Byline: By danny hakim section: Section B; Column 0; Metropolitan Desk; Pg. 1 Length

URL: http://www.nytimes.com
SUBJECT: POP & ROCK (91%); WEB SITES (90%); MUSIC INDUSTRY (89%); RECORD PRODUCTION & DISTRIBUTION (89%); INTERNET SOCIAL NETWORKING (73%); INTERNET & WWW (78%); RECORD INDUSTRY (77%); BLOGS & MESSAGE BOARDS (73%); MOVIES & SOUND RECORDING TRADE (72%); ENTERTAINMENT & ARTS (71%)
COMPANY: WARNER MUSIC GROUP CORP (53%)
TICKER: WMG (NYSE) (53%)
LOAD-DATE: May 5, 2008
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
GRAPHIC: PHOTOS: The label Fueled by Ramen has found fan bases for bands like Gym Class Heroes by using tactics reminiscent of the Motown era.(PHOTOGRAPH BY JIM COOPER/ASSOCIATED PRESS)

When a Fueled by Ramen band becomes popular, as Panic at the Disco has, it starts to endorse the label's other bands.(PHOTOGRAPH BY KEVIN WINTER/GETTY IMAGES)

PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

796 of 1231 DOCUMENTS

The New York Times
May 5, 2008 Monday

Late Edition - Final

Today In Business
SECTION: Section C; Column 0; Business/Financial Desk; TODAY IN BUSINESS; Pg. 2
LENGTH: 443 words
AFTER THE BID Yahoo's shareholders and managers are likely wondering how low their shares might fall and how long they might stay there after Microsoft's decision to withdraw its $47.5 billion bid.

MORTGAGE INVESTIGATION Federal investigators are intensifying a criminal investigation of the mortgage industry and focusing on whether some lenders accepting inflated income figures provided by borrowers. [C1.]

OUT OF PRINT BUT ONLINE I.D.G., the publisher of technology newspapers and magazines like Computerworld, appears to have made a profitable migration to the Internet, with revenue from online ads now surpassing print revenue, suggesting that for the media industry, the move to the Internet from print is possible. Advertising. [C1.]

CELEBRITY PULL Can a few snapshots of a baby or a bride, accompanied by a fawning article, really be worth millions of dollars to celebrity magazines? Publishing executives and consultants say they are. [C1.]

PROMOTING MUSICIANS John Janick, who owns the Fueled by Ramen music label, has a knack for promoting bands like Panic at the Disco, with the singer Brendon Urie, left. Mr. Janick says he tells bands he signs how hard they'll work, not how rich they'll get. [C5.]

A HOW-TO FOR SLEUTHS The wiretapping trial of Anthony Pellicano, below, the accused sleuth to the stars and irrepressible eavesdropper, has offered much fodder for celebrity watchers over its two-month run. But the trial, which went to the jury last week, offered even more for people who enjoy talk of encryption software, code-wiping booby traps or the low-tech secrets of phone-company networks. [C6.]

APPLE IN THE DEN Apple has a place in our pockets. Now, with Apple TV and its online movie sales, it's trying to lockup a place in our dens. The Media Equation: David Carr. [C1.]

OLD COMPUTER The oldest computer has landed in Silicon Valley, where they design the newest computers. [C6.]

GREEN CAPITAL Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, a venture capital firm in Silicon Valley, announced a $500 million fund to invest in so-called greentech companies that have proven technology and may well have established streams of revenue. [C6.]

JOINING THE POLLSTERSTiVo is using its access to television viewing data to forecast the winners and losers of ''American Idol,'' but the company is coming late to the game. [C8.]

A CARTOON MOVES Among other changes The Wall Street Journal has made recently is the relocation of its slice-of-life cartoon ''Pepper...and Salt,'' [C8.]

ENHANCING OUTLOOK A company started by a 23-year-old entrepreneur plans to release software that enhances Microsoft's e-mail platform. Outlook. [C10.]

