One of the cornerstones of Silicon Valley will mark an anniversary Tuesday.

Forty years ago, Electronics magazine published Gordon E. Moore's celebrated article predicting that the number of transistors that could be placed on a silicon chip would continue to double at regular intervals for the foreseeable future.

 

 

Named Moore's Law several years later by the physicist Carver Mead, that simple observation has proven to be the bulwark of the world's most remarkable industry.

Yet Moore was not the only one--or even the first--to observe the so-called scaling effect that has led to the exponential acceleration of computing power that is now expected to continue at least for the next decade.

After months of keeping its prized cow in the barn, Microsoft is beginning to let Longhorn out of the stall for public viewing.

Beginning with brief demonstrations to reporters this week, the software maker is starting to shed light on just what the next version of Windows will offer when it hits the market next year. High on the list of features are security enhancements, improved desktop searching and organizing, and better methods for laptops to roam from one network to another.

TiVo is in talks with Internet search giants Google and Yahoo over a possible deal aimed at bridging television and the Web, CNET News.com has learned.

The talks are still fluid and could result in a number of outcomes, two sources familiar with the negotiations said.

One scenario that's been discussed would see TiVo partner with Google or Yahoo on a new service that would let consumers search for videos on the Web and then watch them on their television sets, according to one person with knowledge of the talks, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Does Cisco Systems CEO John Chambers know something about his company that continues to elude most of Wall Street?

Given the investment community's propensity for herd behavior, Cisco may be one of the most underestimated big-name technology stocks out there. The networking giant finished last week trading near its 52-week low, even though it continues to rack up record sales and earnings.

There's nothing ordinary about work done on the cutting edge, whether it's today's efforts to make high-tech fabrics and alternative energy sources, or yesteryear's early take on the television.
 

Comcast, the top U.S. cable TV network operator, is being sued by a Seattle-area woman for disclosing her name and contact information, court records showed Thursday.

In a lawsuit filed in King County, Wash., Dawnell Leadbetter said that she was contacted by a debt collection agency in January and told to pay a $4,500 for downloading copyright-protected music or face a lawsuit for hundreds of thousands of dollars

The Firefox browser continues to be a beacon for many Internet users.

More than 2.6 million people visited the Firefox Web site in March to obtain more information about the open-source software and perhaps download it, according to Nielsen/NetRatings. That's up from 2.2 million in January and 1.6 million in February.

Firefox has come on like gangbusters since last year, and now holds approximately 5 percent of the browser market. That's a small share, but the arrival of the browser--which has garnered attention in part as an alternative to Microsoft's Internet Explorer--has coincided with IE's dominant market share dipping below 90 percent.