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Wall Street Journal's Technology Innovation Awards

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the fun-places-to-work dept.

Carl Bialik writes "Gene-sequencing company 454 Life Sciences was selected as the Gold Winner in the Wall Street Journal's 2005 Technology Innovation Awards. 'Around 750 applications were screened by a Wall Street Journal editor, who narrowed the field to 104 semifinalists. Then a panel of expert judges from industry, research organizations and academia scored each entry and picked the winners.' (Listen to an MP3 clip on how the judges chose.) Other winners include a company that has developed a low-cost method for manufacturing RFID tags; Riverbed Technology's network appliances; Fujitsu's ID system that uses the veins in a person's palm instead of fingerprints; and the Agitator tool to debug code."

58 comments

  1. Carl Bialik == Roland Piquepaille? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Only difference is that the WSJ has a shread of journalistic integrity..

  2. WTF? by east+coast · · Score: 4, Funny

    Half-Life 2 didn't win for software? What a bunch of n00bz.

    --
    Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
  3. Other Awards by ackthpt · · Score: 5, Insightful
    • Yahoo & Google for developing technology to assist PRC in filtering news and tracking radicals
    • Music companies for unmitigated greed in trying to muscle Apple into increasing prices
    • Sony and Blu-Ray coalition on develping new standards which drive a stake through the heart of, and bury Fair Use

    Kinda have to keep in mind what Wall Street is really interested in.
    --

    A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
  4. How many worthy applications were lost? by Karma_fucker_sucker · · Score: 1
    Around 750 applications were screened by a Wall Street Journal editor, who narrowed the field to 104 semifinalists.

    I have to wonder if there were any ideas that didn't make the final 104 that might have been better than the others but didn't sound as interesting or "cool" to the editor.

    --
    Evil people don't think they're evil. - George Lucas, Making of Ep III
    1. Re:How many worthy applications were lost? by ctr2sprt · · Score: 1
      You should be able to describe any useful innovation in a way that's interesting to a layman, even if he doesn't understand the details. Consider an oft-touted feature of the Linux kernel, O(1) scheduling. Only programmers and mathemeticians know what that actually means. But we can explain it in a way that makes sense to non-programmers so they can see the advantages, even though they probably still don't know what O(1) scheduling really is. Similarly, you can explain some insanely technical new MRI technology by saying "This makes detection of cancerous cells easier and more accurate," or an assembly-line innovation with "This allows us to cut our costs by 25% without sacrificing quality."

      If you can't do that, then probably your innovation isn't really an innovation at all. It's an incremental improvement or a different, but not better or worse, way of doing the same thing we do now.

  5. How... by wpiman · · Score: 1, Insightful

    How many of these companies will actually be around in 2 years? Great products don't always translate into success.

    1. Re:How... by Iriel · · Score: 1

      But there is life after death. A lot of companies that produce great ideas usually lack the (marketing|distribution) strength of the giants in a field. If they get bought out by Microsoft: god help us all, we just lost something great. However, if somebody more concerned with making a good product picks it up, you may see that project resurrected with tech support and better features/integration in a year or two.

      --
      Perfecting Discordia
      www.stevenvansickle.com
    2. Re:How... by hunterx11 · · Score: 1

      I don't think Douglas Engelbart made one red cent off his patent on the computer mouse, but that doesn't mean that the mouse wasn't a success.

      --
      English is easier said than done.
  6. Riverbed's stuff rocks! by wedding · · Score: 3, Informative

    Great to see this company getting some attention. We're using their devices, and it borders on black magic how much data reduction they're able to do over our WAN. I highly recommend them for anyone setting up a branch office!

  7. Fujitsu's ID system is Big Brother scary! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Fujitsu's ID system that uses the veins in a person's palm instead of fingerprints

    Fujitsu's system can not only identify you, but alert authorities to the last time you masturbated.

    1. Re:Fujitsu's ID system is Big Brother scary! by Peldor · · Score: 1

      Look, if you haven't washed it off, please, for all our sakes, keep your palm off the scanner.

  8. Its nice to see by mymaxx · · Score: 5, Insightful

    that someone recognized an innovation (see MIT's water purification solution) that isn't going to make a lot of money, but works to solve a serious problem.