URL: http://www.nytimes.com
SUBJECT: CELEBRITIES (90%); INTERNET & WWW (90%); MUSIC (90%); SHAREHOLDERS (78%); MUSIC INDUSTRY (78%); WIRETAPPING (77%); INVESTIGATIONS (77%); MORTGAGE BANKING & FINANCE (77%); MORTGAGE LOANS (77%); COMPANY PROFITS (76%); ONLINE MARKETING & ADVERTISING (76%); PUBLISHING (90%); ONLINE ADVERTISING (76%); MARKETING & ADVERTISING REVENUE (75%); TELEVISION INDUSTRY (73%); SPECIAL INVESTIGATIVE FORCES (72%); ELECTRONIC MAIL (69%); REALITY TELEVISION (69%); ENTREPRENEURSHIP (69%); RELOCATIONS (69%); ARTISTS & PERFORMERS (68%); VENTURE CAPITAL (66%); SINGERS & MUSICIANS (90%); COMPUTER SOFTWARE (89%)
COMPANY: APPLE INC (92%); KLEINER PERKINS CAUFIELD & BYERS (64%); MICROSOFT CORP (58%); WALL STREET JOURNAL (51%)
TICKER: AAPL (NASDAQ) (92%); MSFT (NASDAQ) (58%)
INDUSTRY: NAICS423430 COMPUTER & COMPUTER PERIPHERAL EQUIPMENT & SOFTWARE MERCHANT WHOLESALERS (92%); NAICS334112 COMPUTER STORAGE DEVICE MANUFACTURING (92%); NAICS334111 ELECTRONIC COMPUTER MANUFACTURING (92%); SIC5045 COMPUTERS & COMPUTER PERIPHERAL EQUIPMENT & SOFTWARE (92%); SIC3572 COMPUTER STORAGE DEVICES (92%); SIC3571 ELECTRONIC COMPUTERS (92%); NAICS511210 SOFTWARE PUBLISHERS (58%); SIC7372 PREPACKAGED SOFTWARE (58%)
LOAD-DATE: May 5, 2008
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
GRAPHIC: PHOTOS
DOCUMENT-TYPE: Summary
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

797 of 1231 DOCUMENTS

The New York Times
May 4, 2008 Sunday

Late Edition - Final

This Joke's for You
BYLINE: By ROB WALKER
SECTION: Section MM; Column 0; Magazine Desk; CONSUMED; Pg. 30
LENGTH: 768 words
Brawndo

In Mike Judge's movie ''Idiocracy,'' an average and unambitious guy played by Luke Wilson hibernates as part of a military experiment and wakes up 500 years later. The America he wakes up to has devolved radically: inarticulate citizens stare slack-jawed at the base entertainments of the Violence Channel, the president is a former wrestler who presides over monster-truck gladiator spectacles in a rundown arena and the crops are dying because they are being irrigated with a sports drink called Brawndo, ''the Thirst Mutilator.'' It's very funny. It's also, if you happen to think about it, kind of depressing.

Some present-day brands exist in this dystopian future; Starbucks and Fuddruckers are there, although they have changed in ways that really can't be described here. The dubious Brawndo attained its dominant role simply by buying the government agencies that might thwart its power and by marginalizing the use of water by corporate fiat. Witless consumers parrot the drink's advertised inclusion of electrolytes as the best thing about it -- though they clearly don't know what electrolytes are or why they are supposed to be good. Of course, that is all made up. There is no Brawndo. Or there wasn't until last November, when this instrument of consumer-culture satire joined actual consumer culture: 10,000 cases and counting of Brawndo have sold online or via convenience stores in the Northeast and other regions.

This happened not because of a movie-studio marketing brainstorm. (Twentieth Century Fox released the film briefly and without much enthusiasm in 2006 before tossing it to the DVD market, where it has gained a cult following.) It happened because of an ''Idiocracy'' fan in Oakland named Pete Hottelet. A graphic designer with very particular pop-culture tastes, Hottelet has started a business devoted to bringing to life certain products from movies. His business is called Omni Consumer Products, a name borrowed from the fictional megacorporation in ''Robocop.'' In addition to Brawndo, Omni has acquired from Paramount the license to market Sex Panther, a made-up cologne from the Will Ferrell vehicle ''Anchorman'' (''150% More Awesome Than Any Other Cologne. Ever.'').

