T. J. Rodgers is at it again. The Cypress Semiconductor chief executive, seeing the need for sharper focus, arranged for the company to relinquish its controlling interest in SunPower, the solar-panel firm that last year accounted for almost half of Cypress' revenue.  

These are dark days in Silicon Valley. The markets are unsettled. Joblessness is up. It's a rough patch for a place that was built on optimism. But sometimes in the midst of gloom it's wise to step back to take a look at what we've accomplished.  

Dai Sugano / Mercury News

Traditionally, the valley's big tech companies have treated their employees in India as a Help Desk to the West. Now Cisco, with 66,000 employees around the world, is making a $1 billion bet that India, which cranks out thousands of engineering graduates a year, can be a cradle of innovation.

• Video: Cisco in India | View photos

 

KAREN T. BORCHERS

Employees at Silicon Valley companies, big and small, have formed volunteer green teams to encourage recycling and carpooling to cut carbon emissions  

We all love our gadgets — and love having more and more of them — but technophilia has a downside: Running all those gadgets takes energy. A lot of it.  

Photo Courtesy of VantagePoint V

Once America"s top spy as head of the Central Intelligence Agency, R. James Woolsey has re-invented himself as a Silicon Valley venture capitalist. He joined VantagePoint Venture Partners in San Bruno this summer. The transition was fueled by his belief that the United States needs to quickly move away from foreign sources of oil, and that clean technologies are a path toward that goal.  

Chiang Ying-ying

When Ma Ying-jeou won Taiwan"s presidential election by a landslide in March, he promised smoother relations with rival China, a move welcomed by many Silicon Valley executives who rely on the island's vast network of high-end tech contractors and the China"s manufacturing prowess.  

Apple will hold a press event next week at which it will apparently unveil updates to its laptop computer lineup.  

LiPo Ching

The governor Thursday spoke to several hundred employees as he dedicated a 2.1-megawatt solar installation -- a parking-lot array of 7,000 solar panels -- at Applied Materials' Sunnyvale campus.  

The Palo Alto company said the new factory will be its second in China; it will make notebook and desktop personal computers for the Chinese market.  

Presidential election partisans in states already solidly blue or red are using the Internet to reach out to voters in swing states.  

When a Restoration Hardware executive learned last fall that his company was about to be acquired by a private equity firm at a "substantial premium," he passed the information to friends so they could trade on the news, according to the SEC.  

HOW GEEK IS SILICON VALLEY? In his blog Master of 500 Hats, serial entrepreneur and start-up guru Dave McClure got all football coach-like this week with a profanity-laced pep talk about how entrepreneurs must stare down their fears in these suddenly tough economic times. He suggested some butt-kicking role models: