Jon Van

Last year's high petroleum prices goosed consumer interest in electric/gasoline hybrid cars and energized the business model at Firefly Energy Inc., the Peoria-based battery technology company. Today's hybrid cars improve...

Teleconferencing just keeps on booming. Reluctant to fly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, many businesses opted for conferencing rather than traveling. They've grown quite comfortable with the change. A...

Concerned over a decline in facilities that screen for breast cancer, researchers are looking to the Internet for help. "We've proven that telemammography works," said Dr. Alan Melton, a researcher...

Most business people carry cell phones and many use BlackBerries or laptops as well to keep up with e-mail while out of the office. But as handy as mobile wireless...

Van Cullens is chief executive of Westell Technologies Inc., an aurora-based firm that designs and manufactures DSL modems, which deliver high-speed internet service. Q: Connecting a home computer with the...

Philip Cable did as much due diligence as he could imagine before picking a vendor to update his company's legacy software. Turned out, it wasn't enough. Cable operates American Science...

For a century, the Thomas Publishing Co. has printed directories listing thousands of manufacturing operations and distributors to facilitate industrial commerce. In February Thomas will publish its 100th and final...

Among Chicago's vast science community, Leon Lederman may be the most widely known. Before leaving as director of FermiLab in 1989, Lederman was awarded a Nobel Prize in physics, and...

In a little noticed move that could dramatically energize telecom competition, XO Communications Inc. said last week that it will spin off its landline business and focus exclusively on wireless....

So powerful are the newest electron microscopes that they provide three-dimensional images of atoms, said Vahe Sarkissian, chief executive of FEI Co., an Oregon firm that sells such microscopes. "Every...