Hottelet's manufacturing partner is Redux Beverages. Redux was founded in 2006 by Jamey Kirby, a former software engineer, and is best known for a real energy drink called Cocaine. Cocaine received a lot of attention before ''we had some issues with the F.D.A.,'' Kirby says. He pulled it out of stores, and while he was retooling the marketing to address F.D.A. objections (he says it went back on the market in February), he heard from Hottelet -- ''an absolutely brilliant guy.'' Hottelet explained the pitch: the drink had to contain electrolytes and had to be an alarmingly bright green, as in the movie.

''I watched 'Idiocracy,' and I was like, 'O.K., we're in,' '' Kirby says. ''Based on how things are going on in the world, and especially our country right now, this is a shoo-in.'' He laughs as he says this, so I wasn't sure what he meant. Are we already living ''Idiocracy''? ''Absolutely,'' he says. ''It's all about overcommercialization.'' The video ads on the Brawndo site, commissioned by Hottelet, feature members of Picnicface, a Canadian comedy troop, shouting hilariously over-the-top pitches: ''It's like a monster truck you pour into your face!'' (The pitches actually owe quite a bit to videos Picnicface has made for a drink called Powerthirst -- which doesn't exist. I don't think.)

It's interesting to consider the Brawndo project as metasubversion, making it possible to express knowing amusement at the absurdity of American commerce by buying something. But maybe the message is simply that cautionary tales about dumbed-down culture are a futile endeavor: show us an argument that we will buy anything, no matter how idiotic, and we say, ''Awesome -- how much for that?''

Or maybe the lesson is something else altogether. ''People want to know, 'Who are you?' '' Hottelet says. ''I don't know. Some guy.'' This is a telling comment. Invariably the darkly comic sci-fi future is dominated by huge media conglomerates and overbearing corporations that deliver us into some idiocracy or other by force, and from above. But we know things haven't turned out that way, and it's now the wily and tech-enabled citizen who embarrasses companies and politicians or becomes a virtual celebrity or -- why not? -- makes Brawdo a tangible thing in the world. The stupid-funny future is all around us, and we can't get enough of it, and we have Some Guy to thank.

URL: http://www.nytimes.com
SUBJECT: SOFT DRINKS (89%); BEVERAGE PRODUCTS (89%); MOVIE INDUSTRY (89%); MOVIES & SOUND RECORDING TRADE (78%); MOVIE & VIDEO INDUSTRIES (78%); RETAILERS (72%); CONVENIENCE STORES (69%); ENTREPRENEURSHIP (66%); ALLIANCES & PARTNERSHIPS (64%); COCAINE (60%); GRAPHIC DESIGN SERVICES (53%); LICENSING AGREEMENTS (50%); CD & DVD DRIVES (50%)
COMPANY: TWENTIETH CENTURY-FOX FILM CORP (54%)
LOAD-DATE: May 4, 2008
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
GRAPHIC: DRAWING (DRAWING BY PETER ARKLE)
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

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The New York Times
May 4, 2008 Sunday

Late Edition - Final

Taking the Temperature Of Brownstone Brooklyn
BYLINE: By ALEX MINDLIN
SECTION: Section CY; Column 0; The City Weekly Desk; PARK SLOPE; Pg. 7
LENGTH: 415 words
A DIZZYING variety of sources feed weather information to the federal government: ships at sea, sensors on planes, instruments on balloons -- and the whirligig on the roof of Bradley Feldman's brownstone in Park Slope.

A few weeks ago, Mr. Feldman, a mild, 43-year-old tech entrepreneur with a distracted air and an engaging grin, was on his First Street rooftop, examining a cluster of strange little objects bolted to a radio mast. Along with the whirligig, which measures wind speed, there were a small sensor-equipped bucket to collect rainwater and a swiveling paddle that measures wind direction. A barometer and a thermometer were downstairs.

