News analysis and profile

Rimon Law Group calls itself a Web 2.0 legal firm. It employs 28 senior lawyers in seven U.S. states but has no offices, thanks to cloud computing services from companies like RingCentral that are helping to change the face of businesses across the globe.Read more

Glass ceilings exist in old economy companies but the new economy was supposed to be different, opening up a new world of opportunities for women. Progress has been limited to date but Women Equity for Growth, the first European investment program specialized in the financial and operational support of women-led companies, is aiming to level the playing field.Read more

Bloom Energy, a fuel cell company which aims to help homes and businesses generate their own electricity, publicly unveiled its technology and an impressive list of  Fortune 500 customers, at a February 24 press conference attended by California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and former U.S. Secretary of State General Colin Powell.Read more

 Google chief executive Eric Schmidt managed to snag a cherished slot as a keynote speaker at this year's Mobile World Congress,  the industry's biggest annual bash.   But announcements made at the show's opening February 15 illustrate how the mobile sector is struggling to grab the spotlight back from  Apple and Google.Read more

It is no accident that Alcatel-Lucent will showcase its LTE connected car, which brings cloud computing to moving automobiles, at the industry's annual Mobile World Congress in Barcelona Feb. 15 to 18. This year marks the start of the LTE decade. But gear makers have to help drive the creation of money-making mobile Internet services or there will be little return for carriers on multi-billion dollar network investments.Read more

Networks that underpin Internet and mobile communications  emit 300 million tons of carbon dioxide gas into the atmosphere per year, an amount equivalent to the pollution of 50 million autos. But Alcatel-Lucent's Bell Labs and partners such as China Mobile, Telefonica and AT&T, have formed  a new consortium called Green Touch that vows to develop networking equipment that can cut energy consumption by a factor of 1,000, reducing emissions in the process.Read more

French medtech start-up Theraclion is poised to commercially launch what is being billed as the first device capable of performing ultrasound non-invasive surgery on the neck. The device, which uses high intensity focused ultrasound to zap diseased tissue, promises to allow tens of thousands of patients suffering from a common disease of the parathyroid glands to avoid going under the knife.Read more

If Bloom Energy's  technology fulfills its potential, homes and businesses could one day generate their own electricity and fuel their own vehicles.  It builds what are called solid-oxide fuel cells, in which water, oxygen, and a hydrogen source such as natural gas, are pulled through the cell to cleanly generate electricity. The secretive Silicon Valley firm, which has raised hundreds of millions of dollars in venture capital, is one of 26 companies chosen as a 2010 Technology Pioneer by the World Economic Forum.Read more

Ushahidi crowdsources information and then uses technology tools to draw attention to problems such as election fraud or to help in disaster recovery. The group's technology engine, which was developed in Africa by Africans, allows for any person or group to create a way to gather distributed information, aggregate it, and then visualize it on a map, timeline, or chart. It is one of 26 companies chosen to be a 2010 Technology Pioneer by the World Economic Forum.
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Aura Biosciences has cobbled together a new approach to delivering cancer drugs by combining unrelated discoveries from European research institutions in the fields of virology, molecular biology, advanced chemistry, and nanotechnology. The company, which is headed by Spanish molecular biologist Elisabet de los Pinos, is one of 26 companies named as 2010 Technology Pioneers by the World Economic Forum.Read more