SMITH BRAIN TRUST -- After you buy a car, do you really own it? Automakers are appealing to the U.S. Copyright Office for intellectual property protection of software regulating emissions, steering and other aspects of vehicle performance. Such a broad interpretation of copyright law would require car owners and third-party mechanics to use manufacturer-approved diagnostic equipment to analyze and fix problems.

SMITH BRAIN TRUST -- High school seniors choosing a college typically deal with such unknowns as whether a target school will accept them and be affordable, and whether they will be happy once enrolled and plugged into the campus community. Understanding students’ personal, underlying influencers in this process likewise challenges academic counselors.

SMITH BRAIN TRUST -- The European Union's top anti-trust authority appears on the verge of taking aggressive steps against Google.

Officials are applying social media, such as the CDC Emergency Twitter handle, to disseminate Ebola-related information and using wireless networks to track and predict outbreak patterns and locate individuals exposed to the virus. Companies concurrently are monitoring for threats to their supply chains, such as the Ivory Coast cocoa supply.

A recent CBC Music report holds up music bands as models of good Tweeting skills, citing Atlanta rapper Waka Flocka Flame as one example with 1.3 million followers. “@wakaFlockabsm has something for everyone,” the report says. “Fun interactions with fans, inspirational quotes and weird hashtags.” Social media has become increasingly important for musicians to engage fans, promote output and subsequently lift record and concert sales — a dynamic analyzed in a recent study from the Smith School.

Latecomer Strategy Propels Amazon Local Register Mobile card reader will give Amazon new access to offline consumer data, UMD Expert Says Amazon's push into a mobile payment space targeting brick-and-mortar merchants with Amazon Local Register means the online retail giant is poised to leverage new insight into offline shoppers, a University of Maryland expert says.

Facebook. Twitter. LinkedIn. You probably use social media – or at least you’ve heard of the major platforms. But how does social media fit into your business? In this edition of Smith Business Close-Up with the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business, William Rand, assistant professor of marketing, talks about social media at a business tool.

Smith’s marketing department has successfully recruited several active assistant professors over the past three years. Michael Trusov, who received his PhD from UCLA’s Anderson School of Management in 2007, studies Internet social networks and online word of mouth and has received several awards and mentions for his publications. Yogesh Joshi, a 2007 graduate of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, ha