Jef's web files - Innovation

Innovation

Wed, 21 Jan 2004 10:16:15 -0500

Innovation

Behind Artificial Intelligence, a Squadron of Bright Real People

Fri, 14 Oct 2005 10:44:14 -0400

The five robots that successfully navigated a 132-mile course in the Nevada desert last weekend demonstrated the re-emergence of artificial intelligence, a technology field that for decades has overpromised and underdelivered.

At its low point, some computer scientists and software engineers avoided the term artificial intelligence for fear of being viewed as wild-eyed dreamers.

Plan by 13 Nations Urges Open Technology Standards

Fri, 09 Sep 2005 08:52:14 -0400

In a report to be presented at the World Bank today, a group that includes senior government officials from 13 countries will urge nations to adopt open-information technology standards as a vital step to accelerate economic growth, efficiency and innovation.

The 33-page report is a road map for creating national policies on open technology standards, and comes at a time when several countries - and some state governments - are pursuing plans to reduce their dependence on proprietary software makers, notably Microsoft, by using more free, open-source software.

The project, begun by the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at the Harvard Law School, gathered government officials from China, India, Thailand, Denmark, Jordan, Brazil and elsewhere at a three-day meeting in Silicon Valley in February to discuss technology standards and economic development. The meeting was followed by e-mail exchanges, conference calls and postings on a shared Web site.

The group defines an open standard as technology that is not owned by a single company and is openly published. Still, there is a huge debate in industry and among policy makers about how far openness should go.

The report makes clear that government policy should "mandate technology choice, not software development models."

It also points out that open technology standards - the digital equivalent of a common gauge for railroad tracks - are not the same thing as open-source software. Open source is a development model for software in which code is freely shared and improved by a cooperative network of programmers.

Dream teams thrive on mix of old and new blood

Wed, 04 May 2005 10:26:29 -0400

When the Boston Red Sox won their first World Series title since 1918 last year, the team had some new blood, including key players Curt Schilling, Orlando Cabrera and Doug Mientkiewicz, to mix with the old and help the team achieve the pinnacle of baseball success.

In a paper to be published April 29 in the journal Science, Northwestern University researchers turned to a different type of team -- creative teams in the arts and sciences -- to determine a team's recipe for success. They discovered that the composition of a great team is the same whether you are working on Broadway or in economics.

The researchers studied data on Broadway musicals since 1877 as well as thousands of journal publications in four fields of science and found that successful teams had a diverse membership -- not of race and gender but of old blood and new. New team members clearly added creative spark and critical links to the experience of the entire industry. Unsuccessful teams were isolated from each other whereas the members of successful teams were interconnected, much like the Kevin Bacon game, across a giant cluster of artists or scientists.

Middle-Aged Scientists are Most Potent

Mon, 22 Nov 2004 15:08:24 -0500

Is science a young person's game? Many think so; Einstein, Bohr, and Kelvin come to mind as confirming instances. Indeed, youthfulness is alleged to provide many advantages in scientific research. First, some claim that young scientists have more time and energy than their older colleagues. Thus, while older scientists are occupied with gate-keeping and administrative duties, their younger colleagues devote their time to research. As a result, young scientists are thought to be more productive than their older colleagues.

Second, some suggest that young scientists are more creative. Things that older colleagues consider to be beyond question are more apt to be challenged by young scientists. As a result, young scientists are alleged to be responsible for the more radical innovations in science.

Third, some suggest that young scientists are quicker than their older colleagues with respect to accepting innovations. Old scientists, we are told, are especially resistant to innovation, because they are the ones responsible for yesterday's innovations that are today's orthodoxies.

Underlying these claims is the conviction that young scientists play a key role in the process of scientific change. These views about the advantages of youthfulness in science probably contribute to making science an attractive career to young people. The young are apt to be enticed into a career that offers them the opportunity to rise to a position of power quickly. In many other careers, leadership positions are reserved for older people.

All three of these popular views concerning the advantages of youthfulness are mistaken; critical scrutiny of the available data reveals a very different picture about young scientists. Before proceeding to show this, let me be clear about who counts as a young scientist. Some mathematicians and physicists suggest that after the age of 30 a scientist is no longer young. These are the sorts of people who believe the myths outlined above. I will count as young all scientists aged less than 35 years or younger. Scientists 36 to 45 years old count as middle-aged, and scientists aged 46 years and older are considered old.

The available data suggest that the middle-aged scientist is most productive and most inclined to make a revolutionary discovery. Despite great variation in the output of individual scientists throughout their careers, if we examine the aggregate output of many scientists, it rises from early in their career, reaches a peak in the middle, and then begins to decline thereafter.1

When invention turns to innovation

Sun, 14 Nov 2004 11:52:11 -0500

"It is unlikely that future technological inventions are going to have the same kind of transformative impact that they did in the past."

When history takes a look back at great inventions like the car and transistor, they were defining technologies which ultimately changed people's lives substantially.

But, says Nick Donofrio, senior vice-president of technology and manufacturing at IBM, it was not "the thing" itself that actually improved people's lives.

It was all the social and cultural changes that the discovery or invention brought with it.

