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No More Next Big Thing?
CthuluOverlord writes "CNET News.com is reporting that Nicholas Donofrio, Big Blue's executive vice president of innovation and technology, made a declaration on Tuesday in an interview with ZDNet Asia. 'The fact is that innovation was a little different in the 20th century. It's not easy (now) to come up with greater and different things. If you're looking for the next big thing, stop looking. There's no such thing as the next big thing.'" Donofrio goes on to explain that he sees innovation as being services or social changes nowadays, rather than simply a better moustrap. What's the verdict? Is tech innovation dead?
The idea that tech innovation is dead implies that we will now recycle the same tech in slightly modified form, because we have discovered every useful thing. I THINK NOT. What is more likely is that Mr. Donofrio suffers from failure of the imagination. Usually, when someone make a claim this outsized and this ludicrous, the next big thing is literally right around the corner. Mr. Donofrio can't see it - maybe none of us can. But it will come, and its implications may be good or may be bad - tech is like that, but it won't stop until we can control matter directly with our minds :-D
I have nothing to hide. So, why are you spying on me?
Sounds like the "Everything that can be invented has already been invented" myth.
From the sound of this article, they should add another one to the list.
This is just like Albert Abraham Michelson announcing (in 1896) that physics is dead and complete with nothing left to discover. Since then, I think there have been some shocking advancements.
I tire of articles that basically say, "Look, look, we found a person who holds an important position in the corporate world and they said something without thinking (possibly just to make shock value news)! Let's all point and laugh."
My work here is dung.
Let just wait till macworld 2007 shall we? ;p
Jonathanjk.com
::cough::
BIOTECH!?!?!
What about the up and coming functional genomics?!?
E = m * c^(Hammer)
Innovation may be stifled but it's not for lack of ideas. The coporate influence in copyright and patent laws are the choke point.
UNIX/Linux Consulting
"Research ! A mere excuse for idleness; it has never achieved, and will never achieve any results of the slightest value."
-- Benjamin Jowett (1817-93), British theologian.
1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d
As one of my college instructor told me, the next the big thing has already been around for at least ten years before anyone bother to take notice. The Internet been around since the 1970s but no one noticed until the web browser and general access became available in 1995. The concepts for a lot of late 20th century technology (i.e., TV, radio, radar and microwave ovens) that we take for granted today was developed in the 1900s through 1940s. The next big thing may already exist right now, we just don't know about it until it appears on Slashdot. ;)
Got it exactly wrong. The curve, whether or not you like Kurzweil, is headed up. The interesting part is the next 'fracturing of the equilibrium' will, as usual, be military. It took from 1905 to 1944 for the last one to reach the common man. Now we're at the mercy of Moores' law so instead of 39 years ... 39 minutes?
(please excuse the mixed buzzwords)
Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.
Everyone thinks that progress is going to come to an end, because they can't imagine what the next big thing could be, but that's their failing, not progresses.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
We haven't even invented faster than light travel, time travel, teleportation or cloaking devices.
We haven't even invented a self repleneshing beer can.
The Internet is full. Go Away!!!
And I'll even go so far as to say the reason why there will be no next big thing - it's our broken-ass patent system.
Someone, somewhere out there has part of your brilliant idea buried in a vaguely worded submarine patent. Soon as you hit the big time - wham. Some greedy patent grubbing jerk will sue you for daring to make use of "his idea" that he's been sitting on not using for the last half a dozen years or so.
Only big business has enough lawyers these days to explore uncharted waters. Which means that business will be in charge of innovation. Which means that no product/idea/whatever will get the green light without a financial analysis conducted by a committee of people who will 99.9% of the time tend to be conservative, or maybe even just plain clueless as to the new idea's implications.