''Let's say a missile hits northern Manhattan and they want to know, 'Has the temperature risen in Brooklyn yet?' '' Mr. Feldman said one breezy afternoon (wind speed 4 miles an hour, gusting to 8.1). ''They could see.''

Mr. Feldman brought the station with him when he moved to Brooklyn from Seattle in 2005. Such stations are relatively rare in New York, but common in Seattle, with its abundance of rain and tech geeks. ''There were a lot more weather people because the weather is wackier out there,'' Mr. Feldman said. ''When I was leaving, someone wrote me and said, 'I see your ''For Sale'' sign. Does that mean we're losing the weather station?' ''

The station belongs to the Citizen Weather Observer Program, a collection of 5,000 sites nationwide that feed data to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Last fall, Mr. Feldman began posting Park Slope weather data on his family's Internet site, bradleyloritheo.com, and his neighbors have begun to take notice. His reports are featured on a local blog, Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn, and his weather page gets 1,200 hits a day.

He has also grudgingly fielded the occasional query from Brooklynites seeking evidence of highly localized bad weather. Someone calling himself Magic Fields wrote to Mr. Feldman a few weeks ago and requested the date of ''a very heavy rain that took place on a Saturday in Park Slope'' last fall.

Magic Fields asked, ''How about telling the boss I'd had to go home for my umbrella and a raincoat and dry shoes because a sudden drenching rain had overtaken me on my 10-block walk to the subway, with the sun shining through the window in Midtown Manhattan?''

Mr. Feldman warily sent Magic Fields the necessary data. ''I was like, 'Oh, man,' '' Mr. Feldman recalled. ''I'm attracting people I really don't want to deal with.''
URL: http://www.nytimes.com
SUBJECT: WEATHER (90%); EARTH & ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCE (89%); BLOGS & MESSAGE BOARDS (86%); ENTREPRENEURSHIP (57%)
PERSON: MICHAEL MCMAHON (54%)
GEOGRAPHIC: NEW YORK, NY, USA (93%); SEATTLE, WA, USA (92%) NEW YORK, USA (93%); WASHINGTON, USA (92%) UNITED STATES (93%)
LOAD-DATE: May 4, 2008
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
GRAPHIC: PHOTO: Bradley Feldman, watching the skies on First Street. (PHOTOGRAPH BY JACOB SILBERBERG FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES)
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

799 of 1231 DOCUMENTS

The New York Times
May 4, 2008 Sunday

Late Edition - Final

Cycles Reach for Pebble Beach Cachet
BYLINE: By JERRY GARRETT
SECTION: Section AU; Column 0; Automobiles; HANDLEBARS; Pg. 10
LENGTH: 1002 words
ONE day in 1906, in Springfield, Mass., Oscar Hedstrom presented a gift to Harmon Elliott, the 16-year-old son of his friend (and fellow inventor) Sterling Elliott. The gift was a shiny black Indian motorcycle produced by the Hendee Manufacturing Company, which Hedstrom had co-founded.

The Indian, which sold for $210 at the time, was essentially a reinforced bicycle powered by a single-cylinder 260 cc engine. Though it produced barely more than two horsepower, Hedstrom had ridden similar models to speed records approaching 60 miles an hour.

Hedstrom gave the Indian to the young man to ride to school -- minivans and carpools were still a ways off -- and unlike so many other teenagers who are given new wheels, Harmon must have taken good care of it. The bike has survived more than a century now, with its original paint intact for most of that time.

The little Indian is one of the stars of the third annual Legend of the Motorcycle weekend, which includes a concours d'elegance and a classic-bike auction, held at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel near Half Moon Bay, Calif., about 30 miles south of San Francisco. The site takes advantage of a picturesque seaside location evocative of the famed Pebble Beach collector-car event held each August down the coast near Monterey. Though the Legend is still in its infancy, comparatively speaking, it is rapidly becoming one of motorcycling's most prestigious showcases.

