Nanotechnology
I attended the Ready to Rocket 2006 session this morning, which was sponsored by Rocketbuilders , a Vancouver based market strategy and consulting firm that helps technology companies capitalize on market opportunities.
The presentation started with an overview of the successes from 2005. Next, Geoff Hansen presented an IT Outlook for 2006. This was followed by [...]
If you haven’t checked it out yet, check out “Fantastic Voyage: Live Long Enough To Live Forever” by Ray Kurzweil. It’s his newest book. The premise is that there are three bridges to get us to a nearly unlimited life span. The first is using what we already know. The second bridge is using biotechnology [...]
I love stories like this one at the Christian Science Monitor about Chris Anderson, a New Zealand scientist using crops to clean up contaminated mines. (Thanks Z+Partners for the link.)
In one fell swoop, he has come up with a process to improve the environment (both by having plants around and by having the plants [...]
This is an extremely long post on Massive Change, the multi-media exhibition that is intended to be the starting point for a global discussion on the role of design in creating our world. Here is a bit from their website that gives you a sense of the goals of the project.
I love Ray Kurzweil. Here is a short but interesting interview from CIO magazine where Kurzweil predicts things that will sound outlandish to most people:
• outsourcing is a good thing and in the bigger picture not an issue because it’s not a zero-sum game – he gives a 200 year view of these similar [...]
I am in the camp of people who think that nanotech will not be a “market” but that it will influence all other existing markets instead. Sure, there will be a market for nano-tech tools but even those will be broken out into vertical market toolsets and technologies so textile manufacturers will not be buying [...]
Here is yet another example of the nano-bio convergence that is happening, although this time it is the disciplines themselves physically converging in a new research facility. This can only help accelerate the interesting developments between the two sciences.
Sure it would be nice to have a googlebajillion MIP processor or some nano-opto-electronics to speed up your internet connection or a petabyte of storage on your keychain fob but these people are working on something that REALLY matters: odor-killing socks.
Here is a Reuters article on the National Cancer Institute’s new $145M USD nano-medicine funding plan.
How cool is this? Metin Sitti, a researcher at Carnegie Mellon’s Nano-Robotics lab has built a robot patterned on water striders, that can walk – not float – on water and that can propel itself forward the same way that water striders do. The “bug” contains about $10 worth of material.
Mike Crissey, writer for [...]
I am thrilled to see Steve Jurvetson of Draper Fisher Jurvetson, one of the premier Valley VC firms, has launched his own blog.
One of his recent posts discusses the very ideas that I mentioned in my blog-defining first post – namely that the next 20 years (2005-2025) will bring the same amount of change [...]
Similar to my post yesterday on swarming algorithms, Steve Jurvetson, head of Draper Fisher Jurvetson, also believes in the wealth of knowledge that we have yet to tap simply by exploring nature’s many inventions. Nice to see he agrees with me!! I’m kidding of course. The area of bio-mimetics has been discussed for quite some [...]
It’s Deja vu all over again. Renewable energy seems to be the topic of the day.
Some odd combination of forces are driving interest in renewable energies (many of the things that I discussed in my previous posting on bioproducts).
The web is cluttered with noise about bioproducts, solar energy, and other non-petroleum based energy [...]
Another article on nano-bio convergence applications is here.
Palo-Alto based Cambrios, Inc. is developing new methods for using biological material to create inorganic metallic semiconductors and nano-wires. Just more evidence of the coming NBIC (Nano, Bio, Info, Cognitive) convergence.
Richard Smalley recently testified to the U.S. Senate on how how nanotechnologies and distributed power grids are the future of power.
Here are some quotes that Jeff Harrow of The Harrow Group found:
“If I were just setting out today to make that drive to the West Coast to start a new business, I would be looking at biotechnology and nanotechnology.”
Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com From the May 14, 2004 Nanotech Insider http://www.forbesinc.com/newsletters/nanotech/
–
Michael Dell [...]
From one of my favourite newsletters, The Harrow Group Technology Report, comes this article on nanospheres, tiny little bits of material that were used in an amazingly successful cancer killing experiment:
As published in pages 171 – 176 of Issue 2 of the June 25 Cancer Letters (an abstract is freely available while the full text [...]
The Universe is 14 billion years old and will either either re-collapse into itself, expand into a completely diluted state, or rip apart in its 36th billion year in a runaway expansion so violent that galaxies and planets will be torn asunder in a fraction of a second. How do we manage the polarity inherent [...]