The days of the solo guy in the garage coming up with the thing that changes the world are over.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
He is quoted out of context, and is hard to know what exactly he meant
by "stop looking for the next big thing" quote. As far as I know, he may be saying that his job is not to hold a crystal ball in hand and try to predict the next big thing (neither should you). And he does *not* say there is nothing new to be discovered. He only says it is harder to come by these things in the tech world today. Elsewhere in the article it stands out clear that he is busy seeking to enable innovation, instead of getting worried about what the "next big thing" will be. So clearly he does not discard the power of innovation.
One cental remark he makes, that "innovation today is more about services, process, business models or cultural innovation than just product innovation" sounds *very* well put, IMHO. Let us not forget which sort of innovation Google, eBay, Yahoo, Amazon, Orkut, LinkedIn, Napster (the original), iTunes, and even Slashdot itself, among others, brought to the world -- hint: it is not technical.
Quem a paca cara compra, paca cara pagará.
and not ONE proclaiming that they have the "next big thing".... in their PANTS!
C'mon people, you can do better than this.
Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
...and you'll certainly stop finding.
How did this guy get that high up in an IBM research org?
I would like to throw my weight out there and call Donofrio an idiot, at least in relation to this statement. There are still many Next Big Things that we have yet to achieve (though the ability to achieve such may or may not exist, but we won't know till we try.)
A short list:
- Hovering vehicles
- Anti gravity (which is probably related to the above)
- hand held energy weapons
- teleportation
- economical space travel (think "to mars", or, at the least, consumer viability for going to the moon)
- curing cancer
- controlling computers with our brains
- mechanical prostetics that respond either to brain waves or nerves (we're right on the edge of this one- I believe someone had a really basic, bulky unit working, it just has to become available for the common man)
- growing of artificial organs for transplants (goodbye organ donors!)
- interactive holographic interfaces
- solar energy that's +60% effecient
Okay, maybe that list isn't so short. Sure, many of those fields are being worked on, but nothing concrete and ready for mass use has been created (to my knowledge.) All of those items will help to advance the human race in terms of how we live and effect our environment, as well as populating into space.
Also, I'm still waiting for my damned hoverboard. Back to the Future Part II is full of lies, I tell you, lies! (I realize that the events in BttF2 don't occur to 2015, but we should be seeing regular hover technology by now if we are to meet the deadline of mass production for hoverboards that can be used by everyday kids.)
If I were a creative, hard-working guy at IBM, and I heard something like this, I'd be thinking that I needed to get a new job, as I'd have no future at IBM if that is the sort of thing coming down from the top.
http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law/when_to_
Learn from the past man. Didn't IBM once say that there was only a market for 5 computers in the world?
This is a very sad statement. IBM still operates one of the few corporate R&D lab operations, but have been shifting theri focus to consulting. Yes it can make more predictible returns. But where will the next atomic force microscope come from?
IBM should find a PR person to babysit this guy.
Um, you might be interested in this: urban legend
Here's the important excerpt from that page:
Rumor has it... that a Patent Office official resigned and recommended that the Patent Office be closed because he thought that everything that could possibly be invented had already been invented!
While that statement makes good fun of predictions that do not come to pass, it is none the less just a myth. Researchers have found no evidence that any official or employee of the U.S. Patent Office had ever resigned because there was nothing left to invent. A clue to the origin of the myth may be found in Patent Office Commissioner Henry Ellsworth's 1843 report to Congress. In it he states, "The advancement of the arts, from year to year, taxes our credulity and seems to presage the arrival of that period when human improvement must end." But Commissioner Ellsworth was simply using a bit of rhetorical flourish to emphasize the growing number of patents as presented in the rest of the report. He even outlined specific areas in which he expected patent activity to increase in the future.
