Since the market's sell-off in March, large cap stocks have outperformed their small-company peers by a hefty margin.

Among other reasons, investors have favored the shares of companies they deemed less vulnerable to the spreading credit crisis, as well as those that might benefit from strong growth in overseas markets should the U.S. economy falter.

Within the universe of larger companies, one group, in particular, has done noticeably better than others. Large cap technology shares, which includes the likes of Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL), Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN), Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG), and Research in Motion Ltd. (NASDAQ: RIMM), have had a stellar run, both in absolute terms and relative to other shares.

Are DVDs on their way out as a way to distribute films, specials, TV shows and other video content? Although the early-adopter crowd says yes, I have my doubts. The value added into DVDs these days far outweighs the relative complexity many consumers must confront to get downloadable video content onto their living room televisions.

Alternate audio tracks, digital surround and a plethora of extra features movie producers add to most DVDs are prized by almost every DVD fan I know. On the other hand, downloading a movie for free can be a bit of a process for the technically challenged as well as being a pain to get on that television. There are products like the Apple, Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) Apple TV that takes care of this, but at a high cost. DVD players? $30 at a local retailer and you are ready to go.

The price of DVDs has continued to come down slowly but surely, which has to cause concern for movie studios who fear margins are being eroded at the same time movie downloads threaten to lower the revenue bar even further. In an age where DVD releases are meant to make up theater revenue letdowns, the dropping of DVD prices could be seen as a threat. But movie downloads? It's hard to find one solution offered by any company that even comes close to threatening the physical DVD as distribution medium for video content.

The New York Times [registration required] reports that Pudding Media is offering a Web phone service that will listen to your phone calls and display advertisements on your computer screen on the topic of your conversation. In exchange, your calls will be "free."

A conversation about movies, for example, will display movie reviews and ads for new films that the caller will see during the conversation. Pudding Media is working on a way to e-mail the ads and other content to the person on the other end of the call, or to show it on that person's cellphone screen.

The government currently can spy on your phone calls, your Internet activity, and your e-mail. So would you really mind Pudding Media spying on you so it can send you spam while you talk on the phone? While I can see the appeal of this strategy to advertisers, I am confident that people looking for free calls without the spying and spam will be able to do just fine using eBay's (NASDAQ: EBAY) Skype.

Why not visit Pudding Media's site and give their spymasters a piece of your mind?

Peter Cohan is president of Peter S. Cohan & Associates,. He also teaches management at Babson College and edits The Cohan Letter.

Call it Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) de-personalized, un-personalized, non-personalized or just Google without personalized results. Any way you phrase it, the concept is the same. There is apparently already a plug-in available which will bypass Google personalized search results for you. Take a trip into the blogs using the keywords, Google and personalized, and you'll likely find what you seek there.

As soon as Google initiated its personalized search function, I noticed (and disliked) the results. You see, our household PC serves dual functions and Google's personalization efforts have had a slightly negative impact on the utility of it. During the day, my wife uses the computer for her online retail endeavors. She often spends time searching suppliers, searching competitors, searching trends and the like. However, when I get on the machine later at night, I'm looking for stock tips, news items, financial blogs and other hot topics. What happens is that each day, depending on the intensity of the other person's prior use, the Google personalization feature has tainted the field for the subsequent user.

If you also are having difficulty dealing with the way Google has chosen to sculpt your search results, go ahead and cruise the blogs to find that plug-in. If you're like me and you don't mind hard keying a bypass when you go into Google search, try typing &pws=0 after the URL for your search term. I'm told that works also.

I do have one thing to state in support of Google related searches. At least its search utility still works on our machine. For some odd reason, which remains a mystery to me, Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO) image searches have taken a particular dislike to our machine or the Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) software on it. Every time we try to move harvested images from the internet into our archives via Yahoo!, the Yahoo! search not only blows us out of the search pages but it closes our browser in the process. As of yet, I have not tested our image links from Flickr and the jury remains out on Yahoo migrations to Photobucket.

