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The reaction to Skype's proposed acquisition of

From selling designer apparel to designing the hottest nightclubs, the fastest-growing companies on the Inc. 500 share their secrets to rapid growth.

Using strangers for rides has yet to catch on in most places, but a bad economy and high gas prices can make almost anything palatable.

Last month we told you the best options for front office software. This month we asked the experts to weigh in on back office software to improve your business operations. Never have there been more software choices for the small business.

With the "unanimous" approval of both boards, Google has agreed to hand over $40 per share to acquire Motorola Mobility--the spun-off phone-making wing of the original Motorola, separate from its government and enterprise business.

In the past months, Skype's launched a massive upgrade on Android; a brand-spanking-new iPad app; unveiled a massive partnership with Facebook; and announced its acquisition to Microsoft for $8.5 billion. Is it enough to win against Google's and Apple's competitors? "When I started, we were on a pretty slow product release," says Neil Stevens, VP of products at Skype.

With the misty complexity of its thickly shrouded pre-launch PR, TabCo has the tech world intrigued as to what it may actually deliver. A spokesperson offers Fast Company some exclusive new details about the company's most innovative tricks. For a company whose products no one has actually seen or knows much about,

Tackling the topic of neuromarketing for Fast Company magazine, our author finds himself talking to the CEO of top neuromarketing firm NeuroFocus, and wonders how much can Pradeep really tell from his brain scan. I'm in a ballroom inside New York's Marriot Marquis at the 75th annual Advertising Research Foundation conference, meeting with A.K. Pradeep, founder and CEO of NeuroFocus, a Berkeley, CA-based research firm that analyzes brain waves to reveal what consumers really want.

Intel, PayPal, Pepsico, Google, HP, Citi, and Microsoft are spending millions to plumb your mind. Here's how it's done.

Google Plus' stringent real-names-only policy appears to be hurting the new social networking site's popularity among activists worldwide. Will Google ever change their approach?

This and more news from your Fast Company editors, with updates all day.

iPhone Launch Dates Until recently, we'd been thinking the iPhone 5 would arrive in the August-September timeframe, with the date firming up around the mid-September period.

University of California, San Diego students will be going to Jordan soon to take part in an archaeological dig that's decidely futuristic: As they uncover artifacts and structures in the soil, they'll be using high-quality 3-D scanning to record accurate positional details--rich data that could be incredibly useful in the future. Instead of using expensive and complex imaging systems like LIDAR, however, the team will use a hacked Microsoft Kinect to do the job for them

Knowing how much all of you enjoy car-computer analogies (not!), let me offer another. When a person buys a Honda Civic, they don't expect it to drive like a BMW. They do expect it to run, however, especially on the first day of ownership

Your iPhone can make calls (sort of) and check your email, sure, but new apps are being developed that will allow you to monitor your own health with just your phone. The iPhone is good for more than just playing Angry Birds and making on-the-fly Twitter updates