  9. Doesn't Matter... by ackthpt · · Score: 5, Insightful
    How many of these companies will actually be around in 2 years? Great products don't always translate into success.

    Their IP will live on forever and be accumulated by some little holding company with a PO Box in rural Wisconsin. A year after any company produces a product anything like what their portfolio includes and they'll up-end the Bucket o' Laywers and it's Game On!

    --

    A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
    1. Re:Doesn't Matter... by theantipop · · Score: 1

      Isn't this the sad truth. It's really disheartening to see the patent sytem working against it's intended purpose in this way.

    2. Re:Doesn't Matter... by BarryJacobsen · · Score: 2, Funny

      Their IP will live on forever and be accumulated... in rural Wisconsin.

      As someone who has lived in rural Wisconsin, I assure you there is nothing remotely close to "Intellectual" there.

      --
      Track your TV Shows with your iPhone - FREE
    3. Re:Doesn't Matter... by gb506 · · Score: 1
      As someone who has lived in rural Wisconsin, I assure you there is nothing remotely close to "Intellectual" there.

      Well, as someone who actually DOES live in rural Wisconsin, I can assure you that you're quite wrong.

    4. Re:Doesn't Matter... by SatanicPuppy · · Score: 1

      Great, now you've pissed off the five people who live there and have internet.

      Way to go. The ensuing flamewar to end all flamewars in on your head.

      --
      ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
  10. I'm applying next year for my company by inventor61 · · Score: 1

    Too bad they didn't say HOW to apply! I think the pool could be bigger, and then teh chouces would be more broadly based. Also, I'd like to know the judges' CVs.

  11. Palm Vein identification? by Spy+der+Mann · · Score: 1

    So what happens if you get your hand wound in an accident? Suddenly all your ID's stop working? With fingerprints, at least you have a chance...

    Now think about id theft. With fingerprints, the thief requires to cut a finger from you. That, I could live with (unless I was a pianist of course). But having my entire hand ripped off? No, thanks, I think I'll pass.

    1. Re:Palm Vein identification? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Pulse. There is the possibility such technology could also detect pulse and surface temperatures and many other factors. Safety nets to prevent the hand removal thievery you mentioned. If that tech isn't in it now, I'm sure some kind would be added in the future.

      Daakon

  12. Re:The Keith Curtis Perspective by b0r1s · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Fark? Is that you?

    / The checkbox thing has been done // Slashes are for fark, too. /// Where's the 'Boobies' link?

    --
    Mooniacs for iOS and Android
  13. Solar Power by saskboy · · Score: 4, Informative

    "Solar Integrated Technologies Inc., Los Angeles, won for its solar roof system designed for large commercial and industrial buildings. The company combines a lightweight, flexible solar-energy system with a single-ply roofing membrane, enabling buildings to generate solar power from their flat rooftops. It has installed SmartRoof panels on a Coca-Cola bottling plant in Los Angeles and a Frito-Lay distribution warehouse in Torrance, Calif.; the Frito-Lay building's 70,000-square-foot roof is less than half covered with solar panels, but the system generates more than a quarter of the building's annual energy needs."

    Too bad that 50% roof coverage only generates 25% of the power they need. Perhaps they could get the rest from geothermal energy, although at some plants that would certainly be out of the question.

    It pains me to see new buildings going up without any form of solar panels, or light tubes put into them, when it wouldn't cost much to do so, and saves energy in the long run.

    --
    Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
    1. Re:Solar Power by fbg111 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Too bad that 50% roof coverage only generates 25% of the power they need.

      Why too bad? Depending on the durability of the solar cells, it sounds like getting 25% of your energy needs for a fixed cost and no recurring costs would be quite efficient. Further, cover 100% of the roof (if possible) and get 50% of annual needs from solar? Sounds great. Add a fuel cell storage system to the mix and you've mitigated the risk of business stoppage from blackouts. Sounds like there's a lot of potential there.

      --
      Flying is easy, just throw yourself at the ground and miss. -Douglas Adams
    2. Re:Solar Power by mikael · · Score: 1

      Too bad that 50% roof coverage only generates 25% of the power they need. Perhaps they could get the rest from geothermal energy, although at some plants that would certainly be out of the question.


