Word: silicon
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Researchers at UCLA and Hewlett-Packard have succeeded in constructing microscopic integrated circuits using single molecules as building blocks, an achievement that could lead the way to stunningly powerful and compact computers. Conventional computers are powered by tiny circuits etched in silicon by a laser, but a computer based on molecule-sized circuits would be vastly more compact and require much less power -- James Heath, the UCLA professor leading the project, has suggested that a molecular computer with the processing power of 100 conventional PCs would be about the size of a grain of salt...
...stopgap measure to a competitive imperative," said Brian Bohling, a senior vice president at staffing giant CDI Corp. in a report, The New Nomads. Besides saving money on benefits, firms prize the flexibility of keeping only a small core of full-timers and ramping up for specific projects. Silicon Valley, with the ebb and flow of its product cycles, relies heavily on permatemps; a new report shows the temp industry has been California's leading job creator for the past five years. No wonder the Information Technology Association of America says the Microsoft ruling would "serve to undermine the information...
Anyway, Salinger broke off the relationship after less than a year. Maynard kept her mouth shut for 25 years until telling all in a memoir and then putting 14 of Salinger's love letters on the auction block. Peter Norton, a Silicon Valley tycoon, bought the letters last week for $156,000 and announced that he was going to return them to Salinger. For this, Norton has been hailed a noble do-gooder, although I think he's a bit of a killjoy, using his money to quash a nice little scandal right at the beginning of summer...
...possible flood of litigation that potential Y2K disruptions might unleash. Late Thursday, a bill acceptable to the White House finally cleared the Senate by a vote of 81 to 18 after having passed the House earlier in the day 404 to 24. Caught between its big supporters in Silicon Valley (who together with the broader business community aggressively pushed for the legislation) and its friends among trial lawyers and consumer groups (who just as aggressively opposed it), the Clinton administration accepted the latest compromise bill after some last-minute wavering and tinkering. The final measure tries to encourage mediation...
...reality, though, is that the new-media and high-technology workplace today often more closely resembles a piecework-industry sweatshop than a pristine NASA laboratory. New Internet businesses, financially strapped and compelled to set up shop on pricey real estate in Manhattan's Silicon Alley or California's Silicon Valley, have to scrimp on the office space, using converted industrial lofts crammed with desks, T-1 lines and terminals. During the pre-initial public offering phase of a start-up, precious capital must be allocated to marketing and sales rather than rent and salaries, which contribute only to the burn...