postscript

Gaming Education

2010-10-27T17:28:00.000-07:00

Classic ed-tech games and build-your-own methods are now joined by the "gamification" movement. There are at least three different classes of digital games in schools. Which you prefer speaks volumes about the role you believe schools should play. The first group, the classic edu-tech games, have danced in and out of schools for so long that many kids take them for granted. Most of these

Playing Games In School

2010-10-25T07:00:00.000-07:00

Many parents of adolescents curse the electronic games that soak up their kids' time and energy. But 12-year old Chris Rybicki gets plenty of encouragement to spend time on games—at least when he's building them with a program called "Scratch." Developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab, Scratch is a three-year old project that aims to transform education by giving kids

Makers versus Sponges

2010-06-16T17:40:00.000-07:00

The rumbling debate over whether technology helps or hurts us -- and our kids -- is growing louder. The ever articulate writer, Nicholas Carr, stoked debate with his new book, "The Shallows." (Yes, he believes, Google makes you dumb.) Last Monday, the New York Times worried that technology may be reshaping our brains. Also last week, neurobiologist Steven Pinker weighed in on the New York Times

Venture capitalists do it. Why shouldn't philanthropists do it, too?

2010-05-26T17:44:00.000-07:00

Pitch a new idea to venture capitalists and the first question they’ll shoot back is: “Who else is in your space?” If you can’t answer that question, go straight back to “Go” and don’t even dream of collecting $200. VCs, of course, needs to weigh competitive as well as potentially complementary efforts. But answering that question should help the entrepreneur, too. Entrepreneurs are most

Drop-Testing Education

2010-04-19T17:47:00.000-07:00

A researcher I know has devoted three years to following a group of low-income students in the Baltimore area who have been learning geometry with the help of an innovative online program. Her paper (which isn't published yet) is a marvel of careful observations and statistical analysis. Its conclusion, however, is poignant: not only did the students who used the computer program not learn more

Changing Minds

2010-04-14T08:58:00.000-07:00

Two fantastic posts that I have to share by women who are helping change people's minds about the role of technology in education: First: Lucy Gray, an education technology specialist at the University of Chicago. On Monday she gave a powerful presentation "Beyond Buzzwords" at the TED x TLN conference. Flip through her slides here. And the money quote if you're in a rush: "Before we expect

The Future of Work

2009-12-02T10:42:00.000-08:00

A panel held at Google on the future of work, Nov 5, 2009 Panelists were Fabio Rosati, CEO Elance; MichelleFowler, Principal, Flexperience and Maynard Webb, CEO LiveOps; Elizabeth Corcoran moderatorGeorgetown Tech Alliance - The New Way To Work from Georgetown Tech Alliance on Vimeo.

Cracking An Educating Impasse

2009-10-28T00:01:00.000-07:00

By Elizabeth Corcoran 10.28.09, 12:01 AM EDTMOUNTAIN VIEW, CALIF.--In 2005, Bronx middle school IS 339 was a wreck. A slim 9% of the students could do math at their grade level. Classes were regularly locked down to dampen conflicts. Ambulances and police cars frequently vied for parking spots with school buses. Four years later, IS 339 is a very different school from the one principal Jason Levy

Playing For Real Money

2009-10-19T00:00:00.000-07:00

Start-up kaChing wants to rip the covers off the mutual fund business. By Elizabeth Corcoran, 10.19.09, 12:00 AM EDTBURLINGAME, Calif. - For the past 14 years, Andrew F. Mathieson has run Fairview Capital Management in Greenbrae, Calif., a $400 million investment fund. It's been a nice investment opportunity for those well-heeled enough to get in Fairview's front door: Mathieson has

Tech-media power couple moves on

2009-10-06T07:06:00.000-07:00

Posted by Adam Lashinsky, Editor at Large October 6, 2009 7:06 AM Tech journalism loses Corcoran and Anders It's a sign of the times that two of the tech world's finest, most seasoned, intelligent and nicest journalists no longer are plying their trade for the mainstream media. That they're also married means an entire household's prodigious output isn't finding its