      The solution is simple. They just new to cover their car park with solar cells. The roofing would keeping cars cool by being in the shade, and they would get the additional power. But only during Sunny days.

      --
      Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
  14. Found the related MIT Webpage by mymaxx · · Score: 3, Informative

    Since the WSJ didn't link to it, here is MIT's web page for their filtration system: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2001/nepalwater.html

  15. Half-Life 2 is hardly innovative. by CyricZ · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Games like Half-Life 2 are hardly innovative. Yeah, the graphics are a bit spiffier, but they're still basically the same as they were over a decade ago.

    If you want to talk about real innovation, you have to look towards the fields of medical visualization. Even some of the geophysical visualization technology is far more advanced and innovative than some PC game. The physics simulations are far superior, and the graphics themselves are beginning to hit a whole new level. This is software that is performing algorithms so complex, and pushing so much data, that they need to use the best possible hardware from SGI.

    --
    Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
    1. Re:Half-Life 2 is hardly innovative. by east+coast · · Score: 1

      Games like Half-Life 2 are hardly innovative. Yeah, the graphics are a bit spiffier, but they're still basically the same as they were over a decade ago.

      Dude, it's a joke... Thus the '1337' speak.

      --
      Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
    2. Re:Half-Life 2 is hardly innovative. by CyricZ · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      Sadly, it's difficult to tell these days which people who talk like that are serious, and which are joking.

      --
      Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
  16. mp3 clip by minus_273 · · Score: 2, Funny

    this is slashdot! it's not and MP3 clip it's a PODCAST!

    --
    The war with islam is a war on the beast
    The war on terror is a war for peace
    1. Re:mp3 clip by The+Cisco+Kid · · Score: 1

      While a podcast is referred to on the article page, the link in the /.summary is in fact a link to an actual ordinary 8Meg MP3 file.

    2. Re:mp3 clip by minus_273 · · Score: 1

      go read a few other stories linking to mp3 clips (see "podcast from space" etc) and you will understand this post. Explanations: the best way to kill a joke.

      --
      The war with islam is a war on the beast
      The war on terror is a war for peace
  17. Academic experts were involved in the process?? by LeonGeeste · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Why? They generally have no clue about how useful their innovations are to ordinary people. (Remember my story about the professor who justified memory metal on the grounds that it could reveal fish had been defosted? Yeah.) They're going to be biased in favor of solvers of "difficult" problems which confer no benefit on anyone. Just a thought.

    --
    Rank my idea: http://www.sinceslicedbread.com/node/531
  18. Flamebait by slashing1 · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Parent is an unfair characterization of the WSJ article. Obviously we are talking about companies with a profit motive here, but even nonprofit international aid and development organizations talk about the profit motive-- in the form of "sustainable development." The article specifically cites inventions that are not financially rewarding, for example

    "Clean water is not sexy, and $20 a year won't make anyone rich," says Robert Drost, a scientist at Sun Microsystems Inc.

    from the overall Honorable mention award. The overall Silver went to a company that is reducing toxic pollutants and decreasing greenhouse gas emissions through energy reduction.

    1. Re:Flamebait by aeoo · · Score: 1

      The shot, as I understand it, was aimed at the Wall Street community itself and not at the particular article in the Wall Street Journal.

  19. What Agitator does by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    I can't believe the Agitar website is such convoluted marketing bullshit! To find out what the hell their Agitator does, it took way too many clicks to find this small piece of informative text, burried in enterprise value and other double-talk:
    Agitation takes Java byte code and exercises it in a comprehensive fashion to observe its behaviors. It presents these observations to developers, who can respond in these ways:
    • If the observation points out behavior that should not occur, developers can trace down the cause of the problem and fix the defect.
    • If the observation indicates expected behavior, developers can promote it to a durable unit test with a single click of the mouse.
    Neat! Too bad I write .NET code; I would really like to try something like this.

    / Eagerly awaits for an open-source NAgitator to come out
    // Might end up writing it myself
    /// I read too many Fark discussions
    1. Re:What Agitator does by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Anybody actually used it? Is it useful?