Taken out of context, such remarks take on a life of their own and are perpetuated in publication after publication whose authors, rather than check facts, copy and quote each other. For example, recent publications have attributed the "everything that has been invented..." quote to a later commissioner, Charles H. Duell, who held that office in 1899. Unlike Ellsworth, who may have been merely misquoted, there is absolutely no basis to support Duell's alleged statement. Just the opposite is true. Duell's 1899 report documents an increase of about 3,000 patents over the previous year, and nearly 60 times the number granted in 1837. Further, Duell quotes President McKinley's annual message saying, "Our future progress and prosperity depend upon our ability to equal, if not surpass, other nations in the enlargement and advance of science, industry and commerce. To invention we must turn as one of the most powerful aids to the accomplishment of such a result." Duell adds, "May not our inventors hopefully look to the Fifty-sixth Congress for aid and effectual encouragement in improving the American patent system?" These are unlikely words of someone who thinks that everything has been invented.
"You will pay for your lack of vision..." - Emperor Palpatine to Ray Charles
flexible, inexpensive room tempaerature superconductors.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
1. Worldwide internet communication allows large numbers of international friendships, dampening public support for all geopolitical war.
2. Cheap connectivity makes government propaganda impractical in every country
3. Nearly all software becomes free, as the impracticality of selling infinitely copyable material becomes evident.
4. Pop culture dies for the same reason, and is replaced by amateur arts and culture
5. AIDS vaccine is found, triggering second sexual revolution
6. Tech advances too fast for traditional college to keep up. Other methods of training become more prominent.
7. Privacy dies. Morality becomes more utilitarian as "public face" becomes impossible
Step into a huge movement. Don't Tread In Me.
Apparently you didn't get the memo: Justin Simoni is the next big thing.
I thought the Michelson quote had another sentence: "now, if we can only figure out why these salts fog our photographic plates..." Or was that an ad-lib by my Physics Professor? (Dr. Thomas Eck, CWRU)
The thinking was that to the room of physics knowledge in 1896, the radioactivity door led only to a small closet of additional knowledge, rather than opening out into the wide, wide world.
In 1896, noone knew what made the sun shine. Now we do.
IMHO, precision chemistry (e.g. nanotechnology) will lead to some amazing things, but not at all the ones that people expect. K. Erich Drexler's universal manipulator will not happen, and a space elevator is a lot more likely. Precision fibers and laminates will do surprising things. MEMS and biotechnology will shake things up.
As fossil fuels dwindle and become more expensive, energy conservation will become more important, as will turning plant material into liquid fuels. There will be much innovation in how to do things using less energy, or less fuel. The accelleration in processor power will slow down, as thermal and quantum effects become more and more important and harder to overcome. But storage technologies, hard disk and flash will continue improving.
All of the changing ratios of relative costs will keep innovators busy finding better solutions to the changing problems.
But even that isn't true. We have had a bunch of things that in their own way (and I guess own realm) were a big thing. Think about the Nintendo in the mid 80's - completely reinvented home gaming. Processor innovations have made computers both smaller and cheaper. What was a "laptop" like 20 years ago, compared to now? Hell, even the palm, a simple an idea that it was, seriously changed the way some people use their computers. Now you have other systems that use Windows CE and similar. The iPod has very much taken the market by storm.
All of these products came to pass without much litigation holding them back. Trust me, there will be more big things.
Anyone who doesn't think so has no imagination.
RonB
It is human nature to take shortcuts in thinking.
Innovation is certainly not dead, but a lot of innovators are on strike. Think "Atlas Shrugged" and Galt's Gulch. With today's IP environment which heavily favors large corporations whether or not you work for them, I for one refuse to play the game. Did the patent game both under my name and as a consultant, created lots of fun stuff, but for what you end up getting out of it, it is simply not worth the extraordinary time investment. I personally know at least half a dozen just like me, and I'm not exactly the most socially connected nerd...
What I invent now I do for fun and for just myself and my friends.
Maybe he does lack imagination as some have said but he's got a point.
Consider the field of electronics. Most of the engineering work during the past 50 years has been refining the fabrication of the transistor and it's application. Regardless of whether you're talking about TV, audio equipment, computers, defense systems, industrial controls or any other product made of electronics.
