I know, if you hear any more about a particular Internet search-engine company going public, you'll likely find yourself Googling "quick remedies migraine." A few insiders get filthy rich. A couple of computer science grad students clever enough to turn a research project into a company become Silicon Valley's newest rock stars. And venture capitalists lucky enough to jump in early gain status as technology pundits. It's clever technology, but when all is said and done, it's hardly earth-changing stuff.

But there is a technology IPO in the works that you should keep an eye on. As you will read on page 29 (in one of the magazine's new departments-but more on that later), Nanosys, a startup in Palo Alto, CA, has filed papers with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to become the first significant company born of the recent advances in nanoscience to go public. And this is earth-changing stuff: Nanosys is creating nanoelectronics that could make computers and displays unimaginably fast and efficient. Even more exciting, as this month's cover story explains, Nanosys and a number of other companies are exploiting nanotechnology to make new types of solar cells that could make energy cheap and abundant. Nanosys has plenty of competition in the area of nano solar cells, but it has clearly spotted an application where nanotech can make a huge difference.