silicone

Words like "scumbag," "fraud," and "crook" once trailed after Henry Blodget's name anytime it came up in Silicon Valley. The budding Web-publishing mogul, who was once a superstar tech analyst before being accused of securities fraud, has spent the past five years trying to recover his credibility. Last week, his efforts may have suffered a setback.

This interview began in August, when I sent Blodget the questions. He e-mailed his answers on Wednesday, two days before Silicon Alley Insider, the technology news blog Blodget co-founded, wrote itself into a controversy. A member of … Read more

"Unedited. Unfiltered. News."

That's the slogan CNN chose for its user-generated news site, iReport.com, a place designed to tap into the citizen journalism craze. At iReport, any member of the public is allowed to post stories, ostensibly as part of the cable network's news operation, simply by providing an e-mail address. CNN and citizen journalism are being criticized after someone used the site on Friday to spread the false report that Apple CEO Steve Jobs had suffered a serious heart attack.

The bogus story sparked a minor panic on Wall Street before Apple had a … Read more

As seasons change, my thoughts are turning not only to winter cooking--mmmm, stews, braises, and roasts--but also to the return of hot tea. In that state of mind, I fell in love with this silicone tea infuser and lid while flipping through the pages of the October Bon Appetit. Available in three cheery colors, its shape taps right into my childhood obsession with Strawberry Shortcake.

Cuteness aside, I like that the nonslip silicone stem will stay put over the edge of your cup so you don't have to fish it out of boiling water. And the matching lid doubles … Read more

Silicon Valley's economy is sliding into the doldrums, with unemployment now topping 6.6 percent, but it's not the only place to live.

In fact, as researchers recently uncovered and which the Wall Street Journal reports, there are lots of other great places in the United States to live, places with people who are equally open to new ideas, while being much more extroverted, conscientious, and agreeable, and far less neurotic (their words, not mine).

As published in Perspectives on Psychological Science, researchers combed through more than 600,000 personality questionnaires and discovered that certain states attract or shape concentrations of similar personalities. Intriguingly, this may affect the types of industries and health care problems that arise in certain states:

Even after controlling for variables such as race, income, and education levels, a state's dominant personality turns out to be strongly linked to certain outcomes. Amiable states, like Minnesota, tend to be lower in crime. Dutiful states--an eclectic bunch that includes New Mexico, North Carolina, and Utah-- produce a disproportionate share of mathematicians. States that rank high in openness to new ideas are quite creative, as measured by per-capita patent production. But they're also high-crime and a bit aloof. Apparently, Californians don't much like socializing, the research suggests.… Read more

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--The national and global economy is suffering something between a setback and a meltdown, but Google's top executives said Wednesday they're bullish about Silicon Valley's economic prospects.

"This is the sixth or seventh cycle I've seen in Silicon Valley. I think we're better positioned than ever," Chief Executive Eric Schmidt said of the Silicon Valley region during a meeting with reporters at the company's headquarters here.

Schmidt specifically said the venture capital community is more sophisticated and that a Northern California start-up can reach scale more easily. "Young … Read more

MySpace Music is having some trouble getting out the door it appears.

Sources told me months ago that overseers of the new music service, formed by News Corp. and the three largest music labels, were shooting for a September 15 launch date.

The blog Silicon Alley Insider wrote recently that the launch date had been moved back to September 18. Now Peter Kafka of SAI, citing music industry sources, is reporting the launch date may get pushed back a week.

Kafka, a former writer for Forbes magazine, reports that there are two obvious possibilities. On Monday, CNET News reported that … Read more

The iTunes Store was blocked in China two weeks after an album released by Tibet activists appeared, but after the Olympics Games concluded, it was available once again.

Silicon Hutong has written a concise summary of what happened:

- The album was featured on the front page of the site - a choice I would wager was made by Apple, not by the activist organization that produced the album;

- The album went live in the days leading up to the Olympics;

- Pro-Tibetan activists have been attempting to leverage Beijing's hosting of the Olympics to draw attention to … Read more

Facebook has simply gotten too big for downtown Palo Alto, Calif., where it has been headquartered since founder Mark Zuckerberg uprooted the company from dorm rooms at Harvard. With over 600 employees now on its payroll, Facebook will be moving to a bigger facility at the Stanford Research Park outside town--a former Hewlett-Packard building.

"This new space is the next step in our growth and positions us well to continue looking for a long term campus solution while also allowing employees to work together as much as possible," a statement from Facebook read. The company plans to complete … Read more

SANTA CLARA, Calif.--To cut greenhouse gas emissions, the United States has to invest equally as much in energy efficiency as in renewable energy technologies, and set a price on carbon dioxide emissions.

That was the message from California Energy Commissioner Arthur Rosenfeld, at a meeting Monday with The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) about energy efficiency.

In a keynote speech, Rosenfeld--widely recognized for his contribution to California's aggressive energy-efficiency policies--cited a McKinsey report showing that the potential for greenhouse gas abatement in the U.S. between now and 2030 is evenly divided between investments in energy efficiency and renewable … Read more