South America spans 6.85 million square miles, and Central America extends another 202,000 square miles. Together they stretch over twice the breadth of the United States, and yet there is a big difference in opportunities for technology and telecom investors. Our southern neighbors are seeing their middle classes grow like crazy amid tremendous economic growth -- in early 2007, it was estimated that South America's population was at around 370 million people, while Central America had about 146 million people. Now that's a lot of potential cell phone subscribers. Unfortunately, the size of South America and Central America's landline and cellular phone infrastructures has just not kept up to meet the growing demand.

This is where NII Holdings (NIHD) comes in. Formerly known as Nextel International, the company focuses on integrated wireless communications, with its major operations in Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Peru and Chile. It offers a really cheap, lively way to earn the benefit of the revolution in commerce underway in the cities, rural villages and mining communities.

Now I realize that credit problems are making life tough all over, but they are really not going to prevent Brazilian, Peruvian, Colombian and Mexican teenagers, soccer moms, mine engineers and innkeepers from buying new push-to-talk phones from NII Holdings, which is the name under which Nextel sells its unique cell phone technology in that part of the world. Many nations of Europe, such as Sweden and Italy, have wireless penetration rates greater than 100%, or more than one cell phone per person. But in Central and South America, where people like to talk just as much or even more, wireless penetration is not expected to reach even 60% until 2010. To me, that spells opportunity for any wireless communication company in the region.

We haven't talk much about the railroads lately, with so much other crazy stuff going on. And yet they continue to do great business and trade for low valuations, catching even the eye of ace value investor Warren Buffett, who has taken a big stake in Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNI) recently.

One interesting thing about the railroads that's not widely understood is that they are a fuel efficient and environmentally friendly way to move freight. According to a CIBC analysis, they are at least three times more fuel efficient than trucks and emit half as many greenhouse gases. According to some estimates, there is as much a 65% reduction in dangerous emissions per ton-mile for freight moved by rail vs. truck.

Let me put it another way. According to data compiled by state transportation analysts, for every 1% of long-haul freight that is switched from truck to rail, we'll net a savings of around 111 million gallons of fuel per year and a cut in greenhouse gas emissions of 1.2 million tons. If 10% of long-haul freight now moved by truck were moved to rails, annual greenhouse gas emissions would fall by 12 million tons, according to numbers put together by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials.

How is this possible? According to CIBC the railroad companies are using new locomotives that have 12-cylinder engines that produce as much horsepower as older 16-cylinder locomotives. You may be surprised to learn that the industry is also using hybrid locomotives that combine fossil-fuel with a large bank of rechargeable batteries. Electronics also play a role, as the railroads use new on-board monitoring systems to figure out the best speed for a train, which saves fuel. Plus, they're reducing riding time, which also cuts fuel use and emissions. A transportation option that is environmentally friendly and fuel efficient? Sounds good to me!

One of the decade's most successful consumer electronics manufacturers, and, of course, one of my favorite companies, has done it again. Apple (AAPL) released its new lineup of iPods last week, and after studying the promotional materials I am ready to declare that they are red-hot and should attract substantial sell-through at retail stores this holiday season.

This was the first total refresh of the company's MP3 player line, and it was very well thought out. There is now an iPod with a fresh feature set for every price point, so whether you're an investment banker with a lot of money to spend or a student on a budget, there's a new device available that is cool enough to make you consider ditching your current player and buying a new one. That is a big, big statement for investors to consider, and it has already caused several brokerage analysts to revise their fourth-quarter earnings estimates upward.

As if Apple's earlier summer release of the iMac and iPhone wasn't enough, Steve Jobs pulled back the curtain and turned some heads with a brand-new item in the line-up called the iPod Touch. This device brings all of the cool Internet-related features of the iPhone to your music experience, allowing users to download songs from iTunes and videos from YouTube off a Wi-Fi network. You can also browse the web on its gorgeous 3.5-inch color screen, and check your email via a "soft" keyboard, or touch screen, that works just like it does on the iPhone. And because you're on a Wi-Fi network and using a new, speedier version of the Safari browser, everything loads super-fast, creating a mesmerizing experience.

Indeed, the user interface and rich functionality of these new devices are going to surprise a lot of people and really raise the bar for competitors such as Microsoft (MSFT), Nokia (NOK) and Sony (SNE). The way that cover art is employed as a navigation device, the ease of surfing to new content and the overall immersion in fast, colorful, high-touch beauty will keep Apple on the cutting edge of design and customer satisfaction. That is, as long as the devices actually work well in practice when mass-produced, and as long as customers are using strong Wi-Fi connections.

