There are also new investment tools such as exchange-traded funds that allow investors to play all the angles of bank proxy investing.

FORBES: Bank Shot, Global Pocket

People and cultures are connected through rapid communication and the exchange of seemingly endless information, all through new platforms and tools.

FORBES: The World's 100 Most Powerful (And Connected) Women

Measuring the effectiveness of these tools is hard, since nobody can know what the exchange rate would be in their absence.

ECONOMIST: Latin America's economies: Waging the currency war | The

The office suite includes Exchange, Microsoft Office, SharePoint and Lync Server, among other web-based productivity tools.

CNN: Microsoft's Office 365 available for public testing

Axioma, a firm that provides risk models and portfolio-construction tools for stock investors, uses 10 factors for U.S. stocks, including exchange-rate sensitivity, debt load and momentum, or the tendency of a rallying stock to keep rallying.

WSJ: Supercharging Your Investment Portfolio