Silicon Valley

If you spend much time with Web entrepreneurs or investors these days, it quickly becomes clear that "pivot" is the hottest term in Silicon Valley. It signifies a young company's shifting of focus, and everyone has an opinion about whether it's something start-ups should be doing or not.

The answer, it seems, is yes. And as long as it's done at the right pace, it can even be an extremely lucrative and important step. In fact, young Web outfits that pivot once or twice can raise two-and-a-half times as much money, see 3.6 times … Read more

SAN MATEO, Calif.--"They're putting Josh in the cage!"

It was early this afternoon, and a group of school kids were excitedly screaming those words over and over. And it was true. A kid called Josh was being put inside a cage that was part of a performance by a group called Arc Attack. Soon, the cage would be bombarded with electricity from two of Arc Attack's signing Tesla coils. No Joshes would be harmed in this experiment. But an awful lot of grinning would be done.

This is Maker Faire. Well, almost. The famous DIY festival begins in earnest tomorrow morning, and over the course of the weekend, in excess of 100,000 people may well get themselves to the San Mateo County Event Center here to see countless examples of do-it-yourself robotics; 3D printing; steampunk kinetic sculptures; and much, much more.

But today was setup day, the day the thousands of so-called "makers" arrive, drop their gear, and start building the projects they'll show the tens of thousands of visitors over the next two days. Being at Maker Faire on setup day is both a treat--it's always great to see the process behind something as cool as Maker Faire, and it's nice not to have to compete with 50,000 people to see something--and a curse: Only about half the projects are finished.

One thing that's definitely cool about being on hand for setup day is that each and every time you return to a specific spot, there's more there than there was the last time you went by. Even if that was just 30 minutes ago. A steady stream of trucks, vans, cars, and other conveyances arrive, and with them, the festival comes to life.

Maker Faire started here in 2006, and is now a worldwide phenomenon. From 20,000 visitors that first year to 80,000-plus last year, attendance figures are now expected to hit six figures. At the same time, the festival has planted its flag in other cities, such as Austin and New York. … Read more

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--Experts in fields such as regenerative medicine; personalized health; information and data-driven health; and neuromedicine are gathering here this week for several days of discussions about the future of medicine.

Organized under the appropriate rubric of "FutureMed," leaders in these fields, plus nearly 70 paying participants, are taking part in Singularity University's first FutureMed executive program.

For two years, Singularity University (SU)--created by futurist Ray Kurzweil and X Prize CEO Peter Diamandis--has been bringing people together at NASA Ames Research Center here to discuss what are called "exponentially growing" technologies--things … Read more

Editor's note: This is the fifth story in an ongoing series profiling college graduates throughout the United States as they hunt for technology jobs. Click here for CNET's special report, "Wanted: A job in tech."

Imagine your professional future on the line, and a group of six people you hardly know standing between you and a great job.

With national unemployment at 9 percent, and the economy still teetering between a double-dip recession and a very modest recovery, you could forgive Thomas Schluchter for being anxious as he readied for what might prove to be one … Read more

DARPA wants to go to the stars.

Yesterday, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency issued a call for concepts for a 100-year starship study program. The idea? To motivate research that could potentially "develop a viable and sustainable model for persistent, long-term, private-sector investment into the myriad of disciplines needed to make interstellar space travel practicable and feasible."

This, one can imagine, is the kind of feasibility study that would have been necessary decades ahead of time if the starships at the center of shows like "Star Trek," "Babylon 5," and "Deep Space … Read more

MENLO PARK, Calif.--If you've seen the Oscar-winning film "The Hurt Locker," you know how dangerous bomb dismantling can be. But researchers have developed a system that they say can allow military and police to disarm explosives without risking anyone's life.

The system, developed by scientists at SRI International, is known as Taurus, and it is a miniature robot that can allow a trained dismantler to remotely do the work that used to require getting up close and personal, often too close for comfort, to a bomb.

According to Tom Low, SRI's director of medical systems and telerobotics, Taurus will be in field trials this summer and is expected to be commercially available by early 2012. While he would not say specifically what the 14-inch wide robot would cost, SRI's goal is to sell it for "less than the price of a squad car," meaning that many police departments, as well as military agencies, could conceivably buy it.

I got a presentation on Taurus from Low yesterday during a visit to SRI as part of my Road Trip at Home series. I've been to SRI before and seen things like wall-climbing robots, but seeing the way that Taurus could potentially help save lives was a much starker reminder of the ways that robots can make a real difference.

Taurus is a cousin of some of SRI's previous efforts into remote-controlled telemanipulation robotics. For years, the institution has worked on systems designed to allow remote surgical procedures, such as a military doctor being able to operate from afar on a wounded soldier. Low explained that this work began in the mid-to-late 1980s, and was intended to allow highly-trained surgeons to work on such soldiers within minutes of them sustaining injuries.

Over the years, this technology led to the creation of more general-purpose robots, such as the M7 system, which could allow security personnel to remotely explore, say, an abandoned bag at an airport. Low explained that it was crucial that the system be easy to use and quick to learn. … Read more

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk argued today that his private space exploration company has "the best launch prices in the world," costs that he said make it nearly impossible for any foreign country to compete.

Musk's post on the SpaceX site was apparently aimed at answering critics who he said have misrepresented what SpaceX charges for its launches and missions.

"When I started SpaceX," Musk wrote, "it was not surprising when people said we wouldn't succeed. But now that we've successfully proven Falcon 1, Falcon 9, and Dragon, there's been a steady … Read more

It's like Batman's Robin getting upset with Holmes' Dr. Watson.

For it seems that Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak isn't entirely happy with the behavior of Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and decided to tell him so. Not to his face, it seems. But almost.

The Register reports that Wozniak dedicated some pointed, if not poignant, remarks toward Allen at the Embedded System Conference Silicon Valley in San Jose, Calif., last week.

He reportedly declared: "That patent-troll thing...the other night Paul Allen was speaking at the Computer History Museum and I had four tickets. And I decided … Read more

Consider this list of institutions and companies that are at the center of the Internet and technology worlds: Creative Commons, Mozilla, Technorati, ICANN, Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet & Society, Twitter, Six Apart, and Flickr. What do they all have in common?

If you answered Joi Ito, you're spot on. And now you can add the MIT Media Lab to that list. Ito is a Japanese venture capitalist and entrepreneur who has been running and investing in technology companies like those listed above and serving on the boards of important institutions for years. And on Monday, he was … Read more