And to their delight, experts often welcome the opportunity to inject their field's messages, or at the very least, present an accurate depiction of their profession to millions of attentive TV viewers.

FORBES: TV's Network Know-It-Alls

Max Barry, an Australian novelist, is a welcome addition to the oddly under-populated field of corporate satire.

ECONOMIST: New fiction

It's a trend we certainly welcome, both with regards to the slight leveling of the playing field it brings to hardware startups and, perhaps, toward a push for creative thinking amongst the larger companies moving ahead.

ENGADGET: How hardware startups changed the face of CES