Getting To The Top Of The Class

2009-09-16T18:00:00.000-07:00

Smart Technologies aims to change how kids learnby Elizabeth Corcoran, 09.16.09, 06:00 PM EDT Forbes Magazine dated October 05, 2009 Connecting more than just the dots: David Martin and Nancy Knowlton with a Smart board.Children who marched into their grade school classrooms this autumn found the usual assortment of crayons, glue sticks and light-up globes. Thousands found something else:

Selected video links on Forbes.com

2009-09-01T16:09:00.000-07:00

Selected online video Forbes interviews by Elizabeth Corcoran Talent For RentSeptember 01, 2009Forbes.comWhat companies need to know before outsourcing work. Disrupting PowerAugust 13, 2009Forbes.comEthernet investor Bob Metcalfe on why the smart grid will be as revolutionary as the

NBC Press: Here appearances

2009-08-01T17:06:00.000-07:00

NBC Press Here: With Opera CEO Jon von Tetzchnerhttp://www.pressheretv.com/?cat=1&subcat=1&video=217 Episode 17 "Flip and NASA Kepler" Part 1 San Francisco inventors revolutionize the video camera industry and sell the company for $590 million. Episode 16 "Digg CEO" Part 1 Has

Turning Cell Phones Into Projectors

2009-05-20T18:00:00.000-07:00

by Elizabeth Corcoran, 05.20.09, 06:00 PM EDTForbes Magazine dated June 08, 2009Put a projector in your pocket. Infrared light turns into green light at Corning.Transistors soak up much limelight in the digital world. But the backstage heroes are lasers: Red lasers brought us compact discs and cheap long-distance communications. Blue lasers, which cram even more data into a small spot,

Confidence Game

2009-05-06T18:00:00.000-07:00

Elizabeth Corcoran, 05.06.09, 06:00 PM EDT Forbes Magazine dated May 25, 2009 George Akerlof believes consumers' confidence plays a tricky role in moving the economy. American consumers, it seems, began feeling more confident about the economy in early April. That raises a multibillion-dollar question: If our confidence in the economy continues to grow, do we need the federal government to

A Really Dangerous Book

2009-04-17T09:40:00.000-07:00

by Elizabeth Corcoran , 04.17.09, 09:40 AM EDT Science is exciting when you blow things up. Here's how. In Pictures: Don't Try This At Home! Theodore Gray would be quite a kick to have at a party. He knows how to salt his popcorn using poisonous gas and a how to make a metal explode when it gets wet. He makes metal spoons that dissolve a few seconds after you stir them in water.

McNealy: Hire Great People and Delegate

2009-01-26T18:00:00.000-08:00

by Elizableth Corcoran January 26, 2009Sun Microsystems' chairman talks about what it takes to turn managers into CEOs. .headscott_mcnealy { background-color: #336699; color: #ffffff; font-weight: bold; padding:2px;}.borderscott_mcnealy{ border:1px solid #003366;}.bordercolorscott_mcnealy { background-color: #336699;}.rowscott_mcnealy { background-color:

The Seeds of the Satyam Scandal

2009-01-08T16:36:00.000-08:00

January 08, 2009Forbes.comHow B. Ramalinga Raju's pride--and risk-taking--created India's Enron.Until the past few weeks, the corporate headquarters of Satyam Computer Services was an island of calm a short drive outside the bustling city of Hyderabad, India. Flags of countries representing Satyam's customers line the driveway leading to the front door. Visitors to its center were treated to a

John Doerr's Top 10 (or so) List

2008-10-30T09:09:00.000-07:00

By Elizabeth Corcoran 10.30.08, 9:09 AM ETBurlingame, Calif. - 'Tis the season of fear and inspiration in Silicon Valley. Earlier this month, leading venture investing firm Sequoia Capital shocked Silicon Valley by blasting its entrepreneurs with a slide show featuring a slaughtered pig and a dead clear message: the fun and games are over. The slides were almost instantly shared throughout

Egg-Citing Votes

2008-10-29T19:00:00.000-07:00

By Elizabeth CorcoranOctober 29, 2008Forbes.comThe votes in the Forbes-Instructables contest are in! And the winner is... In Pictures: Egg-Citing Winners

