I'm a big fan of hacker labs/collectives like Saul's Squid Labs. Here are some others I know of:<p>Squid Labs (Bay Area): <a href="http://www.squid-labs.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.squid-labs.com/</a><p>Applied Minds (LA): <a href="http://www.appliedminds.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.appliedminds.com/</a><p>Syyn Labs (LA): <a href="http://syynlabs.com/" rel="nofollow">http://syynlabs.com/</a><p>NYC Resistor (NYC): <a href="http://nycresistor.com" rel="nofollow">http://nycresistor.com</a><p>Any others?<p>Wouldn't medium-sized and large companies benefit a lot from having small but independent (free to hack on whatever they feel like) "skunk works" labs like these? I'm not sure if the research labs at Microsoft, IBM are equivalent.<p>The Synn Labs folk are cool hackers. They often have their interactive tech projects on display at Mindshare. If you're in LA, Mindshare (<a href="http://mindshare.la" rel="nofollow">http://mindshare.la</a>) is a monthly event that I highly recommend.