  20. Agitar for Java code by tcopeland · · Score: 1

    From a scan of the Agitar forums it looks like they use JDK 1.5 annotations to do a sort of design by contract thing. Annotations are a great idea for this sort of thing; I've been working annotations into PMD to suppress warnings and it makes things a lot clearer.

    --
    The Army reading list
  21. Re:Flamebait ? by ackthpt · · Score: 1
    Parent is an unfair characterization of the WSJ article. Obviously we are talking about companies with a profit motive here, but even nonprofit international aid and development organizations talk about the profit motive-- in the form of "sustainable development." The article specifically cites inventions that are not financially rewarding, for example

    "Clean water is not sexy, and $20 a year won't make anyone rich," says Robert Drost, a scientist at Sun Microsystems Inc.

    from the overall Honorable mention award. The overall Silver went to a company that is reducing toxic pollutants and decreasing greenhouse gas emissions through energy reduction.

    Show me where in this criteria it is mentioned 'altruism', 'environment-friendly' or 'non-profit'

    Does the innovation represent a breakthrough from conventional ideas or methods in its field, and does it go beyond incremental improvements on technologies that already exist? Some judges also considered the utility of the innovation.

    I see no evidence that the choices will actually lead to a better world. Most will undoubtably spur business, which is very exciting to Wall Street, but nothing bars me from inventing a better thumb-screw or process for manufacturing it and being barred from entering the competition, does it?

    Please do keep some perspective.

    --

    A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
  22. Re:Flamebait ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Show me where in this criteria it is mentioned 'altruism', 'environment-friendly' or 'non-profit'

    "The Silver award was given to Ecology Coatings, of Akron, Ohio, for developing protective coatings that don't require polluting solvents and can be used without expensive, energy-intensive curing.

    Sally Ramsey, Ecology Coatings' co-founder and chief chemist, developed the coatings in the early 1990s while looking for an environmentally friendly protective layer for metal products"
    To quote the internet, "owned"

  23. Re:Flamebait ? by slashing1 · · Score: 1
    Show me where in this criteria it is mentioned 'altruism', 'environment-friendly' or 'non-profit'

    Exactly-- the criteria do not include profit nor any of the above factors. If you take the article at face value, it is a general innovation award.

    I see no evidence that the choices will actually lead to a better world.

    I'm sorry to hear that you don't think cheaper clean water isn't going to make for a better world, or that a reduction in toxic chemicals and greenhouse gases might not make things better overall. When I used to work for the UN in helping less developed countries compete with international agribusiness, cost-effective infrastructure (such as clean water delivery) to outlying areas was a huge barrier. Props to you when you when you invent something better and get some perspective.

  24. Fairness ? by El+Cabri · · Score: 1

    Has anybody noticed how a "Wall street journal editor" got to can 6 out of 7 candidates with no oversight ? That's pretty much enough to strip these awards of any credibility whatsoever.

  25. Re:Flamebait ? by ackthpt · · Score: 1
    Sally Ramsey, Ecology Coatings' co-founder and chief chemist, developed the coatings in the early 1990s while looking for an environmentally friendly protective layer for metal products" To quote the internet, "owned"

    Sorry, but that's not in the criteria to apply for the award, it's simply a characteristic of an award winner. You really must try to see the difference.

    --

    A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
  26. Re:Flamebait ? by ackthpt · · Score: 1
    I'm sorry to hear that you don't think cheaper clean water isn't going to make for a better world...

    This is you talking, not me. But since you were so off initially I figure this is the only way you figure you can save any face, by building a straw-man and then knocking it down.

    --

    A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
  27. More people should hack DNA by TheSync · · Score: 1

    Genetic engineering is the new frontier - more amateurs should hack DNA. There is a lot of information on this at DNAhack.com.

  28. Fujitsu's ID system... by fyngyrz · · Score: 1
    ...that uses the veins in a person's palm instead of fingerprints

    Definitely an advance in security.

    Now identity thieves will cut off a hand at the wrist instead of just a finger.

    --
    I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
    1. Re:Fujitsu's ID system... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      um....haven't you seen DOOM yet? even The Rock can figure that one out...

    2. Re:Fujitsu's ID system... by andrewman327 · · Score: 1

      Actually, since a severed hand will not have any blood flowing through it, cutting it off will do a thief no good.