It's all been about the transistor. The nobel prize in physics was awarded to 3 engineers in 1947. It took more than a decade to get the transistor into a form that could be used in prodcution. Since then, there have been many refinements including printed circuit boards, integrated circuits and lots of miniaturization of systems. We've gotten lots of mileage out of the transistor because of it's versatility as a controlled source. It can be used as a switch or as an amplifier. The mother of it's invention was the need for a better way of performing these switching and amplification functions than vacuum tubes could provide.
Transistor technology is mature. Discrete transistor circuitry is already considered as quaint as tube circuitry. Soon, we'll regard standard ICs the same way.
But where are the glass or plastic light based circuits on Star Trek and 2001 Space Oddessy? The answer is that awaits a breakthrough in physics of the same magnitude as the transistor was.
Since most of the people reading Slashdot are programmers rather than EEs, I will point out that much of the software we develop runs on machines made of this 50 year old transistor technology. Having machines based on light or water or living tissue or whatever form they'll eventually take is bound to change this.
But this breakthrough in physics hasn't happened yet. It might be next year or it might be 30 years from now. Look at the time it took us to progress from vacuum tubes to transistors. It's hard to predict. But there will be a certain transition period between transistor technology and whatever replaces it. Only then will we have some idea what the next big thing might be. Whatever it will be, it ain't in sight yet.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
"No one will ever need more than 640K of RAM"
I think that this is probably going to be the most exciting 50 years ever--so many new advances and new problems facing the world. I think that this guy needs to stop letting nostalgia get to him.
When in history have: so many people had the ability to share and communicate ideas
When in history have we actually had to worry about the carrying capacity of the planet.
When in history have we had one world government coming into power?
Ok, those are all social changes. Tech? Shit, too many to list: NANOTECHNOLOGY for one, will change everything from computers to cars to carpet. GENETIC ENGINEERING/BIOTECH will probably create a drug that stops the aging process (in the next 50 years), clones, etc. SPACE, humans will again turn their eyes towards the sky once we are mostly living peacefully around the world. Mars, Venus, probes, space stations, space tourism, space elevators (see NANOTECHNOLOGY), MORE.
Yeah, it's not as "easy" to innovate, but when was it ever EASY? Edison worked for years on the light bulb and his other inventions, which is probably one of the simplest things we use each day.
I mean, sure, most innovation today is happening either at a really large scale or a really small scale and so to the "average human" it doesn't seem very cool or sexy (it's not "human sized"). But once people see that these things will create human sized changes in the world, they are going to take notice.
IBM should FIRE this guy if he's the VP of Research.
Cool! Amazing Toys.
I worked for IBM when this trend started... they bought the company I worked for, and, unlike many in companies bought by IBM, I stayed around for a couple years (compare 54% attrition in a year vs. 6% attrition in a year for most Cisco acquisitions).
One really stupid thing that happened before I left was that they decided that each of the major labs would have to come up with at least one product every 6 months, instead of dedicating themselves to research. This was one of Lou Gerstner's last gasps, but it redirected the company focus from doing things that no one else could do, to doing things that made short term profit.
Then others in the company (Sam Pamisano, Bill Etherington, et. al.) decided that individual contributors compensation would be based on the overall profit more than division or personal performance, and that managers and above would still have it based on division, personal performance, then overall profit, in that order.
Either they believed the engineers working for them had never had any higher math in the area of game theory, or they were simply ignorant that the emergent property of that type of staging is to keep your boss pleased by keeping the division up at the expense of the rest of the company, so the boss is happy and cuts you in on the cake.
Finally, it was a matter of pride to IBM Global Services that they had so much consulting effort that had been sold that they had a 2 year backlog - WTF? Who could *possibly* be proud of promising something you're unable to deliver in the timeframe you promised it, or having an organization that can't meet the demands of its market?
It's really unfortunate when a large company that people have depended upon for their livelihoods starts a tumble into short term thinking, and from there, into mediocrity.
-- Terry