Ideas Stolen Right From Nature

Wed, 01 Dec 2004 08:54:33 -0500

One day in 1948, the Swiss engineer George de Mestral was cleaning his dog of burrs picked up on a walk when he realized how the hooks of the burrs clung to the fur. His realization led to the invention of Velcro -- and a multimillion-dollar industry.

De Mestral wasn't the first to be inspired by natural selection's engineering solutions. Leonardo da Vinci, for example, drew from nature in his designs for flying machines and ships.

But while biomimetics, as the field is now known, has a long history, until recently Velcro has been the only major commercial success. Now, as technological capability catches up with intellectual inspiration, biomimetics is starting to fulfill its potential.

"At present there is only a 10 percent overlap between biology and technology in terms of the mechanisms used," said Julian Vincent, professor of biomimetics at the University of Bath in the United Kingdom. "So I feel that there is huge potential."

Vincent knows better than most. He is director of the Centre for Biomimetic and Natural Technologies and one of the driving forces in the emerging field.

"nothing more difficult to execute, nor more dubious of success, nor more dangerous to administer than...a new system of things"

Sun, 11 Jul 2004 15:21:09 -0400

"...one should bear in mind that there is nothing more difficult to execute, nor more dubious of success, nor more dangerous to administer than to introduce a new system of things: for he who introduces it has all those who profit from the old system as his enemies, and he has only lukewarm allies in all those who might profit from the new system. This lukewarmness partly stems from fear of their adversaries, who have the law on their side, and partly from the skepticism of men who do not truly believe in new things unless they have actually had personal experience of them. Therefore, it happens that whenever those who are enemies have the chance to attack, they do so in a partisan manner, and those others defend hesitantly ..."
- Niccolo Machiavelli

The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Early Adopter

Sat, 08 May 2004 13:35:24 -0400

Where I work, we pride ourselves in wanting to be early adopters of new solutions, methods and management techniques. Then again, who doesn't want to be an early adopter and show that you are innovative and a true visionary? According to a study made by A.T. Kearney, almost 75 percent of companies want to be early adopters or in the stage of early maturity when investing in technology. The same study also shows that when it actually comes to coughing up the dough, about 40 percent do so only as late adopters or once the technology is in its mature offering.

Everyone loves a winner, i.e., someone that has been a visionary, made bets on new solutions and succeeded in doing so. However, everyone also hates the person that stands out. And if you suggest investing in new solutions or methods, you stand out. Inevitably, you will be challenged with questions like:

* How do we know that this new thing works? (We don't.)
* How do we calculate a return on investment? (Always difficult for new and unproven phenomena.)
* Why should you do this exciting innovative thing? (Try to explain that you came up with the idea and hope that this will be accepted by your critics.)
* Do we really need this when we already have other solutions? (Always a matter of opinion.)
* Should we not try something else? (Rest assured that this means that you will have to get back to your office and evaluate new solutions for a year, doing nothing that will upset your opponents.)

Scaling dead at 130-nm, says IBM technologist

Fri, 07 May 2004 09:18:27 -0400

The traditional scaling of semiconductor manufacturing processes died somewhere between the 130- and 90-nanometer nodes, Bernie Meyerson, IBM's chief technology officer, told an industry forum.

Speaking at this week's International Electronics Forum here, Meyerson repeated earlier comments on scaling. This time, he also referred to the end of conventional CMOS technology, which he portrayed as headed in the same direction as bipolar logic in the mid-1980s.

"The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them."

Tue, 16 Nov 2004 16:57:26 -0500

The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.
- Albert Einstein

Talent leak drains AT&T think tank

Mon, 22 Mar 2004 11:07:24 -0500

When AT&T Labs was carved from Bell Labs in the 1995 breakup of AT&T , the telecom giant set lofty goals for its new research arm.

"Our mission, in my view, is to invent the future of communications," proclaimed Alexander "Sandy" Fraser, who pushed to create AT&T Labs.

Today, many of AT&T's top scientists still chase that dream -- somewhere else. They strive to invent the future in the shiniest ivory towers and hottest tech companies, from MIT to Microsoft, from the Pentagon to Google.

Some 200 scientists -- nearly half the core research staff -- were let go from AT&T Labs in Florham Park in January 2002 amid sweeping corporate cuts throughout AT&T. Since then an all-star collection of researchers has bolted from the labs.

The fate of AT&T Labs mirrors changing fortunes at AT&T, an American icon squeezed by bad investments and bad timing. More importantly, some scientists say, it raises tough questions about the direction of industrial research and America's future as an innovator.

"There ain't no rules around here!"

Sat, 31 Jan 2004 10:43:43 -0500

There ain't no rules around here!
We're trying to accomplish something!
- Thomas Edison

"Change is the law of life."

Wed, 28 Jan 2004 18:17:33 -0500

Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.
- John F. Kennedy

"Almost everything that distinguishes the modern world from earlier centuries is attributable to science."

Wed, 21 Jan 2004 10:13:26 -0500

"Almost everything that distinguishes the modern world from earlier centuries is attributable to science."
- Bertrand Russell