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The Next X Prize

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the sounds-very-seXy dept.

BlueCup writes "The X Prize Foundation, sponsor of a widely noted 2004 award for developing a reusable rocket suitable for private space travel, says it is now teaming with a wealthy Canadian geologist to offer $10 million to any team that can completely decode the genes of 100 people in 10 days. And that's not all. As an encore, the winning team will be paid $1 million more to decode another 100 people's genes, including a bevy of wealthy donors and celebrities. Already accepted for future decoding: Google Inc. co-founder Larry Page, Microsoft Corp. co-founder Paul G. Allen and former junk-bond king Michael Milken."

4 of 114 comments (clear)

  1. This is the beginning of the end by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Maybe MY genes are worth decoding too, despite the fact that I'm not a C-level executive at a Fortune 500 company.

    Welcome to the World of Tomorrow! Where only the obscenely rich can afford immortality for themselves and their families, and the rest of us are left out in the cold... we are called "invalids" with an icy, sneering indifference by the wealthy, geneticly gifted sons of Paul Allen and Larry Page.

    Wake up people. There's a war on the horizon and the denying this technology to us proles us is going to be a major weapon.

    1. Re:This is the beginning of the end by LaughingCoder · · Score: 2, Insightful
      There's a war on the horizon and the denying this technology to us proles us is going to be a major weapon.
      Calm down. Technology, if it is useful, invariably gets cheaper and hence more accessible. Once upon a time only the "rich" had cell phones. Only the "wealthy" had home computers. Only the "powerful" had access to the internet. Only the "elite" had access to medicines and health care. Cars were in the domain of the rich. Ditto air travel. The list goes on and on. Mark my words, if mapping your genomes is something you as an individual want and will pay for, companies will find a way to bring it to you at an affordable rate. And when that happens, we can thank all those wealthy, rich and powerful people who payed huge sums in the earliest days, thereby giving the developers of the technology (and their investors) the cash they need to make improvements. More often than not, early consumers of advanced technologies are subsidizing its development for subsequent offerings to the masses.
      --
      The more you regulate a company, the worse its products become.
    2. Re:This is the beginning of the end by evil_Tak · · Score: 2, Insightful

      On a global scale, these things are still true.

  2. The smart inventor... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    ...would not take the encore--$1mil for the 100 extra.

    They're trying to force 2 prizes in 1 here: (1) the ability to do the sequence of individuals en masse, (2) put a new/instant market and price cap on the invented tech from the get go.

    First, why put a price cap on the new service at $10,000 a person, esp. for these wealthy individuals? It would be an artificial cap, for minimal gain. Second, they'd make more money from that same group of people with the "introductory price" when their tech comes out. If they are worried about proof to investors they they'd keep the price of the tech low (or get it there eventually), that's more easily proved later down the line without hampering their now/then present business prospects.