Entries for April 2006

For a while, hybrids were getting all the headlines. Then there were occasional rumblings about diesel and hydrogen as alternatives to plain old gasoline. And suddenly we're hearing a lot about ethanol as a gasoline substitute. So which of these technologies is going to save America from its dependence on foreign oil?

Leonard Liu has a 40-year head start on globalization.

Liu, born in China, is a globe-trotter who has run companies in more countries than many Americans have even visited. He came to the United States as a student in the 1960s, earned a Ph.D. from Princeton, taught at the University of Michigan, and began working at IBM in 1969. In 20 years at Big Blue, he ran research teams that developed SQL, CICS, SNA, and other really important computer stuff that most of us don't understand but rely on every day. One huge project was building the reservation system for United Airlines in the 1980s.