NAVIGATION EXPLAINED: Blog categories are located in the top navigation bar.
Static pages are located in the lower navigation bar.
|
There is mounting evidence that the business world could benefit from a wakeup call concerning science and technology. A failure to be aroused can lead to a failure to stay in business. Science and technology are advancing at exponential rates as evidenced by the announcements of breakthroughs almost daily, many reported in this column. Meanwhile many businesses slumber on, thinking that business as usual will get them through.
 Science and technology are advancing at exponential rates as evidenced by the announcements of breakthroughs almost daily. Consider that Chief Executive Magazine, in its current issue, invited a dozen CEOs of major corporations to describe their most important issues in the year ahead. Astonishingly, only one briefly mentioned technology.
A current article in Harvard Business Review includes this statement: ?most companies do a magnificent job of smothering the creative spark.? That same article claims only 5% to 10% of high potential managers have the skills to become breakthrough innovators.
A recent article in Business Week starts with this assertion: ?Many CEOs brag about nurturing a culture of innovation, but few have managed to do it over the long haul.?
A former head of research for Xerox described a situation not uncommon at companies spending lavishly on R&D. ?We would invent all sorts of things that didn?t fit into the core business,? he said, ?so then they would sit on the shelf.?
Contrast this reality with what President Elect Barack Obama said in a recent radio address: ?It?s time we once again put science at the top of our agenda and worked to restore America?s place as the world leader in science and technology. Today, more than ever before, science holds the key to our survival as a planet and our security and prosperity as a nation.
A new slogan may be ascending to an important position in the lexicon of health care. It is ?disruptive innovations?, a term used persuasively by the author of a new book, The Innovator?s Prescription, published by McGraw-Hill.
 The rise of technologies that introduce the ability to diagnose precisely the root causes of disease and create targeted therapies will lead to disruptive revolution of health care. In 441 well-reasoned pages, author Clayton M. Christensen offers solutions to the critical condition of America?s health care system. We need a cure, and we need it now, he states, adding to a familiar refrain.
He describes disruptive innovation as new technologies and business models that are able to simplify products and democratize services. He contends the process can overturn and revolutionize entire industries.
Christenson, who is a professor of business administration at Harvard, and his two co-authors Dr. Jerome Grossman and Dr. Jason Hwang, are nationally recognized health care policy experts.
The authors tackle their subject from a business point of view, explaining how the vast array of products and services flooding the market from scores of highly-segmented industry groups have kept health care costs unnecessarily high.
The theme of this timely and thoughtful book is that disruptive innovation has the power to reduce costs while improving the quality, accessibility, convenience, and safety of care. They explain that the rise of technologies that introduce the ability to diagnose precisely the root causes of disease and create targeted therapies will lead to disruptive revolution of health care.
This is another example of the rethinking and innovation themes that are resonating through society at all levels, challenging all institutions.
Innovation is a subject frequently on the agendas of board meetings. In an article in the Harvard Business Review, Jeffrey Cohn of the consulting firm Spencer Stuart, who has been studying this subject for many years, wrote, ?most companies do a magnificent job of smothering the creative spark.? Eliminating these five common mistakes can go a long way toward solving the problem:
- Maintaining a not invented here (NIH) culture that rejects products, ideas, and services from outside.
- Failing to monitor advances in science and technology that could lead to new products and services for your business.
- Elements of anti-innovation culture that squelch internal talent
- Innovators and change agents, who are relatively rare, only survive with support, recognition and encouragement.
- Thinking that your company can survive the torrent of advances in technology by continuing to do business as usual.
In his weekly radio address to the nation, President Elect Obama made this statement: “More than ever before, science holds the key to our survival as a planet and our security and prosperity as a nation. It’s time we once again put science at the top of our agenda and worked to restore America’s place as the world leader in science and technology.”
