Stream this! How Netflix chooses for you

The company uses a mix of subscriber information, user ratings, rentals, and cool computer algorithms to predict what kinds of entertainment you might enjoy streaming.

Back to Reed Hastings: Leader of the pack

Reed Hastings: Leader of the pack

Executives from Silicon Valley to Hollywood to Wall Street admires his savvy persistence - and his company's cool culture. The secret to the Netflix CEO's success? He never stops looking over his shoulder.

Reed Hastings isn't supposed to be here -- not on a list of the year's top businesspeople, and certainly not on the cover of Fortune. His DVD-by-mail company, Netflix, was supposed to have flamed out by now, a MORE

How to turn your iPad into a boombox

Jawbone's latest offering, the Jambox, is a Bluetooth speaker. But that description belies just how badly you'll want one.

There have been two reactions from people that occur without fail during the 12 hours a bright blue Jambox has been sitting on my desk. The first is some form of, "Whoa, what is it?"  I then explain it is a Bluetooth-enabled speaker, and yes, the music that is pumping out of MORE

No Facebook phone, but Facebook on every phone

Facebook expands its battle plans to mobile apps and mobile phones, but it won't be building a new platform or device, it'll just open up what's already working for it. But don't hold your breath for an iPad app.

Mark Zuckerberg snuffed the hopes today of those who thought they might be getting a Facebook phone this holiday season. "There has been this rumor going around that Facebook is going to MORE

A mouse maker roars with Google TV

Gizmo maker Logitech hopes to make it big in the consumer electronics business.

Logitech, best known for making computer accessories like mice, webcams, and keyboards, wants to be a player in a burgeoning and potentially hot business: smart TV. And it has teamed up with Google and Intel to do it.

Based in Fremont, Calif., Logitech (LOGI) is the first company out of the gate with a contraption that brings Google's new MORE

The new global worker gadget: Videophones

At $599, plus $25 a month for service, Cisco's (CSCO) new consumer videoconferencing product might seem pricey for the average household. But corporations could use these home systems to allow global employees to connect with headquarters during business hours. Srinath Narasimhan, CEO of Tata Communications (TCL), says remote employees are loath to go to the office for a 3 a.m. call in a video "suite." With a home setup, workers MORE

John Doerr's quarter-billion dollar bet on the future of social

Kleiner Perkins thinks we're in a third wave of technology. Doerr, Zuckerberg, Bezos and Pincus are throwing a $250 million "party" in order to ride it.

The last time venture capitalist John Doerr opined that a technology wave was about to sweep over the globe it was just before the height of the Internet bubble in the 1990s, when he pronounced that the Internet was under-hyped. Yes, there was Internet startup MORE

A sick CEO's full disclosure

When Hugh Martin learned he had cancer, he did the unimaginable.  He revealed everything.

Everyone at Pacific Biosciences knew  something was up when CEO Hugh Martin called for an all-hands meeting on a Thursday. The company always held its big meetings on Friday, and it was rare that the staff didn't know the agenda in advance. So it was with some anticipation that all 300 employees of the fast-growing MORE

Tech that thrills and (survives) spills

Finally, a Flip-like camera for those who prefer to be the ones flipping.

I should have known better. There was Nick Woodman, CEO of GoPro, which makes impossibly small cameras that go practically anywhere, loading up a tricked-out Sprinter with two all-electric Zero dirt bikes.

Woodman is a surfer along Northern California's sharkiest stretch of coast. He races cars, rides dirt bikes, and jumps off all manner of things (usually into water). MORE

Google Instant

The search leader unveils what it hopes is a fundamental change to how we search online: Search at the speed of thought.

If you already thought Google could read your mind, the search Giant made it official Wednesday with the launch of Google Instant. "It's not quite psychic but it is very clever," said Othar Hansson, one of the Google engineers that developed the new search mode, to a crowd MORE