One angle that was not well covered in the mainstream coverage was Apple's new deal with Starbucks (SBUX), which actually blew me away. It's brilliant and fulfills a lot of hopes that I had for location-dependent Wi-Fi a few years back. You see, if you take your iPod Touch into a participating Starbucks store, it will automatically sense the song that the store is playing and pop it up on your device on command. In the background, the Starbucks-Apple deal will provide your device with the last 10 songs played in the store. So, if you want to buy the song that Starbucks is currently playing or recently played, you just touch your screen and it downloads onto your device. That is cool!

My 15-year-old son instantly put this device at the top of his holiday gift list, but then realized that with only a 16-gigabyte drive it wouldn't have much room for his large downloaded video collection. So, I think he and others like him will gravitate more toward the new high-end iPod Classic that provides a stunning 160-gigabyte hard drive for $399. I am very curious to see how this battle of the new models will work out, as ultimately the company will have to provide a large-capacity Wi-Fi device so that customers aren't so torn between the two that they end up buying neither. I actually think that a lot of high-end customers will end up buying both.

It's terribly ironic that our digital, wireless economy is powered by dirty, ancient fuels. For all of mankind's impressive achievements, we still rely on the burning of fossilized biomatter to facilitate our existence, just like our prehistoric predecessors.

Companies involved in the production and transportation of crude oil, natural gas, coal and their derivatives continue to see great success. And while we currently rely heavily on these resources, a combination of increasing scarcity and rising environmental costs has created new opportunities in an energy source thought to have gone extinct 20 years ago: nuclear fission.

Once considered a power-generating pariah, nuclear power plants are enjoying a resurrection of sorts. Many, including environmentalists, are beginning to believe that nuclear energy offers the best hope of weaning humanity of its reliance on fossil fuels. It is relatively clean. The technology behind it is well-proven. And probably most importantly, it is more economical than other alternative energy sources.

After Three-Mile Island and Chernobyl, Americans largely lost their appetite for nuclear-generated electricity. Given our country's endowment of coal and natural gas, we could afford to be choosy. Countries like France, on the other hand, had no choice but to develop their nuclear power industry, which is now responsible for nearly 80% of that county's electricity. The move paid off, as the French now enjoy cheap energy and the cleanest air of any industrialized nation.

Other countries are looking to replicate this success. India and China, hoping to tame oppressive air pollution while maintaining growth, are enthusiastically constructing new nuclear power plants. Turkey and Vietnam are thinking about developing nuclear power programs, while South Africa and Argentina plan to expand existing ones. Australia's prime minister thinks nuclear power is "inevitable," and Britain is encouraging the construction of new nuclear plants by easing regulatory burdens. Worldwide, some 31 reactors are under construction.

In addition to these new reactors, there are already 439 reactors around the globe currently generating 15% of the world's electricity. According to Fatih Birol, the International Energy Agency's chief economist, the total generating capacity of the world's nuclear power plants will grow from roughly 370 gigawatts to 520 gigawatts by 2030. If a price gets put on carbon dioxide emissions, "it could grow even faster."

Given all this, the United States looks ready to return to the nuclear power arena in a big way. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is expected to receive 12 applications for new nuke-powered reactors over the coming months. Another 15 are expected next year. These applications for new plants will be the first that the NRC has received in 30 years, and they are not only being spurred by economics, but also by a recently streamlined approval process. If all are accepted, it will increase the number of nuclear reactors in the United States by one-third -- but will increase power capacity even more so, since newer reactors are much more efficient.

Hamburgers aren't really a food that you naturally associate with China, but McDonald's (MCD) is trying to change that, one quarter-pounder at a time.

The other week, the Illinois-based fast-food restaurant hosted investors in Beijing to show off its progress in the huge Asian country. Executives reported that unit growth was on the move, with plans to add at least 125 restaurants per year. That's up from just 49 new restaurants last year. Already this year, 49 new restaurants have been christened, so there are currently 806 restaurants open throughout China.

Revenues from China are up nicely, as you might expect -- with same-store sales up 12% in the first half of this year and earnings doubling. That amounts to less than 1.5% of all McDonald's operating income, so the contribution is tiny but the direction is what's important.

Of course, the king of quick-serve dining in China -- as any casual visitor to Beijing or Shanghai will attest -- is Kentucky Fried Chicken, a unit of Yum Brands (YUM). But McDonald's is trying to make up ground by innovating with concepts that have eluded the colonel, such as drive-through restaurants, extended hours and a focus on breakfast.