The 1906 Indian will be among 100 rare and classic motorcycles on the block at a Bonhams & Butterfields auction that was scheduled for May 3, after the concours judging. Called a Camel Back model because of its distinctive rear hump -- which was actually a fluid reservoir -- the Indian, according to pre-auction estimates, was expected to bring as much as $100,000.

The auction also features bikes previously owned by Steve McQueen, by the late Evel Knievel and by Bud Ekins, the stuntman and racer who died last October.

The '06 Indian has especially piqued collector interest because of the compelling story behind it and well-documented ownership trail from the founders of Indian to the Elliotts, a family of famous inventors. The Elliotts held patents for business machines and many early automotive innovations. The Elliotts eventually put the Indian on display in their museum of inventions in Stuart, Fla.

Original Indians have become highly prized by collectors. The company, which began manufacturing motorcycles in 1902 (before Harley-Davidson went into volume production), went out of business in 1953. There have been numerous failed attempts to revive the brand, and there is at least one entrepreneur still trying for a successful comeback.

''Indian motorcycles evoke nostalgia,'' said Jared Zaugg, co-founder of the Legends weekend, in an interview. ''Like Coca-Cola, Levis and Marlboro, Indian is a brand that is iconic and purely American.''

Another Indian at auction here could fetch up to $90,000; it is a 1914 model, one of the few remaining pre-World War I board-track racing machines. Expected to be auctioned for around $80,000 is a 1940 Indian Scout that Steve McQueen, who died in 1980, was often seen riding around Hollywood. This bike has been quickly resold by speculators at least twice in recent years; at a 2001 Bonhams auction it sold for around $50,000 -- an indication of the run-up of prices in recent years for vintage motorcycles.

Though the Indians may be the big sellers at the auction, the Legends weekend this year actually honors motorcycles made by Norton of Britain and MV Agusta of Italy. Each year, the event honors different motorcycle manufacturers with exhibits, artworks and presentations.

''Indian will be honored next year, actually,'' Mr. Zaugg noted, along with NSU, a two-wheel forerunner of the Audi automotive brand.

Mr. Zaugg and his wife, Brooke Roner, founded the Legends event three years ago. It has grown rapidly in size, scope and attendance since then.

''In three short years, this has become what many call the 'Pebble Beach of motorcycles,' '' Mr. Zaugg said, ''which is quite a compliment considering that the Pebble Beach concours has been in existence for over half a century and is considered the hallmark of automobile events. Nothing like this exists for motorcycles anywhere else in the world.''

Previous featured marques have included nearly forgotten brands from motorcycling's past like Brough Superior, Crocker, Excelsior, Henderson and Vincent.

MV Agusta is actually the first honoree that is still in business. The company, an Italian bikemaker, did, however, fade away in the late 1970s. The brand's trademarks were subsequently purchased by Cagiva, which began marketing new bikes with the MV Agusta name in 1997. A current limited-edition MV Agusta model, the F4 CC, is the world's most expensive production motorcycle, with a sticker price of $120,000.

''We felt it was time to honor an Italian brand, and MV Agusta is just too historic to pass up,'' Mr. Zaugg said.

MV Agusta was formed in 1945 from the postwar remnants of the Agusta aviation company of Milan that had been founded in 1907. The first MV Agusta bike was the moped-like 98, which went into production after World War II ended, in part to keep Agusta workers employed and to meet Italy's need for cheap civilian transportation.

From that modest beginning, the company earned a reputation for wringing extra performance out of small-displacement engines; soon it was making a name for itself in racing. John Surtees, Mike Hailwood and Giacomo Agostini all rode MV Agustas to racing championships.

Mr. Agostini will receive a lifetime achievement award at this year's Legends event and will appear along with some of his notable bikes.

''We will have three ex-works racers, which is pretty impressive,'' Mr. Zaugg said. ''One of them was Ago's TT winning bike.''

Two MV Agustas will also be offered at auction during the weekend: a 1973 750S and a 1993 Magni. Each is expected to cross the block for $60,000 to $80,000.