 "More than ever before, science holds the key to our survival as a planet and our security and prosperity as a nation..." Mr. Obama went on to state, “Right now in labs, classrooms and companies across America, our leading minds are hard a work chasing the next big idea, on the cusp of breakthroughs that could revolutionize our lives.”
The President Elect, in the same presentation on Decemer 20th, announced that he had chosen Dr. John Holdren to be Assistant to the Presideent for Science and Technology and Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Dr. Holden is a professor and Director of the Program on Science, Technology, and Public Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, as well as President and Director of the Woods Hole Research Center.
It is the function of this website to chronicle daily notable developments in support of the Obama adminisrtration goals and objectives with regard to science and technology. The full text of the weekly address can be found at WSJ.com
 ITIF advocates investment in the nation?s digital infrastructure as the most effective way to jump start the economy. The scientists involved with ITIF single out three infrastructure projects that they claim can provide an important short-term boost to the economy. They are: broadband networks, health information technology (IT), and the smart power grid.
In a report, ITIF gets specific about the impact of its recommendations, which they say will:
- contribute to significant immediate direct and indirect job growth in our economy
- create a ?network effect? throughout the economy that, in some cases, doubles the number of directly created jobs
- provide a foundation for longer term benefits, including government cost savings, economy-wide productivity, and improved quality of life for Americans
With that wish list identified, the authors of the ITIF report get even more specific, claiming that:
An additional investment of $30 billion in the network infrastructure will create approximately 949,000 jobs, 525,000 of them in small business. A $10 billion investment in year one in broadband networks will support an estimated 498,000 new or retained U.S. jobs for a year.
An additional $10 billion investment in health IT in year one would create as many as 212,000 new or retained U.S. jobs for a year.
A $50 billion additional investment in the smart power grid over 5 years ($10 billion per year) would create approximately 239,000 new or retained U.S. jobs for each of the 5 years.
Acknowledging that projects to improve traditional physical infrastructure such as roads, bridges and sewer systems are necessary and important, the authors of the report contend that digital infrastructure projects will have a more immediate impact on jobs, productivity and innovation.
Stanford University?s role in energy research and national energy policy will expand as the result of newly announced alumni donations of $100 million. A new energy institute for the study of everything from solar cells to energy markets is being created.
 A new energy institute for the study of everything from solar cells to energy markets is being created. University officials said Stanford?s existing energy-focused efforts will be consolidated in one site. The donations will support the hiring of new faculty, additional graduate students and provide seed money for major research projects.
The donations came from three alumni who said they were motivated by the desire to protect the environment from green house gases, improve energy efficiency and reduce America?s dependence on foreign oil.
Stanford President John Hennessy announced the donations at a news conference. He said, ?These generous gifts will help us overcome the enormous challenges that we face in energy research. It will create an independent institute for researchers on campus and around the world.?
An even larger energy institute at the University or California-Berkeley is controversial because it is supported by BP and involves industry scientists. Hennessy stressed that the new institute will be independent.
The field of nanotechnology is producing phenomenal results that respond to what Einstein is reputed to have said, ?any fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a genius?and a lot of courage?to move in the opposite direction.?
 Atoms and molecules are measured in nanometers. Scientists at Texas A&M are moving in the opposite direction, making significant discoveries in the area of power harvesting?a field that aims to develop self-powered devices that do not require replaceable power supplies, such as batteries.
Imagine a self-powering cell phone that never needs to be charged because it converts sound waves produced by the user into the energy it needs to keep running.
Professor Tahir Cagin at Texas A&M and partners at the University of Houston have found that a certain type of piezoelectric material can convert energy at a 100% increase when manufactured at a very small size, around 21 nanometers in thickness.
A nanometer is a microscopic unit of measurement representing one-billionth of a meter. Atoms and molecules are measured in nanometers. A human hair is about 100,000 nanometers wide.
Nanotechnology has grown increasingly popular due to consumer demand for compact portable and wireless devices in which battery life is a key issue.
