Features

• The Big, Bad Bit Stuffers of IBM

  The ferocious progress in disk storage densities has come thanks to an IBM lab that was slated for elimination–until it met the “gigabit challenge.”
• Plastic Batteries: All Charged Up and Waiting to Go

  The researchers who invented a lightweight plastic battery found themselves thrown into the world of venture capital and big business. Navigating these waters requires different skills from those that work in the lab.
• Staring into Space

  Entrepreneur Jim Benson hopes his mission to the asteroids will usher in an era of private–and profitable–exploration of space.
• A Lucky Hit

  He’s seen R&D done the old Bell Labs way and in the new, market-driven style. Now research vice president of Bellcore, Lucky thinks broadly and deeply about how ideas get from lab to market.