Intel Inside--Classroom

2008-10-17T17:43:00.000-07:00

By Elizabeth Corcoran, 10.17.08, 05:43 PM EDTThe chip company is pursing a classic, long-term strategy by investing the minds of the world's young.Brenda Musilli is just the sort of no-nonsense executive who has helped build Intel Corp. into the world's largest computer chip company. A 30-year Intel veteran, she's done stints in marketing, finance and other corners of the corporation. And

Making Future Headlines

2008-08-13T18:00:00.000-07:00

by Elizabeth Corcoran, 08.13.08, 06:00 PM EDT Forbes Magazine dated September 01, 2008 Dale Dougherty and Tim O'Reilly are the Thomas Paines of the DIY revolution.If the do-it-yourself trend is a revolution, then Dale Dougherty (above, left) and Tim O'Reilly (right) are its Tom Paines. Their three-year-old quarterly magazine, Make, is the DIY manifesto, urging readers to unleash their creativity

Bill Gates Unfiltered

2008-06-23T18:00:00.000-07:00

by Elizabeth Corcoran June 23, 2008Forbes.comGates reflects on innovation, Microsoft's contributions and what he's doing in his spare time. Q&ABill Gates Unfiltered Elizabeth Corcoran, 06.23.08, 6:00 PM ETBurlingame, Calif. - Beginning in July, Bill Gates will switch jobs for the first time in his adult life, stepping out of a full-time job at Microsoft and moving over to

Apple Buys Chip Designer

2008-04-23T00:15:00.000-07:00

by Erika Brown, Elizabeth Corcoran and Brian Caulfield 04.23.08, 12:15 AM ETBURLINGAME, CALIF. -Late Tuesday, in response to questions from Forbes.com, an Apple spokesman said Apple has agreed to buy a boutique microprocessor design company called PA Semi. The company, which is known for its design of sophisticated, low-power chips, could spell a new future for Apple's flagship iPhone, and

Necessities We Can Do Without

2008-04-18T19:53:00.000-07:00

Burlingame, Calif. -Charles Darwin would have had a field day with today's technology. When he touched down in the Galapagos Islands in September 1835, Darwin scooped up a menagerie of finches, iguanas, rocks, plants and such. His data gathering was quick and dirty: He spent only nine days stuffing his crates with Galapagos samples and neglected to label them precisely. But he wound

Yahoo!'s Striptease

2008-04-09T19:51:00.000-07:00

BURLINGAME, CALIF. -Will it be Google or AOL? Yahoo! executives are willing to team up with competitors to craft a new future for their company--provided those competitors don't include Microsoft. But Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer still has a card to play: He's enlisted the support of Rupert Murdoch to create a partnership that would involve combining Yahoo!, Microsoft's MSN and News Corp.

How To Buy Happiness

2008-03-20T22:33:00.000-07:00

Bad news for the luxury goods market: Spending money on tchochkes doesn't make you happier, but giving money away just might. That conclusion, in a study published Thursday in the journal Science, flies in the face of what most people--and, certainly, advertisers--typically believe. It's far easier to measure income than happiness. Even so, researchers around the world have reported that

How To Buy Happiness

2008-03-20T19:00:00.000-07:00

WHAT: Venture Philanthropy WHO: John Colligan, Jerome

CALIF. magazine: history of venture capitalism

2007-01-01T16:00:00.000-08:00

WHAT: Venture Capital WHO: William Draper, Eugene Kleiner, Armas Clifford Markkula, Jr., Tom Perkins, Arthur Rock, Don

Column: Andy Grove's Re-entrance

2006-12-18T13:08:00.000-08:00

Letter From Silicon Valley12.18.06, 6:00 AM ETBurlingame, Calif. --Andy Grove understands how to make a re-entrance like no one else. Not the pop-star flounce onto a stage, heralded with flashing lights and throbbing background music. But the kind of entrance that matters--the ability to look at a growing problem that surrounds him, step away--then come back in with a fresh solution. I was

Column: 'I Will Not Cheat!'

