Texas Instruments, an American corporation, conducts research and development in Japan and competes with Japanese-owned companies in selling computer chips; Jaron Lanier, an American entrepreneur who invented "virtual reality," had to go to Japan to find serious backing for his cutting-edge invention. Meanwhile, other Asian countries are trying to leapfrog out of third-world status by building a well-educated work force --- and even some places in the U.S. are trying to lure high-tech industries with the same approach. So whose fault is it that Japan took almost the whole consumer electronics industry away from the United States?