Watch out, Microsoft, GE, United, AT&T, and, yes, even Google. Here come 10 game-changing startups with plans to upend existing industries and spawn new opportunities for the rest of us.

You can't go far wrong in a truck equipped with an Astrata box.

A year or two ago, it looked like instant messaging and other forms of online chat had reached their full potential as a business tool.

Massive data centers are vital to the economy. They are also notorious power hogs.

In late 2005, Stanford student Luke Thomas tried to buy a Land Rover online.

What's more creepily brilliant than ads that follow you around the Web? How about a Skype-like online phone service that listens in on your conversations and serves up ads based on what you say?

Computer makers are thrilled when, in today's PC market, they can get more than $1,500 for a high-end laptop. That's why Panasonic's Toughbook line is a standout.

The Samwer brothers never been shy about borrowing ideas. The first company the Cologne-born trio founded was a German-language version of eBay.

Where can you find upside in the mature high-tech gadget business? Selling gadgets designed for seniors.

My final leson for you all?

Shove aside the standard-issue hotel clock radio, with its stuck-in-the-'70s fake-wood finish and cryptic I-sure-hope-I-set-this-thing-right controls.

Here are four gadgets - recommended by readers - that will make your work life easier: A razor that saves both time and your face; a backpack that looks good in the boardroom; a projector that fits in

The two Web multimillionaires had never crossed paths, but when Russell C. Horowitz and Frank Schilling finally met to talk business three years ago, the summit began in style - sipping soft drinks po

The two Web multimillionaires had never crossed paths, but when Russell C. Horowitz and Frank Schilling finally met to talk business three years ago, the summit began in style - sipping soft drinks po

The housing market may be melting down, but these spots have just about hit rock bottom - and offer opportunities for savvy investors to get in while the getting's good.

A 22-foot-long, neon-green banner hangs from the high-ceilinged lobby of the San Francisco headquarters of Pacific Gas & Electric, California's largest utility. "GREEN IS resisting the urge to drive to yoga," it declares.

Way back in 2006, John "Bish" Neuhauser was the poster child of the biodiesel business. The shaggy-looking snow groomer for the Canyons ski area near Park City, Utah, starred in the acclaimed Sundance Film Festival documentary on global warming, "Everything's Cool," in which he made his own biodiesel out of restaurant grease and converted all of the resort's vehicles to run on it.

We're rumbling across eastern Colombia in a convoy of military jeeps and pickup trucks. Salsa music blasts out of speakers somewhere, and an unrelenting 100-degree sun is bleaching the bone-dry savanna.

Some people can't stop thinking about food. Bill Gross can't stop thinking about new businesses. One of the world's great serial entrepreneurs, he's launched more than 50 startups through Idealab, his incubator in Pasadena, Calif.

The tech giant announced that it will become the first computer maker to neutralize its greenhouse gas emissions.

The housing market may be melting down, but prices are near rock bottom in these places - and offer opportunities for savvy investors to get in now.

After five years of writing this column, I'm about to shed all objectivity. Before I do, however, let's review some numbers. During the past half decade, I've tested - though not always written about - almost 200 cars, worth a cumulative $20 million or so.

When Jeroen Bekkers's parents wanted to move into a new home in the Netherlands eight years ago, they enlarged their blueprints and made paper cutouts to help visualize how all their tables and chairs would fit.