URL: http://www.nytimes.com
SUBJECT: MOTOR VEHICLES (91%); MOTORCYCLES (89%); ENTREPRENEURSHIP (77%); MOTORCYCLE & BICYCLE MFG (77%); MINIVANS (75%); ADOLESCENTS (75%); PATENTS (72%); INTERVIEWS (72%)
COMPANY: COCA-COLA CO (50%)
TICKER: KO (NYSE) (50%)
INDUSTRY: NAICS312111 SOFT DRINK MANUFACTURING (50%); SIC2086 BOTTLED & CANNED SOFT DRINKS & CARBONATED WATER (50%)
GEOGRAPHIC: SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA, CA, USA (70%); SAN FRANCISCO, CA, USA (70%) MASSACHUSETTS, USA (90%); CALIFORNIA, USA (70%) UNITED STATES (90%)
LOAD-DATE: May 4, 2008
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
GRAPHIC: PHOTOS: FEATURED MARQUE: MV Agusta 750S, left, and a made-to-order Magni.

1906 Indian Camel Back

1914 Indian 8-Valve racebike

1940 Indian Sport Scout

1940 Indian Four (PHOTOGRAPHS FROM LEGEND OF THE MOTORCYCLE)
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

800 of 1231 DOCUMENTS

The New York Times
May 4, 2008 Sunday

Late Edition - Final

Prepping Robots for the O.R.
BYLINE: By BARNABY J. FEDER
SECTION: Section BU; Column 0; Money and Business/Financial Desk; Pg. 1
LENGTH: 2161 words
WHAT do you call a surgeon who operates without scalpels, stitching tools or a powerful headlamp to light the patient's insides? A better doctor, according to a growing number of surgeons who prefer to hand over much of the blood-and-guts portion of their work to medical robots controlled from computer consoles.

Many urologists performing prostate surgery view the precise, tremor-free movements of a robot as the best way to spare nerves crucial to bladder control and sexual potency. A robot's ability to deftly handle small tools may lead to a less invasive procedure and faster recovery for a patient. Robots also can protect surgeons from physical stress and exposure to X-rays that may force them into premature retirement.

A generation ago, the debate in medicine was whether robotics would ever play a role. Today, robots are a fast-growing, diversifying $1 billion segment of the medical device industry. And Wall Street has just two questions for the industry: How far is this going, and how fast?

There are no simple answers, of course, but it is remarkable how often Frederic H. Moll comes up in any discussion.

Dr. Moll, 56, is a soft-spoken man who can look uncomfortable on stage. Yet his role in founding Intuitive Surgical, the company that now dominates the field, and his current involvement with three other robotics companies, has kept him in the sights of investors, health care providers and fellow entrepreneurs.

He's now best known as chief executive of Hansen Medical, a publicly traded robotics company focused on minimally invasive cardiac care. But he's also an investor in and a board member of Mako Surgical, an orthopedics robotics company that recently went public, and he is a co-founder and chairman of Restoration Robotics, a start-up company focused on cosmetic surgery.

''Anyone who meets Fred will remember him,'' says Maurice R. Ferre, the chief executive of Mako, which makes a drill that shuts off if a knee surgeon starts removing too much bone. ''He will cut you off to ask technical questions and drives right to what's important. A lot of people are looking at the Mako story because Fred's involved.''

Despite Wall Street's growing fondness for medical robotics companies, plenty of health care providers and insurers are cautious. They're looking for more evidence that robotics improves outcomes for patients at a cost hospitals can absorb. Many still wonder whether it is more about marketing than medical progress.

Winifred Hayes, chief executive of Hayes Inc., a health care technology consulting firm in Lansdale, Pa., says that most clinical data doesn't support contentions that patients fare better with robotic surgery. Most hospitals and clinics are losing money or making poor returns on their robots, she says.

''The real story is that this is a technology that has been disseminated fairly widely prematurely,'' she says.

Even so, interest in robotics remains strong, and the arc of Dr. Moll's own career has landed him at the intersection of tussles between business and medicine.

His parents were both pediatricians, and he sailed through medical school. But during his surgical residency at the Virginia Mason Medical Center in Seattle in the early 1980s, he found the ailments of patients less compelling than the shortcomings of the tools that surgeons used to treat them.