The meaning of exponential (an extremely rapid increase) is demonstrated dramatically in the world of optical discs. No sooner did the in-the-know public get used to the idea of Blu-ray and its impressive 50 gigabytes of storage than another giant leap is in the making.
 Blu-ray discs hold five times more data than a standard DVD. Disks with hologram technology bump up capacity another 20 times. There is now new technology, 3D holograms, that has the potential to dramatically increase storage capacity. Blu-ray discs hold five times more data than a standard DVD. Disks with hologram technology bump up capacity another 20 times.
The hologram approach involves two blue laser beams, both aimed at the same spot on light sensitive plastic. One beam shines continuously and the other pulses to represent digital 0s and 1s.
Blu-ray was developed by the Blu-ray Disc Association, a group representing makers of consumer electronics. For a while it was all-out war, with Blu-ray competing with the HD DVD format. Peace came when Toshiba gave up the fight and others followed suit.
At last report there were some 1,500 Blu-ray Disc titles available in the United States. Will there be another dust-up with holograms competing with Blu-ray? No doubt there will be a contest. Whether it will qualify as a war remains to be seen.
Dueling experts on the subject of global warming, or climate change if you prefer, bring to mind Will Rogers oft-quoted riposte, ?It ain?t so much the things we don?t know that get us in trouble. It?s the things we know that ain?t so.?
 The decibel level has been rising about the global warming hypothesis. The squabbling of scientists is not a new phenomenon, but the decibel level has been rising about the global warming hypothesis, advanced and promoted several years ago by the activist-scientist James Hansen.
Now Dr. John Theon, who supervised Hansen at NASA, says ?add my name to those who disagree that global warming is man made.?
According to Theon, ?some scientists have manipulated the observed data to justify their model results. In doing so, they neither explain what they have modified in the observations, nor explain how they did.?
In the world of science, that is a capital crime. Theon explains, ?They have resisted making their work transparent so that it can be replicated independently by other scientists. This is clearly contrary to how science should be done. Thus there is no rational justification for using climate model forecasts to determine public policy.?
A more acerbic assessment came from retired Navy meteorologist Dr. Martin Hertzberg who wrote, ?Not only is it false that human activity has any significant effect on global warming or the weather in general, but for the record, global warming is over. The fear-mongering hysteria about human-caused global warming is completely unjustified and is totally counterproductive to our Nation?s essential needs and security.?
Nation Magazine columnist Alexander Cockburn added this opinion, ?It is a tribute to the scientific ignorance of politicians and journalists that they keep regurgitating the nonsense about human-caused global warming. The greenhouse fear mongers rely on unverified, crudely oversimplified models to finger mankind?s sinful contribution.
Tired of recharging the numerous electronic devices that have become an esssential part of your lifestyle, and the snarl of wires involved? You can take heart in a ferment of technical development occurring at MIT where they have demonstrated wireless power transfer, and Texas Instruments where self-charging electronics and energy-efficient microchips are in the news.
 Giving portable elecronics the ability to charge themselves without ever being plugged in. MIT refers to its concept as WiTricity (wireless electricity), making it possible for cell phones, household robots, mp3 players, laptop computers and other portable elecronics to charge themselves without ever being plugged in. It is accomplished by coupling resonant objects of the same frequency. The technology is rooted in well known laws of physics.
The team at MIT, led by Prof. Marin Soljacic, showed off their concept by lighting a 60W bulb from a power source seven feet away. There was no physical connection between the source and the appliance. Further development into marketable products could reduce dependency on batteries, which are heavy and expensive.
A different idea is being pursued at Texas Instruments where they have unveiled a new chip design that works at a much lower voltage than usual and as a result is 10 times more energy-efficient for use in medical and other devices. In some applications, the goal is to make the power requirements so low that they could be powered by the body’s own heat or movement.
Working with Texas Instruments, MIT’s Anantha Chandrakasan said the key to the new design was to build a high-efficiency DC-to-DC converter which reduces the voltage, all integrated to realize a complete system-on-a-chip solution.
|
|
