QuBit Digital, a start-up focusing on analyzing big data for business, was founded by four ex-Google employees who funded the new company by selling their own Google options and investing their life savings in the London-based venture. It is no anomaly.

Just as the so-called Paypal mafia in Silicon Valley ended up defining the next wave of innovation, a swelling group of Xooglers, as ex-Google employees are known, are leaving the mother ship to either launch or join start-ups or to start funds in Europe.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