Nike controls a staggering 95% of the basketball shoe market already (a function of Michael Jordan much more than James or Kobe Bryant), but it has a new competitor in Under Armour which launched its first basketball shoe this month.

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Nippon Telegraph and Telephone is lobbying hard for the InfoBind system it has developed with Kobe Steel.

ECONOMIST: Roll-your-own CDs roll on

Though it did not become fully apparent until Kobe, the new sense of voluntarism has actually been more than a decade in the making.

ECONOMIST: Japan

Founded in 1949 as a maker of basketball shoes in Kobe, Japan, Asics's sales are smaller than a global heavyweights like Nike, and it has become increasingly reliant on low-cost manufacturing partners in other parts of Asia to compete.

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