So you didn’t make it to the TechCrunch 40 conference, where Mint.com won the honors as the top start-up? Fear not, the Mercury News sat down with Aaron Patzer, the founder of Mint, for a quick demo of how the [See the full post…]

Nick DeMonner, Lisa Hansen and Mike Minardi are trying to launch a start-up into a tough market with just modest funding. Which means they’re cutting costs at every turn. But they’ve found that a low-budget lifestyle doesn’t mean eating ramen [See the full post…]

A handheld cube that lets you browse your Flickr photos. A headset that uses brainwaves to control how fast a bicyclist pedals. And Megaphone, a game that lets users play against each in public spaces with their mobile phones. Those [See the full post…]

There’s no one right or wrong way to launch a start-up. But there are smart moves an entrepreneur can make – and mistakes to avoid – that can boost the odds of success. STIRR, the valley entrepreneur network, reinvented its [See the full post…]

Mercury News columnist Dean Takahashi takes us on a quick tour inside Google’s Mountain View headquarters.

One of the more talked about valley start-ups in recent months is Spock. Founded in 2006 by Jay Bhatti and Jaideep Singh, Spock is a people search Web site that aims to be the most comprehensive source of information about [See the full post…]

Botnets, phishing scams, password-stealing trojans — they’re all part of an increasingly professionalized world of online crime that’s costing Americans billions every year. Oliver Friedrichs, director of emerging technologies at Symantec Security Response, tells Mercury News software reporter Ryan Blitstein [See the full post…]

Nicole Wong, Google’s deputy general counsel in charge of compliance, is the point person for growing criticism of Google’s privacy practices. More than two dozen European privacy regulators have launched an inquiry into Google’s data protection practices. In the United [See the full post…]

LinkedIn founder and angel investor Reid Hoffman talks with Mercury News venture capital reporter Connie Loizos about where he sees the social networking space headed, as well as his investment strategy these days.

Why is the CEO of blog search engine Technorati stepping aside? Is the San Francisco company really not for sale? And what are its plans for growing into a new media powerhouse? In this interview with the Mercury News, company [See the full post…]

Continued innovation is key to the success of most companies, and Yahoo is no different. The Internet giant recently opened an “idea incubator” called “Brickhouse” in the trendy South Park area of San Francisco. Select Yahoo employees will take turns [See the full post…]