Silicon Eye: Microchip Swashbucklers and the Future of High-Tech Innovation: 0 (Enterprise) - Softcover

"Proof that the spell of the Valley, after decades of booms and busts, is alive and well." -- David Kushner - Washington Post "Like Foveon's founders, Mr. Gilder wants to understand vision, albeit of a different kind: the vision of innovators. . . . The unpredictable disorder of markets is, in Microsoft parlance, not a bug but a feature. That's a lesson that Mr. Gilder's book drives home." -- Wall Street Journal

Thanks to the digital technology revolution, cameras are everywhere-PDAs, phones, anywhere you can put an imaging chip and a lens. Battling to usurp this two-billion-dollar market is a Silicon Valley company, Foveon, whose technology not only produces a superior image but also may become the eye in artificially intelligent machines. Behind Foveon are two legendary figures who made the personal computer possible: Carver Mead of Caltech, one of the founding fathers of information technology, and Federico Faggin, inventor of the CPU-the chip that runs every computer. George Gilder has covered the wizards of high tech for twenty-five years and has an insider's knowledge of Silicon Valley and the unpredictable mix of genius, drive, and luck that can turn a startup into a Fortune 500 company. The Silicon Eye is a rollicking narrative of some of the smartest-and most colorful-people on earth and their race to transform an entire industry.