''I was struck by the size of the incision and injury created just to get inside the body,'' Dr. Moll says. ''It felt antiquated.''

So he obtained a leave of absence to study whether the long slender cutting tools he had seen gynecologists use in sterilization surgery on women could be adapted to gall bladder removal.

''We saved the spot for 10 years, but he never came back,'' said Dr. John A. Ryan Jr., then head of the surgical training at Virginia Mason.

Indeed, Dr. Moll had left Seattle for Silicon Valley, where he spent the next decade creating and selling two medical equipment businesses while getting a graduate degree in management at Stanford. He walked away from the two deals with about $7.5 million. That was modest by the standards of, say, Paul Allen and Bill Gates, the Microsoft founders who were his schoolmates at the exclusive Lakeside School in Seattle in the early 1970s, but Dr. Moll had found his calling.

He says his immersion in the entrepreneurial life cost him his marriage; he remembers once telling his wife he was so busy he couldn't talk to her for a month. But it also set him on a course to become a pioneer in the emerging field of medical robotics.

ROBOTS revolutionized manufacturing during the 1980s, on the back of advances in computing, motion controls and software design.

Visionaries like Dr. Richard M. Satava, who oversaw federally funded medical robotics research at the time, predicted that robots would eventually be able to operate as precisely as the world's greatest surgeons and far more tirelessly, perhaps even in remote locations, through satellite links.

A project that Dr. Satava's group financed to build a remotely controlled medical robot for the battlefield caught Dr. Moll's eye in 1994.

Dr. Moll saw scant commercial potential for long-distance surgery, but he became convinced that the technology, being developed by SRI International, a nonprofit contract research firm in Palo Alto, Calif., could be adapted to make routine surgery much less invasive in the hands of civilian surgeons.

He took the idea to his employer, Guidant, a medical device company. Guidant decided that robotic surgery was too futuristic and too risky, so Dr. Moll rounded up backers, resigned, and in 1995, founded Intuitive Surgical.

A competitor, Computer Motion, had a head start using technology developed for the space program. But Intuitive Surgical had an experienced management team headed by Lonnie M. Smith. Mr. Smith was recruited from Hillenbrand Industries, where he oversaw health care companies, to become chief executive in 1997, leaving Dr. Moll to concentrate on strategic development.

Intuitive went public in 2000 at $9 a share. (Dr. Moll's stake at the time was worth roughly $13.5 million, and he still owns a significant number of shares.) In 2003, it acquired Computer Motion, eliminating both patent wars and the competing design. Since then, soaring sales and profits have laid to rest any Wall Street doubts that robots could be commercially successful.

The company earned $144.5 million last year on sales of $600.8 million. Based on first-quarter results that were better than expected, Intuitive forecasts that sales will grow 42 percent this year, to $853.2 million. Its stock, which traded at $42.42 three years ago, closed Friday at $290.03 a share.

The company prospered by proving that robots could deftly handle rigid surgical tools like scalpels and sewing needles through small incisions in a patient's skin. In prostate surgery, it is rapidly becoming unusual for a urologist to operate without using one of Intuitive's da Vinci robots, which sell for $1.3 million, on average. Each also generates hundreds of thousands of dollars more in annual revenue from service contracts and attachments that must be replaced after each procedure. Intuitive is now marketing the da Vinci to other specialists, including gynecologists and heart surgeons.

Intuitive's success has not put to rest questions about how many hospitals and clinics can afford robots. The da Vinci and the CyberKnife, a precision radiation robot from Accuray to treat tumors, are featured in hospital ads to attract patients, but it is hard for hospitals to get extra reimbursement from insurers for using them.

However, hospitals that have been leaders in adopting robotic technology say they are content to just break even for now, because the investment is partly about attracting surgeons who want to be leaders in research and training.

''If you are looking at the future, it's hard to envision a hospital not offering robotics,'' said Robert Glenning, chief financial officer at the Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey, which has bought five da Vinci's and has a sixth on loan from Intuitive Surgical that is used to train visiting doctors.