2006-12-08T13:55:00.000-08:00

Letter From Silicon Valley12.08.06, 6:00 AM ETA chunk of the Hewlett-Packard spy scandal ended yesterday not with a bang but a snivel.A snivel, because the $14.5 million penalty the government has levied on HP amounts to a “tsk, tsk,” for a company with a $109 billion market capitalization.A snivel because the money will go into a kitty that the California attorney general’s office can

Column: A Walk on the Virtual Side

2006-12-04T13:17:00.000-08:00

Letter From Silicon Valley12.04.06, 6:00 AM ETBURLINGAME, CALIF.--As a reporter, I try to follow the story wherever it leads, editors and expense accounts permitting. In February, I hopped on a plane and headed to Bangalore, India. Last week I thrilled my editors with a more parsimonious proposal to visit Second Life, a booming virtual world. Second Life, created by San Francisco-based Linden

News: Microsoft's Courtroom Flashback

2006-11-30T13:43:00.000-08:00

11.30.06, 6:00 PM ETBurlingame, Calif. -Even as Microsoft executives tout Vista as the operating system of the future, operating systems of the past continue to plague it. Today in Iowa, attorneys have once again taken Microsoft to court over anti-trust charges associated with its Windows operating system. In addition to the age-old complaints about squeezing out competitors and price-fixing

Book Review: Andy Grove, The Life & Times of an American

2006-11-26T10:10:00.000-08:00

The driven life of Intel titan Grove -Reviewed by Elizabeth Corcoran Sunday, November 26, 2006 Andy Grove: Life and Times of an American By Richard S. Tedlow PORTFOLIO/PENGUIN; 568 Pages; $29.95Over the past few decades, we've seen a parade of business archetypes: There's

Column: What It Takes to Succeed

2006-11-20T14:26:00.000-08:00

Letter From Silicon Valley11.20.06, 6:00 AM ETBURLINGAME, CALIF.--There is only one person who is both on the Forbes Rich list and the Computer History Museum’s Hall of Fellows--essentially the all-star list for computer science pioneers. (Hint: He probably isn’t your first guess.)The chasm between who collects the big bucks and who invents new technology struck home for me in the past week. On

Column: India Revisited

2006-11-06T09:00:00.000-08:00

Letter From Silicon Valley11.06.06, 6:00 AM ETBurlingame, Calif. --Is India's gain America's loss?Sunny globalists like New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman delight in India’s rising economic prominence, led by its vast pool of high-tech engineers.Then there’s the apocalyptic crowd, who believe that India’s advancement is inexorably tied to America’s ruin. In their eyes, every time a

CALIFORNIA Magazine: Stalking a Killer

2006-11-03T17:15:00.000-08:00

November/December 2006 | VOLUME 117, NO. 6 Stalking a killerRewiring cells: Prof. Jay Keasling blendsbiology with chemical engineering to createsynthetic organisms capable of alteringnature and fighting deadly diseases.Photographs by Marcus HanschenFEATURE STORYStalking a killerby Elizabeth CorcoranWill Jay Keasling's team of synthetic biologists and Bill and Melinda Gates's foundation fin d a

Column: Why Apple Won

2006-10-23T11:48:00.000-07:00

Letter From Silicon Valley10.23.06, 6:00 AM ETBurlingame, Calif. -The best piece of management advice I’ve ever heard came from a boss who said his job was to set the bar for performance incredibly high and cheer like crazy for his employees to clear it. I thought of that advice this past week as I set my iPod to “shuffle,” and flipped through a new book on the iPod and that sultan of

Book Review: Andrew Carnegie

2006-10-22T12:31:00.000-07:00

Man of steel -- and silence Carnegie felt himself to be 'trustee' of his wealth -Reviewed by Elizabeth Corcoran Sunday, October 22, 2006 Andrew Carnegie By David Nasaw THE PENGUIN PRESS; 878 Pages; $35 At a time when you can learn almost anything with a few hops around the Internet, our expectations of biographers have grown steeply. They must have exquisite (and of course

Column: The Irony Of Large Numbers

2006-10-09T11:45:00.000-07:00

Letter From Silicon Valley10.09.06, 6:00 AM ETBurlingame, Calif. -Call it the irony of large numbers. It’s not just enough to make a fortune in technology these days. To be taken seriously, you’ve got to have a philanthropic cause. Bill Gates, of course, is saving the world from nasty diseases. John Doerr, the Valley’s über-venture capitalist at Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers, wants to

Column: The Pretexting Way

2006-09-22T11:44:00.000-07:00

Letter From Silicon Valley09.22.06, 6:00 AM ETBurlingame, Calif. -Hewlett-Packard has my number. Not only my work and cell phone number, but probably also the numbers of my father, the nanny of my son’s best friend and a host of others. My husband, George Anders, works for The Wall Street Journal. He was one of the nine journalists targeted by private investigators hired by HP to figure out