      --
      Information wants a fueled airplane waiting at the hangar and no one gets hurt.
    3. Re:Fujitsu's ID system... by fyngyrz · · Score: 1
      Just how difficult do you think it would be to cauterize the stump, and put a periodic pressure generator into an artery or two or six? Maybe even put a pump between major arteries and major veins to get true flow through the hand? It's not like the thing needs to be sterile, you could probably build it with a hand bulb pump. Or hey, get fancy, throw a PIC CPU on there and get yourself a decent pressure curve that looks like the dual pulse the heart puts out at the extremities. Put a D battery on it and you could even heat the blood. None of this is beyond any electronic hacker's capabilities, and it definitely isn't beyond an engineer's capabilities (and yes, I'm an engineer.)

      As we've known for years...

      "locks are for honest people"

      ...and now...

      "hands are for honest people"

      --
      I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
    4. Re:Fujitsu's ID system... by andrewman327 · · Score: 1
      I still think social engineering is an easier way to get someone's personal information. My point is that criminals will often take the easiest path.

      Honest question: can a D battery heat blood to nearly 100 deg. F like the human body can? You'd think it would take more than 4.5 volts, but I'm probably wrong.

      --
      Information wants a fueled airplane waiting at the hangar and no one gets hurt.
    5. Re:Fujitsu's ID system... by fyngyrz · · Score: 1
      ...can a D battery heat blood to nearly 100 deg. F like the human body can?

      Yes, no problem. After all, a D battery can heat a lamp filament to burning incandescence in a fraction of a second, then keep it there for hours; it takes far less than that to heat a little (more) blood to a lower temperature and keep it there for a few minutes. If, in the unlikely case it was insufficient, one could always get a lantern battery from the hardware store. That'd boil some blood for a while. :-)

      You'd think it would take more than 4.5 volts, but I'm probably wrong.

      A D battery is 1.5 volts, not 4.5. It's not about voltage, or at least, not exclusively. It is about voltage X amperage. V x A = Watts, and you can convert watts pretty much directly to heat if the power is all dissipated in a resistive load, like a lamp or a resistor. In fact, the battery will also warm up because it has an internal resistance equivalence. A lantern battery is six volts, and can deliver quite a bit of amperage as well. Lots of heat available there. A thermistor, a transistor, a linear power amp, a pump, and a microprocessor with D/a and A/d convertors on board, and you'd have blood circulating at the correct temperature and pressure(s).

      --
      I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
  29. 454 will be around by Mab_Mass · · Score: 2, Interesting
    As someone who is working in biotech, I can tell you that 454 Life Sciences is definitely going to be around in 2 years. Not only is this a great technology, they have already built an instrument which is being distributed by Roche (ie, one of the bigger names in biotech). At this point in the game, they can deliver more sequence information faster than anybody else.

    Also, this company does not do "gene-sequencing" as the summary states, but it instead goes "genome sequencing". This is a huge difference. (For those unfamiliar with the terms - genes are the relatively small stretches of DNA that encode for a specific protein that span hundreds of nucleotides, whereas the genome is the total set of all DNA that goes into the organism and stretches for millions of nucleotides in bacteria to billions of nucleotides in humans.)

    454's technology is able to sequence almost all of a bacteria in a matter of days. (I say "almost all" because of very specific technical/biological considerations more complicated than I wish to explain.) To get to a comparable point with traditional sequencing, it would take months.

    1. Re:454 will be around by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I agree, my place of work has one of these machines for several months.

  30. Re:Flamebait ? by MightyMartian · · Score: 1

    I would think giving the Wall Street Journal the "Melvin T. Shit-out-of-luck Investor Best Newspaper to Wipe Your Ass With and Live Under" Award would be a great contribution to journalism.

    --
    The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
  31. Given that this is the WSJ... by Caspian · · Score: 1

    ...I wouldn't be surprised if these "454 Life Sciences" guys have patents on pieces of the human genome, a growing evil practice among corporations. (The WSJ wouldn't care about niggling little ethical issues like that.)

    Do they?

    Is there a site that shows who "owns" what pieces of the human genome?

    --
    With spending like this, exactly what are "conservatives" conserving?