Silicon Valley

The Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Calif., tomorrow will unveil what it's calling a "21st century makeover" with its newly renovated building and greatly increased exhibit space.  After two years and $19 million, the museum has an entirely new look and feel and a major new exhibit called "Revolution: The First 2,000 Years of Computing."

As you enter the museum you see some of the first computing devices other than our ancestor's 10 fingers and 10 toes, including the abacus. But as you walk around, you see how technology has progressed … Read more

If you like big and green, NASA's Ames Research Center will soon have something for you: the world's largest and greenest airship.

The space agency announced today that the Mountain View, Calif., research center's Moffett Field will soon play host to a mammoth 265-foot-long and 65-foot-diameter airship from Kellyton, Ala.'s E-Green Technologies. The Bullet Class 580 will be developed and tested at Ames in 24,000 square feet of Ames' famous Hangar 2.

The new airship, which has a planned first flight date of early 2011, is expected to run on algae-based biofuel, and fly at … Read more

Last week, I spent a couple of hours at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Calif., which for a small-time collector of tech artifacts is like Charlie getting into the chocolate factory.

The highlight of the visit was a personal tour by Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, who wandered among the displays and explained how some of the products had influenced his understanding and passion for technology, which culminated in the creation of the first Apple computer. You can see several videos of Wozniak, who was very generous with his time despite nursing a sore throat, here.

My relatively short … Read more

After 15 years of hard work documenting (and hosting) the development of tech culture, there is one person whom many see at the epicenter of tech culture: Scott Beale.

The founder of Laughing Squid, a company that offers Web hosting to the tech stars (and anyone else), a well-read tech culture blog, a Twitter feed with 100,000 followers, an influential events list, and more, Beale calls himself the "primary tentacle" of his operation.

In a 2007 article on SFGate, he was called "the official photographer of Web 2.0," a title that anyone who's … Read more

MENLO PARK, Calif.--If you've never seen a robot climb straight up an entirely flat vertical wall, I dare you not to be impressed the first time you do.

That was my certainly experience when I watched a wall-climbing robot do its thing at SRI International here the other day. Indeed, my host, who had been with me through several product and project demonstrations over about three hours, noticed how excited I was by watching this little device go straight up the wall, and, I think, began to wonder if I was actually interested in any of the other … Read more

To hear Rodger Raderman and Doug Penman tell it, one of the biggest shortcomings of the modern toy industry is that it has little in common with Silicon Valley. And the two are here to remedy that situation.

Raderman and Penman are the co-founders and co-CEOs of Nukotoys, a San Francisco-based company that is aiming to take the best elements of the Silicon Valley startup--rapid prototyping, interactive technology, nimbleness, financial efficiency, and scalability--and apply them to the business of making fun, engaging, and educational toys worthy of the second decade of the 21st century.

For sure, that means a mixture … Read more

MOFFETT FIELD, Calif.--The flames were raging, and the cries of people trapped inside the plane were audible, even from well over a hundred feet away.

Yet despite the fire crews wearing heavy-duty proximity suits, blasting water from a pair of hoses, and a collection of fire trucks gathered near the burning fuselage, no one looked particularly worried. No lives were actually at stake.

This was firefighter training at Moffett Field, part of an annual process that the crews from the NASA Ames Fire Department and the nearby Palo Alto and Sunnyvale Fire Departments have to go through in order … Read more

PALO ALTO, California--It's hard to believe, but PARC is 40.

Known for years as Xerox PARC, the Palo Alto Research Center is now a wholly owned Xerox spin-off working for a wide variety of corporate clients after years of doing world-class R&D exclusively for the copier giant.

And on Thursday, with dozens of the research institution's alumni on hand, PARC threw itself a 40th birthday party.

For those not familiar with its accomplishments, PARC may best be remembered for its roles as the birthplace of the laser printer, the graphical user interface, Ethernet networking, and more. … Read more