DR. MOLL left Intuitive in 2002 to pursue a more ambitious concept at Hansen Medical: robots that manipulate the tips of thin, flexible catheters that doctors insert deep in the heart. If he succeeds, the Sensei robotic systems from Hansen, costing about $675,000, may become the go-to tools for treating many circulatory problems.

Relations between the two companies were rocky in the first year because of disagreements over the breadth of Intuitive's patents. Eventually, the two signed an intellectual property agreement that gives Intuitive a 3 percent royalty on Hansen sales. With Intuitive expanding into cardiac care, the two may eventually collide in some procedures.

Doctors who use catheters generally gain access to the circulatory system through a small incision in the major veins that run through the thigh or arm. Both the makers of rigid tools and the catheter companies are competing in another fast-developing field of ''scarless'' therapy involving operations performed through the urinary tract and other natural openings.

Dr. Moll is betting that flexible tools like those that work with the Sensei will dominate as this movement matures. He took a team of four Hansen employees to India last summer for a series of surgeries testing whether kidney stones could be removed by using a robotic catheter. Dr. Inderbir S. Gill, a urologist from the Cleveland Clinic who led the research, said that Dr. Moll had followed every case for four days.

''He was at the console like a mother hen even though he wasn't allowed to touch it,'' said Dr. Gill, who received stock in Hansen for work on the research and is planning a clinical trial.

Like Intuitive in its early days, Hansen faces a competitor that got an earlier start. Stereotaxis, based in St. Louis, makes the Niobe, a robot that generates magnetic fields around the patient. By manipulating the magnetic field from Niobe's computer, doctors can manage the movements inside the patient of its customized magnetic catheters.

The Sensei manipulates a Hansen catheter called Artisan, a hollow sheath through which doctors can deploy smaller catheters. Sensei and Artisan were approved by federal regulators last May for use with catheters that map electrical activity in the heart. While mapping is currently the only job for which Hansen can actively market the Sensei, the robot's real focus is to combine mapping with minimally invasive treatments to halt electrical short circuits in the heart that cause it to beat abnormally.

Fans include Dr. Davendra Mehta, chief arrhythmia specialist at Mount Sinai Medical Center, who last fall became the first doctor in New York City to order a Sensei. ''This is like power steering versus conventional steering,'' said Dr. Mehta during a recent procedure.

Using the robot also lets Dr. Mehta avoid spending up to five hours a day wearing a lead vest to limit his exposure to the X-rays when monitoring the catheter's location in a patient.

THE potential appeal of the Sensei may be obvious. But with just 23 systems installed at the end of March, the competition from Stereotaxis and doubts among many health care providers about whether robots are worth the expense, Dr. Moll has plenty of obstacles ahead.

Still, he and his team members took Hansen public in November 2006, and received approval from regulators in Europe and the United States to market the Sensei. In April, Hansen raised $39.4 million in a secondary stock offering despite Wall Street's gloomy outlook on the economy. Hansen also has an agreement with St. Jude Medical, the heart device company that is a leader in 3-D heart mapping systems, for co-marketing of technologies.

Dr. Moll said Hansen, based in Mountain View, Calif., should become profitable by the end of next year, two and a half years sooner than Intuitive crossed that threshold. Hansen's volatile stock, which hit a peak of $39.32 in October before tumbling to $13.48 in March, now trades at $18.54 a share after the company reported better-than-expected first-quarter results on Thursday. Hansen sold eight new robots in the quarter, producing revenue of $6.2 million, and operating losses narrowed.

Even while juggling all of this, Dr. Moll is serving as chairman of Restoration Robotics, a start-up he has financed that aims to apply robotics to hair replacement surgeries for bald men.

Dr. Moll says robotics will ultimately advance on still other fronts, largely because it can help doctors of varying ability perform at the level of the world's top surgeons.

''The public has no idea of the extent of difference between top surgeons and bad ones,'' he said. ''Robots are good at going where they are supposed to, remembering where they are and stopping when required.''