CHICAGO -- Granola bar sales are booming, especially in Los Angeles. Lay's rules the potato chip market but not in Philadelphia or Baltimore. And Oreos are the top-selling cookie, period.\nThose are some of the findings of a study of snack sales during the past year in U.S. supermarkets, compiled by Chicago-based Information Resources Inc.\nThe results clearly show granola bars to be the fastest-growing snack category in the nine metropolitan areas where data were compiled.\nThe IRI data show that longtime brand juggernauts such as Oreos, Ritz, Lay's and Doritos continue to be the No. 1-selling cookie, cracker, potato chip and tortilla chip, respectively.\n
Anti-piracy \ntechnology on CDs suspended by Sony
\nWASHINGTON -- Stung by continuing criticism, the world's second-largest music label, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, promised Friday to temporarily suspend making music CDs with anti-piracy technology that can leave computers vulnerable to hackers.\nSony defended its right to prevent customers from illegally copying music but said it will halt manufacturing CDs with the "XCP" technology as a precautionary measure. \nThe anti-piracy technology, which works only on Windows computers, prevents customers from making more than a few copies of a CD and prevents them from loading the CD's songs onto Apple Computer's popular iPod portable music players. Some other music players, which recognize Microsoft's proprietary music format, would work.\nSony's announcement came one day after leading security companies disclosed hackers were distributing malicious programs over the Internet that exploited the antipiracy technology's ability to avoid detection.
