Why Silicon Valley wants us to live longer

Mark Zuckerberg, Sergey Brin, Anne Wojcicki, Yuri Milner, Art Levinson, and others form a new prize for health care breakthroughs.

By Kurt Wagner, reporter

FORTUNE -- Top decision-makers from Apple, Google, and Facebook were in agreement Wednesday afternoon: They want us all the live longer.

Some of Silicon Valley's most influential minds -- including Facebook (FB) founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Google (GOOG) founder Sergey Brin -- announced a new award that MORE

Tech is destroying the line between manufacturing and services

The advent of 3D printing will mean we are all manufacturers. That also means big changes for businesses of all kinds.

By Saul Kaplan, contributor

FORTUNE -- In his State of the Union Address, President Obama made a big deal about manufacturing jobs as a central part of his economic vision for the country. "Our first priority is making America a magnet for new jobs in manufacturing", he proclaimed. I support the MORE

With PlayStation 4, Sony reboots its games business

Sony's vastly improved PlayStation 4 game system is set to launch later this year. The company hopes it can help it regain lost momentum.

By Matt Vella, deputy technology editor

FORTUNE -- Sony Corp. unveiled its PlayStation 4 video game console Wednesday, introducing a machine with dramatically improved technical abilities, crisp graphics, and a slew of social networking features. The new console is a major bid by the company to regain momentum MORE

5 tech turnarounds that actually worked

The club of technology companies that have been able to turn their flailing businesses around is very, very small.

By Verne Kopytoff, contributor

FORTUNE -- Michael Dell has his hands full trying to turnaround Dell, the company he founded and now plans to take private in a $24.4 billion buyout. Although still profitable, the business is slumping as customers shift to rival computer makers that offer cheaper prices. Dell's comeback plan—to push MORE

The funniest joke a tech CEO told us today

We can't tell you who, but it is pretty funny.

FORTUNE -- As you might imagine, we get a lot of CEOs and executive coming through the Fortune offices. Most are prepared with facts and figures about their industries and many have great anecdotes and advice. Less common are jokes. But today a prominent tech CEO told us a good one. It was written for a recent Silicon Valley soirée but not deployed. It MORE

Meet Silicon Valley's hardcore recruiters

These startups are trying to fix the horribly inefficient hiring process.

By Richard Morgan, contributor

FORTUNE -- Silicon Valley job recruiting violates technology's highest virtue: it is horribly inefficient. "If I know I have an Outlook API problem, I'm not going to google 'Outlook API expert.' It doesn't work like that," explains Gabor Cselle, a former Google developer who worked on Android and Gmail. "There's not a market for that," says Cselle MORE

Dell: Will it work?

Taking struggling companies private is a well-traveled path. Here's how things really turned out for the likes of DoubleClick, Skype and others.

By Verne Kopytoff, contributor

FORTUNE -- Dell is headed down a well-traveled path. Investors led by the company's founder, Michael Dell, intend to take the computer giant private in a $24.4 billion deal that will allow them, if all goes well, to engineer a turnaround without pressure from Wall Street. MORE

3 questions for design genius James Dyson

The famed designer and inventor isn't slowing down.

By Omar Akhtar, contributor

FORTUNE -- Founder of the Dyson Company and inventor of the cyclonic vacuum cleaner and bladeless fan, James Dyson stopped by Fortune's offices recently to demonstrate his company's latest line of hand dryers. We took the opportunity to ask him a few questions while he was here.

What's new? Dyson's Airblade Tap Hand Dryer allows you to wash and dry your MORE

More blackouts are coming

Meet the companies trying to do something about the grid.

By Jack D. Hidary, contributor

FORTUNE -- This weekend the lights went out at the Superdome in New Orleans during Superbowl XLVII.   This caused more than a half-hour delay and changed the momentum of the game.

Entergy, the utility providing power to the stadium, stated:

Shortly after the beginning of the second half of the Super Bowl in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome, a piece of MORE

Sell your company, not your soul

The 'I-just-got-bought-by-a-big-company' survival guide -- straight from the front lines.

By Scott Weiss, contributor

FORTUNE -- It took almost six months for my former company IronPort's acquisition by Cisco to close and it seemed like forever. Although I was still the CEO by name, I was essentially running a "puppet" government with every hire, major expense and strategic shift needing explicit approval from my soon-to-be-overlords. Since Cisco was a functionally organized company, MORE