Travel: Nothing but sand and sky

2006-09-17T12:20:00.000-07:00

Sun, Sep. 17, 2006 TRIP PUTS UTAH'S GRANDEUR IN FOCUSSpecial to the Mercury News Whoosh. A burst of flames eruptsabove my head. My

Column: Back To Silicon Valley's Future

2006-09-11T11:42:00.000-07:00

Letter From Silicon Valley09.11.06, 6:00 AM ETBURLINGAME, CALIF. -Tim O’Reilly has invented a time machine. Not the H.G. Wells version, but an intellectual time shifter that briefly brings back some of the inventive magic of Silicon Valley’s past. Last month he offered me a ride. It was a vivid reminder of what made Silicon Valley great--and a tempting promise of things to come. For the past

Egang: Data Driver

2006-09-04T14:06:00.000-07:00

On The Cover/Top StoriesData Driver09.04.06Sebastian Thrun is very clear on the future. "Forty-two thousand people in the U.S. die in traffic accidents every year," he says. "Down the road, I know cars will drive themselves. It's just right!" Robots don't get drunk, fall asleep or talk on the phone. If we turn highways into "invisible rail systems," he says, we can combine the convenience of a

Egang: Emobots

2006-09-04T14:04:00.000-07:00

On The Cover/Top StoriesEmobots09.04.06Caleb Chung wants pleo to perform. "Come on," he coaxes the rubbery toy dinosaur, stroking its nose. Pleo blinks its large eyes, stretches, wags its tail and totters a few steps--then yawns and curls up for a nap. Life is exhausting when you're a prototype robotic toy, just months away from your debut. It's even more exhausting for principal inventor Chung,

Egang: Stickybot

2006-09-04T14:00:00.000-07:00

On The Cover/Top StoriesThe Stickybot09.04.06Cockroaches inspire Robert J. Full. So do crabs, geckos and a closetful of other creepy creatures. Not that he likes them. "I think they're disgusting!" says Full, a professor at UC, Berkeley. "But how do they move like they do?" This biologist believes he can best nature. He has spent his life scrutinizing the ways many-legged animals scamper over

Egang: The Robots Are Coming!

2006-09-04T00:49:00.000-07:00

COVER: EGANG 2006Magazine issue date: Sept. 4, 2006The robots are on the move--leaping, scrambling, rolling, flying, climbing. They are figuring out how to get here on their own. They come to help us, protect us, amuse us--and some even do floors. Since Czech playwright Karel Capek popularized the term ("robota" means "forced labor" in Czech) in 1921, we have imagined what robots could do. But

Column: Counterpoint: Careers And Marriage

2006-08-22T11:35:00.000-07:00

OpinionForbes.com published a story Aug. 22 by editor Michael Noer on two-career relationships that provoked a heated response from both outside and inside our building. Elizabeth Corcoran, a member of our Silicon Valley bureau and principal author of the magazine's current cover story on robots, sent in this rebuttal. Here's a link for reader discussion. Point: Don't

Column: Quiet Power

2006-08-14T11:39:00.000-07:00

Letter From Silicon Valley08.14.06, 6:00 AM ETBurlingame, Calif. -In early 2005, when the board of Hewlett Packard sent then-CEO Carly Fiorina packing, women in Silicon Valley didn't exactly smash their LaserJet printers in protest. But there was a widespread concern that the demise of the Carly Era might make it harder for other female candidates to prevail in races for top jobs--to become "

Forbes: Back-Office Charity

2006-07-24T14:21:00.000-07:00

Back-Office Charity; An Indian outsourcer is outsourcing his business--and helping the rural poor. Elizabeth Corcoran 1119 words24 July 2006Forbes112Volume 178 Issue 2(c) 2006 Forbes Inc. For 15 years B. Ramalinga Raju has helped make India a global tech star. His outsourcing company, Satyam Computer Service Ltd., in Hyderabad, has $1 billion in revenue and 23,000 employees. Now he wants to

Column: Rabbit Feet 2.0

2006-07-24T11:32:00.000-07:00

Letter From Silicon Valley07.24.06, 6:00 AM ETBurlingame, Calif. -Ancient Greeks touched oak trees when they wanted Zeus to protect them. Irish farmers nailed horseshoes to their doors with the tips pointed up to keep their luck intact. But in this high-tech age, people have progressed far beyond such superstitions. Or have we? Poke around Silicon Valley, and you'll find lots of entrepreneurs

Book Review: Cross Country

2006-07-11T13:54:00.000-07:00

REVIEW Road trip makes for a long haul Elizabeth CorcoranTuesday, July 11, 2006Cross

Column: What Options Scandal?

