I'll be going to San Jose, CA next week. My sister particularly wants to know are there any tours of Google or microsoft headquaters open to non tech industry affiliated tourists?

MS is located in Washington, not Silicon Valley. Yahoo is also located in San Jose area, as is Intel, HP, and Apple, among myriad others. At Intel there's a chip museum that I think is open to the public. HP might also have something as they have by far the longest presence in Si valley.

Tell her not to bother with Winchester Mystery house either!

Thanks! I guess I shouldn't have used the term headquaters, but rather the SV campus in Mountain View. We might take a look at the chip museaum, thanks for mentioning it. And as for the WMH we're not interested in things like that. So I think you're giving us very good advice. Thanks again.

I've heard about Intel museum too, here is the URL. Let us know if it's worth visiting!

http://www.intel.com/museum/

There is also Tech Museum in San Jose, this one is for children.

I love the Tech. I guess I am just a kid at heart

The original garage where HP started in Palo Alto is a small museum. Also there's the Computer Museum on Shorline Blvd. at 101.

Google's reception area was once one of the hippest I'd ever seen. Haven't been since 2001, maybe they've relocated, but picture this: A black baby grand piano in a room filled with bean bag chairs with lava lamps on the perimeter. The receptionist works behind a 4-stool maple "bar" with a glass-doored cooler with juices just visible over her shoulder. An LCD projector hangs from the ceiling,

Google's reception area was once one of the hippest I'd ever seen. Haven't been since 2001, maybe they've relocated, but picture this: A black baby grand piano in a room filled with bean bag chairs with lava lamps on the perimeter. The receptionist works behind a 4-stool maple "bar" with a glass-doored cooler with juices just visible over her shoulder. An LCD projector hangs from the ceiling, constantly scrolling the current and most popular searches.

Always wondered how people here accidentally posted an incomplete message. Just happened to me, above.

Wow, that's pretty fascinating! I wonder if it still has this set up and if the general public can just take a peek.