Why do we care? Well, China not only has 1.3 billion potential diners, but 500 million of them are in cities. That makes it the largest untapped consumer market in the world. Moreover, according to Bear Stearns, the "informal eating out" market in China is already worth $165 billion annually, with quick-serve amounting to almost $40 billion. Considering that the average annual income in the country is now $1,301 -- up almost 75% from six years ago -- the amount of money available to spend on McFlurries and Big Macs is ramping up.

At present, McDonald's restaurants are in 160 cities, mostly in the eastern half of the country near the Pacific coast. The firm's northern region, which is primarily Beijing, has 221 restaurants; the central region, mostly Shanghai, has 293; and the south, mostly Shenzhen and Guangzhou, have 300.

A key differentiator for McDonald's is that it serves beef, rather than the much more ubiquitous chicken served at KFC and local fast-food operators. McDonald's also does a nice job with fish in the good ol' Filet-o-Fish format seasoned to Chinese tastes. And, of course, you cannot forget about McDonald's marketing as a differentiator, as it focuses on core menu, value, convenience and brand trust, according to Bear analysts. Prices are said to be reasonable, with a BigMac costing the equivalent of $1.35 vs. $2.85 in the United States. And the stores are said to have great service since McDonald's starts workers' pay at 20% above the minimum wage.

All in all, it looks like McDonald's is making a lot of progress in China and that it will be a stronger contributor to the bottom line over time

Big-time computer hardware and services provider International Business Machines (IBM) has a lot going for it, especially its aggressive new buyback program. But there is another big contributor to IBM's success: emerging markets.

The company has had impressive growth in commodity- and export-oriented economies around the world. These include the emerging market nations of Brazil, Russia, India and China -- the so-called BRIC nations. But what you may not know is that these countries are rapidly modernizing their information technology infrastructure with those dollars and euros that they are earning in the global market. According to analysts at Davenport Equity Research, spending on computer hardware and software in these countries is expected to grow 13% through 2013, reaching more than $57 billion.

As you can imagine, this bodes well for IBM, which is already beginning to feel the revenue growth from these nations. During the second quarter, emerging market revenue increased 32% year-over-year, to $1.2 billion, beating the 25% growth posted in the first quarter. By 2010, IBM will generate 10% of its revenues in the BRIC economies. Revenue growth for IBM will likely improve moving forward, as corporate IT departments in the developed world are also ramping up expenditures, especially in software.

IBM continues its successful shift from being primarily focused on hardware to a broader focus on services and software, which carry higher margins. Add this to the demand of emerging markets for IBM's hardware and software as they modernize their IT systems, and you can see the potential for serious growth in revenues for the company.

Just as metal, oil, gold and other commodity producers rallied as a result of the surprise rate cut by the Federal Reserve, shares of utilities have rocketed higher as market participants come to terms with the reality of lower interest rates. Historically, rate-sensitive stocks like utilities have outperformed other stocks during periods of falling interest rates. This is because investors primarily value the shares of large utilities as income-providing securities. So when the yields on treasuries fall, as they are now, income investors can rely on utilities as alternative sources of dependable income.

Additionally, there are few better places to ride out the market volatility than in large, safe, steady utilities. This is because their revenue stream isn't affected by market turbulence, or even recessions for that matter. No matter where the markets are headed, light, heat and water all need to flow to customers. That's why utilities like South Jersey Industries (SJI) have recently found eager buyers.

South Jersey Industries has five subsidiaries that serve a fast-growing area of southern New Jersey, including the busy Atlantic City area where, of course, electricity demand is high. The company's two main holdings are South Jersey Gas Co., a regulated natural gas distribution utility that serves 330,000 customers, and non-regulated South Jersey Energy Solutions, which controls the South Jersey Energy Company, Marina Energy, South Jersey Energy Services Plus and Millennium Account Services. Through these subsidiaries, SJI not only distributes natural gas and electricity to its customers, it also offers home appliance servicing.

The company is fairly progressive for a utility. It is constantly on the lookout for innovative and efficient ways to better serve its customers -- which is especially important in a time when natural gas and oil prices are skyrocketing -- and to generate new revenue.

SJI has been actively bidding on projects to provide on-site electricity to resorts and casinos in Las Vegas and Atlantic City so that these establishments can cheaply generate their own power. SJI is has projects in solar power, as well as the generation of electricity from the methane gas created in landfills. The company recently announced a joint venture to build and operate a new, two-megawatt, methane-fueled power plant in New Jersey, and another project is due to start operating later this fall.

The company has a lot on its plate right now. If you add all of these projects to the fact that interest in utilities is skyrocketing, you get a recipe for success for SJI.