Cisco's new Umi: The answer to a question nobody asked

The company says its new video chatting device is just what people want. But a look at the competition -- and $600 price point -- doesn't seem to bode well for its chances.

There had better be an elite group of videochatters out there with cash to burn. Otherwise, Cisco Systems will be in trouble with its video-calling system, Umi. Cisco (CSCO) says it has done the market research to back MORE

How IBM is using water to learn the cloud

IBM wants to turn an entire city in Iowa into a lab. There's more in this for the company than just helping Dubuquers measure their water bills.

On Monday, IBM unveiled the latest step in a long-term project in Dubuque. IBM will monitor how over 300 volunteer households consume water. IBM doesn't build any of the hardware—a company called Neptune built the low-flow water monitors that all Dubuque residents are having MORE

The premature clean-tech IPO boom

Early-stage green technology companies are taking a page from the biotech playbook: IPO with little or no revenues. So far, it's not working.

A number of tiny, ambitious companies in a promising industry with a very small market are lining up to tap the public markets. It may sound like the biotech IPO boom of the 1990s, but this time it's firms in the clean tech industry filing S-1s faster than MORE

EPA to tech companies: build products that break down

EPA chief Lisa Jackson says tech companies tend to be young, hip and green. Now they need to think about recycling on the front end.

By Shelley DuBois, reporter

Garbage is money, says Lisa Jackson, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. She claims that's especially true for tech products that are built with some of the more valuable elements.

"What happens to our our smartphones and our other products is they MORE

IAC's Barry Diller: Not everything has to be Twitter

Diller says his websites didn't miss the social media wave because not everyone has to ride it.

By Shelley DuBois, reporter

Barry Diller's sitting on some prime, if diverse, Internet real estate. His company, IAC/InterActiveCorp (IACI), owns Match.com, Ask.com, Citysearch, and about 50 other sites that seem like they could create the kind of digital sharefest communities that Facebook and Twitter have built.

But IAC didn't miss the boat, Diller said at Fortune's MORE

Google says there's plenty of search for everyone

Google's president of global sales operations, Nikesh Arora says that healthy competition from Twitter and Facebook is a good thing.

By Shelley DuBois, reporter

Search giant Google (GOOG)  has started hearing footsteps as Twitter and Facebook are becoming bigger and bigger presences in search. But Google's president of global search operations, Nikesh Arora isn't worried.

"Look, I think it's a good thing if people are searching on multiple places for information," MORE

Three non-tech entities that will change tech

Trend Micro CEO Eva Chen explains how the media, a clothing manufacturer and a Chinese version of Wal-Mart will rock the tech world

By Shelley DuBois, reporter

Some of the companies that will change the way the world uses technology won't be tech companies at all, according to Eva Chen, co-founder and CEO of a web security company called Trend Micro.

She was speaking as part of a 3-3-3 series at this year's MORE

HP casts a wide net to compete with Apple's tablets

HP stays true to its plans to build a tablet with Microsoft despite just having bought Palm

By Shelley DuBois, reporter

Hewlett Packard has been hinting that it was going to come out with a fancy new tablet for some time. Bloggers have been questioning whether the company's new partnership with Palm would finally generate the product that talks with Android and Microsoft didn't.

Turns out HP and Microsoft are still making MORE

What to watch for at Brainstorm Tech

From tablets to conflicts, business models to investment opportunities -- what we are hoping to hear.

By Shelley DuBois, reporter

Fortune's 2010 Brainstorm Tech conference kicks off tomorrow in Aspen. Here's a preview of some of the questions our moderators will be asking top tech execs.

-Twitter, Zynga and LinkedIn are courting online ad money. Group M CEO Irwin Gotleib has a ton of it - his company is a major media-buyer. Group MORE

HP tablet: third time's a charm?

HP needs to make products that consumers think are cool. Is the new partnership with Palm the answer?

By Shelley DuBois, reporter

The big buzz about Hewlett Packard's handheld strategy is that it's teamed up with Palm, presumably to join the tablet game.

HP's executive vice president of its personal systems group, Todd Bradley, will be at Fortune's Brainstorm Tech conference along with Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein to talk about the new deal. MORE