, 63% of the bosses were rosy on the U.S. economy. That's up from just 34% in the first quarter. But the same execs showed little sign of doing anything other than sitting on their hands. Plans to hire workers and spend on capital investment — the missing links in this recovery — changed little over the past four quarters (about 35% plan to add workers, and 41% plan more capital investment). The execs predicted unchanged revenue-growth rates too — which kind of makes you wonder why everyone is smiling.

UPDATE
EVERYBODY'S GOING WI-FI

Since our May cover story on wireless Internet access, also called wireless fidelity or Wi-Fi, the technology has rapidly gained momentum. In June it got a boost when the group that makes rules for Wi-Fi agreed on a standard that increases access speed nearly fivefold, to 54 megabits per second. That means the systems' base stations, known as hot spots, will be able to handle more traffic and more complicated applications such as multimedia video transmission. Later that month, Marriott International finished rolling out Wi-Fi access in 400 of its hotels in the U.S., Canada, Britain and Germany; hot spots for the pay service are located in the chain's lobbies, meeting rooms and public spaces. More recently, Sprint and SBC Communications announced that they will become the latest phone companies to offer Wi-Fi service, joining a crowd that includes Verizon Wireless, AT&T Wireless and T-Mobile.