Issac Asimov would be proud. In today's ever expanding universe of artificial intelligence and robotics, it would seem that no barriers remain to the boundless potential of what robots can accomplish. From cleaning swimming pools to exposing makeshift bombs, robots are now assisting humankind in tasks both dangerous and mundane. As an investment, the world of robotics can potentially provide wondrous long term growth when one considers that mobile robotics are finally being widely accepted as practical in mainstream lifestyles.

On March 30, 2007 Kevin Shult reported that Benchmark initiated iRobot Corp.(NASDAQ: IRBT) with a buy rating and a target price of $17. Kevin stated that Benchmark "believes the company is a compelling investment given its market potential and undervalued stock." Since that time, the company's shares are performing well, which has prompted me to check out the iRobot Corp. company website.

Founded in 1990 by a development team with roots from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. iRobot currently has interests in some 80 or more robotics and artificial intelligence patents. iRobot is dedicated to developing robotic technologies that can make a positive impact on peoples lives. iRobot manufactures robots that vacuum, pick up, scrub, fight fire, patrol, investigate, detect, extract and educate. It is newly shaping the fundamental practices of military, law enforcement and domestic tasks. Sporting names like Roomba, Scooba and Verro, iRobot has produced name recognition for its products by providing products that function as prescribed.

If investment in cutting edge technology is your thing (and I believe it should be a part of any investment portfolio), then I think you owe it to yourself to check this company out. Robotics and artificial intelligence are tomorrow's new horizons. iRobot has a fun and easy to investigate website which will provide you with everything you need to know in deciding if it's a good investment choice.

Many newsworthy happenings are bubbling up in the pool of activity surrounding clean-water technology. One is that India has launched the world's first floating desalination plant. Kapil Sibal, minister for science, technology and earth sciences, said Wednesday that the barge-mounted plant will produce up to one million liters of fresh water daily, and that the water would be superior to what's now available. The plant uses colder, deep sea water to assist in the cooling and condensation processes, resulting in a more efficient operation and using less energy.

General Electric (NYSE: GE) is supporting an initiative by Dynoil LLC to improve power and clean water resources in underdeveloped countries. GE is contributing solar energy modules and water filtration technology bearing its "ecomagination" certification to Dynoil's efforts to establish self-sustaining water filtration facilities in remote parts of India, Southeast Asia and Africa. Switzerland Guide News reported that Vic Abate, vice president of renewables for GE Energy, said, "We are very pleased and excited to have the opportunity to demonstrate how GE's ecomagination products can enable projects, like Dynoil's alternative energy/clean water initiative. These projects will help improve the health and safety conditions of areas lacking adequate infrastructure, transmission grids and direct access to safe water supplies." (The Switzerland Guide link is a must read!)

Accelerating Technology has reported that researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have developed a new membrane material which could revolutionize water purification technology for the long term and reduce the cost of desalination by as much as 75%, when compared with reverse osmosis systems. Reverse osmosis is the current standard water purification technology, which involves forcing water molecules through a restrictive membrane. The lab's new carbon nanotube membranes sort molecules by size and using electrostatic forces. Although the new membranes have reduced pore size, they allow the same flow-through volume as the current, less restrictive membranes. The development could mean energy savings, as less force is required to accomplish standard flow rates. Researchers say the carbon nanotube membrane also holds promise for applications in capturing and reducing carbon dioxide emissions from power plants and similar operations.

There used to be a time, whenever my family visited the US, when I sat in the back of the car with the massive road atlas and followed where we were with a finger. My stepdad would have mapped out a route a head of time, and I would call out directions. Now parents have DVD players and videogames to keep the kids quiet, and businessmen on trips in unfamiliar cities don't have a thirteen-year-old kid in the back with a Rand-McNally atlas to call out the turns.

It's no surprise, then, that the popularity of Global Positioning Systems have skyrocketed, particularly now that the cost of buying one has come falling down.

The first GPS unit I ever encountered was while living aboard a boat in the Caribbean as a kid, and it just displayed the latitude and longitude of your location. It was up to you then to sit at the chart and convert that into a location, and then figure out from there where to aim. Now GPS units integrate a map complete with roads and interesting businesses nearby.

And they're getting easier to use.

Which is why we're covering two interesting, and easy to use, GPS units for travel today in the column.