When Wallie Culbreth calls his daughter, he knows she won’t pick up. Each time, the voice mail recording kicks in, without even one ring. “Please leave me your name and number and I’ll call you right back,” promises the 18-year-old.

Tennessee’s online scribes burned up their keyboards last week chasing the ill-advised online missteps of a couple of General Assembly employees.

While the annual Electronic Entertainment Expo brought its usual share of hardcore, violent video game announcements, there was a distinctive change at the game industry’s most publicized conference. Whether it was an innovative controller, game, or online service, nearly every developer trumpeted the same message for their products: accessibility.

Dear kids,Father’s Day is next Sunday.I might need to remind at least one of you who forgot Father’s Day a couple of years ago and I had the girl at the Wendy’s take-out window give you grief over it. Granted, most years we are in transit going to or from the beach, but that doesn’t relieve you of your obligations as the fruit of my loins to honor me with a gift. Don’t think of the following items as something your own dad would like as much as gifts that any dad would like:

SAN FRANCISCO — Apple Inc. slashed the entry price for an iPhone in half and rolled out new laptops for $300 less than previous models Monday, the company’s first dramatic price cuts since the recession began a year and a half ago.

East Tennessee will be the location of demonstration fuel cell technology developed by Silicon Valley-based Bloom Energy.

Most technology wants you to think it’s cheap. Its prices drop more quickly year-over-year than many other products, as newer, shinier models land on store shelves. So when last year’s models get marked down, the big outlets seem to have the best deals around. But are they, really? In these economically troubled times, it pays to dig a little deeper. Right below the surface, there are many ways to scratch that tech itch on the cheap.

KNOXVILLE - From its bamboo floors to its rooftop deck, Clayton Homes’ new industrial-chic “i-house” is about as far removed from a mobile home as an iPod from a record player.

You would think that nothing could take you further away from gadgetry than gardening. When I’m in the garden, I sometimes have visions of myself living alone in a remote log-and-mud hut miles from Wi-Fi signals, cell-phone towers, Twitter alerts and electronic surveillance.

The heavyweights of the computer world are looking to go welterweight.