2006-07-05T11:29:00.000-07:00

Letter From Silicon Valley07.05.06, 6:00 AM ETBurlingame, Calif. -Only the pushy succeed in Silicon Valley. Only the people with a bullheaded belief that they're right persevere when others laugh at their ideas. Only people willing to push the envelope, to break the rules of civility, can nail a big sale to a skeptical customer. Or transform a concept into a company worth billions. Most of

Forbes/Asia: Booting up in India

2006-06-19T14:25:00.000-07:00

FORBES-ASIA Booting Up in India; Tech companies battle it out for the Indian market. Elizabeth Corcoran 1141 words19 June 2006Forbes AsiaVolume 2 Issue 11Copyright 2006 Forbes Inc. Computer makers are betting on the lagging giant being a sweet spot for personal computers. HP is getting a jump. Suresh Kumar has been selling computers in Bangalore at his shop, Karthik Business Machines, for

Forbes: A Bad Spell for Dell

2006-06-19T14:23:00.000-07:00

A Bad Spell for Dell; Lots of little changes are in store to halt the swoon of this famous model of efficiency. Elizabeth Corcoran 1767 words19 June 2006Volume 177 Issue 13Lots of little changes are in store to halt the swoon of this famous model of efficiency. Kevin Rollins had a lot of explaining to do on Friday, May 19. The chief executive of Dell had just announced the company's

Column: Gates' World Of Good

2006-06-19T11:25:00.000-07:00

Letter From Silicon Valley 06.19.06, 6:00 AM ETBurlingame, Calif. -So why'd he do it? Why did Bill Gates decide to walk away from full-time work at Microsoft--the software giant he founded 30 years ago--in favor of a new career as a full-time philanthropist? Gates himself didn't offer much of an answer last week. Most commentators have been so busy picking apart the strategic implications

Column: Who's Really Running Google?

2006-06-05T11:17:00.000-07:00

Letter From Silicon Valley06.05.06, 6:00 AM ETThis is the first in a series of dispatches from Silicon Valley from Forbes magazine Senior Editor Elizabeth Corcoran. BURLINGAME, CALIF.--Imagine that the earth's magnetic field flip-flopped: Instead of compass needles pointing north, they'd quiver around the "S." That's what's happened in Silicon Valley. Since the early 1990s, entrepreneurs and

Interview: Jonathan Schwartz

2006-05-04T14:09:00.000-07:00

Chat TranscriptsQ&A: Sun Microsystems' Jonathan Schwartz 05.04.06, 6:00 PM ETSAN FRANCISCO -Jonathan Schwartz, 40, newly named Sun Microsystems chief executive, jokes that he differs from mentor Scott McNealy in tonsorial style (Schwartz has a ponytail) and beverage habits (he drinks wine, not beer). Schwartz will need to carry the differences over to running Sun--by rewriting its business

Forbes: TI seeds IT

2006-04-17T14:27:00.000-07:00

TI Seeds It Elizabeth Corcoran 477 words17 April 2006ForbesVolume 177 Issue 8(c) 2006 Forbes Inc. Texas Instruments was the first international chip company to open an office in India when it set up there in 1985. Some 2,500 people applied for jobs; TI hired 16 and put them to work in Bangalore. Oxen helped haul equipment to the new office. Twenty-one years later TI India has blossomed

Forbes: Chips and Biryani

2006-04-17T14:26:00.000-07:00

Chips and Biryani; How one U.S. tech company builds business by arming the offshorers of India. Elizabeth Corcoran 2262 words17 April 2006ForbesVolume 177 Issue 8English(c) 2006 Forbes Inc. How one U.S. tech company builds business by arming the offshorers of India. Michael Fister has come to India not to save money but to make money. He has seen opportunity budding at Beceem

