Free Republic

That Carly Fiorina was a one-woman wrecking crew during her tenure as CEO of Hewlett-Packard was never in doubt. But what follows is a tale that is now being picked up and distributed as the Republican Party seeks a nominee who combines business savvy and executive know-how. Sadly, the former executive who most closely fits this particular bill also has exhibited the kind of corporate arrogance and blind certitude that came close to sinking what had been considered among the world’s best technology companies: Hewlett-Packard. At HP beginning in the mid-1990s, Fiorina was responsible for the ill-fated merger with Compaq,...

Dennis Ritchie, an internationally renowned computer scientist who created the C programming language, has died at age 70. Ritchie died at his home over the weekend, according to a Google+ post from longtime colleague Rob Pike. His Wikipedia entry was updated to say he had died in Murray Hill, N.J. His death was confirmed today by Bell Labs, in a message from its president, Jeong Kim, to employees. That message reads, in part: Dennis was well loved by his colleagues at Bell Labs, and will be greatly missed. He was truly an inspiration to all of us, not just for...

Although a French company soon will own the famed Bell Labs, the U.S. will exercise "unprecedented" control over sensitive government projects at the New Jersey facility, U.S. Rep. Rob Andrews (D-1st Dist.) said yesterday. "The U.S. government will be able to veto any people who have direct control over Bell Labs, and can veto the removal of any persons who have control over Bell Labs," said Andrews, who serves on the House Armed Services Committee and was briefed last week on the pending takeover of Lucent Technologies by Alcatel of France. His approval hinges on both companies following through on...

With possible applications in everything from microscopic plumbing to slick boat hulls to switches for optical networks, a new chameleonic material developed at Bell Labs sheds water droplets like a newly waxed sports car, but, at the flick of a switch, turns absorbent like a "quicker picker upper" paper towel. Depending on the chemical structure of a solid, water and other liquids either cling to it — making it wet — or it repels them. Usually a surface is absorbent or repellent, but not both. "What we're trying to do is make a surface which you can control on the...

Jan Hendrik Schön and his colleague Zhenan Bao at Bell LabsSix months ago, the young German physicist Jan Hendrik Schön seemed like the next best thing to Einstein. But then some of his colleagues took a closer look at his research and unraveled a scientific scandal.Two years ago an up-and-coming physicist from Germany named Jan Hendrik Schön burst onto the science scene with some revolutionary experimental results. The 32-year-old academic, who was involved in researching nanotechnology at the prestigious Bell Labs in New Jersey, claimed he had succeeded in creating field-effect transistors out of tiny molecules that don’t ordinarily...