Book Review: Body Brokers

2006-03-12T13:22:00.000-08:00

When the dead do not rest in peace A journalist unveils a thriving industry in human remains - Reviewed by Elizabeth Corcoran Sunday, March 12, 2006 Body Brokers: Inside America's Underground Trade in Human Remains By Annie Cheney BROADWAY BOOKS; 204 PAGES; $23.95 What happens when you die? Put aside all the theological and philosophical debates that question conjures up and

Interview: James Barksdale

2006-01-30T14:29:00.000-08:00

From Microsoft to Katrina; James Barksdale, former head of Netscape, has a new challenge: bringing business back to hurricane-ravaged Mississippi. Elizabeth Corcoran 475 words30 January 2006Forbes50Volume 177 Issue 2(c) 2006 Forbes Inc. James Barksdale, 63, who fought antitrust battles with Microsoft as chief executive of Netscape, has been leading a different sort of charge since

Book Review: The Worst Hard Time

2006-01-08T13:17:00.000-08:00

The answer on the wind Those who didn't escape scrabbled for a living. But how did the Dust Bowl happen? - Reviewed by Elizabeth Corcoran Sunday, January 8, 2006 The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survivedthe Great American Dust Bowl By Timothy Egan HOUGHTON MIFFLIN; 312 Pages; $28 On April 14, 1935, a freakish storm barreled through the Texas Panhandle, sweeping

News: Gates Takes On Malaria

2005-10-30T21:30:00.000-08:00

30 October 2005 San Francisco--Bill Gates is going after bugs in a big way--but not the computer kind. Today, the billionaire co-founder of Microsoft and his wife, Melinda, announced that their philanthropic foundation is giving $258.3 million to researchers to help fight the parasites that cause malaria. It is the single biggest donation from a charitable organization to fight malaria ever

Forbes: Chutzpah Science

2005-07-25T09:49:00.000-07:00

Even the Gates Foundation would run out of money if all it did was buy vaccines. So now it's going about inventing them, too. Stefan Kappe is a bug-killer. Every week in a tiny, humid room (nicknamed The Swamp) at the nonprofit Seattle Biomedical Research Institute, Kappe and his colleagues slit open between 2,000 and 3,000 mosquitoes to collect the microscopic parasites that cause malaria. By

Forbes: Ride the Light

2005-04-11T10:34:00.000-07:00

Silicon Always Wins On The Cover/Top StoriesTeaching silicon new photonic tricks promises a huge boost in getting data out of a computerIn his lab at Sun

News: Saving The World From Real Viruses

2005-01-25T21:38:00.000-08:00

25 January 2005 SAN FRANCISCO-- When Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates set out his vision for the future in his first book, The Road Ahead, back in 1995, he imagined computers at everyone's fingertips. These days, he has a much more fundamental vision: vaccines for every child. Today, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is announcing that it will give $750 million over the next ten years to

Book Review: Eyeing the Flash

2005-01-16T13:27:00.000-08:00

Memoir of a scam artist reads like another trick Reviewed by Elizabeth Corcoran Sunday,

News: Bill Grows Up

2004-10-04T21:45:00.000-07:00

04 October 2004 SAN FRANCISCO-- Bill Gates may have spent the last ten years on the top of the Forbes 400 Richest Americans list--but only now has he gotten comfortable with the altitude. Last week, at the annual luncheon of one of Silicon Valley's longest-running philanthropic organizations, the Microsoft (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people ) chairman

Book Review: A Child's Work

2004-05-30T13:45:00.000-07:00

San Francisco Chronicle:Playing make-believe is the serious business of childhoodReviewed by Elizabeth CorcoranSunday May 30, 2004 A Child's Work: The

Forbes: Unoutsourcing: Dell's problems with customers

2004-05-10T16:31:00.000-07:00

Unoutsourcing; Dell finds some customers have a problem with outsourcing. Dell moved product support for business accounts from India back to the U.S. It seems some customers were not happy with the prior arrangement. 978 words10 May 2004Volume 173 Issue 10 Dell can assemble and ship a new computer for a customer in 24 hours. But it took six months for the company to get Karen Anderson's