A Brief History of Time-Based Strategy.

The ‘speed thing’ - whether time-to-market, production cycle-times, or delivery lead-times, et al - isn’t new. It goes way back before it became vogue in late 20th century business strategy. Competition through swiftness goes back millennia in fact.

The Great Wall of China and Rome’s straight cobbled roads where constructed to deploy troops and ordnance at pace. Empires would fallen like dominos if it were not for these engineering super-highways.

When the first prototype model of the K5054 (Type 300) Spitfire was assembled in 1936 it took almost 28 days of 24 hour shifts. By the end of the Battle of Britain in October 1940 it took a mere 9 hours to put the Mark-V (type 331) Spitfire together…. And hay, who said the Japanese pioneered Kaizen type continuous improvement?

Lockheed (now merged as Lockheed-Martin) also as far back a the World-War-II and through the 1970s continued to amaze the Pentagon by the speed at which they designed and built advanced tactical jet aircraft. In fact, one-tenth of the time compared to the competition. The driving force behind this stupendous rate of productivity was one Clarence ‘Kelly’ Johnson. He set up an organisation with all the processes in one giant hanger to cut across red-tape to get things done without fuss. Two of his most celebrated projects was the U-2 and SR-71 (Blackbird) spy plans. They went from rough sketch to airborne prototype in under 21 weeks (that’s 144 days).

In 1979 a client of the Boston Consulting Group revealed the conclusions of a benchmarking programme he carried out between his US factories against his Japanese affiliate’s factories. The findings were stark. The Japanese plants had substantially higher productivity, better quality, less inventory, less space and much faster throughput times. However, they were baffled as to how they achieved such competitive advantages? And after the best part of a 4 year study the cause of these effects were delineated. ‘Time’ was at the essence.

During these investigations many closely held assumptions as to how costs and customers behave were altered. Instead of costs going up as run-lengths are reduced; instead of costs going up as greater investment in quality; instead of costs going up with increasing variety and quicker response times; costs came down. Further, instead of customer demand being only marginally affected by expanded choice and better responsiveness, it proved astoundingly sensitive to better service.

After these conclusions were drawn, they began to leak out into the technical media, and so time-based strategy began to take off. Throughout the 1980s and ‘90s speed became a big issue. In Japan Sony, Casio and Sharp adopted the temporal approach to new products. Six months for new platform digital watch, camera, phone, PDA, or forget it! State-side, the likes of Xerox, AT&T, H-P, Intel, and Motorola begun to see the benefit and implement time-based strategies and organisations. Eventually, in some cases, new product introduction went from many tardy years to months.

And so it was set. Manufacturing, and many a service industry was ablaze with buzz terms like ‘Simultaneous Engineering, ‘Integrated Design and Manufacturing,’ ‘Process Reengineering,‘ and ‘Time-to-Market.’

Today, arguable, Formular-1 racing hold the batten of speed across new product introduction and production cycle-times. Making use of ultra-fast design and manufacturing technologies, and highly talented, skilled and integrated teams of engineers and designers. Racecraft models go through significant adaptations week-to-week during race season.

Life Expectancy Revisited.

A friend just asked me if I had any data on the evolution of increasing human life expectancy.

‘Afraid not’ I said, and explained that expanding human life-expectancy has little to do with evolution at present, at least in the Darwinian sense. Genetically, and therefore anatomically speaking, humans (homo-sapiens) haven’t changed for about 130,000 years (modern humans appear in the fossil record in Africa about 130,000 B.C.).

But I do have data on the average human life expectancy which has increased as a result of improvements in technological culture.

The reason is that cultural developments operate many orders of magnitude faster than genetic evolution. Advances in medicine, diet, and labour productivity have happened in the blink of an eye, and have had dramatic impact in life spans.

Here’s the data:

Average Life Expectancy (Years)
-------------------------------
Cro-Magnon Era: 18
Ancient Egypt: 25
1400 Europe: 30
1800 Europe: 37
1900 USA/Europe: 48
2008 USA/Europe/Japan: 79

If this exponential growth curve continues for even as little as the next 20 years, average life expectancy in the developed west will hit 98 by c.2030.

But, as my blog post of Tuesday, 6 November 2007 reports (blogsearch: 'de grey'), even this forecast is ultra-conservative.

18 Reasons for the Need for Speed.

In 1988 I was tasked to shrink the new product introduction cycle-time at the much acclaimed, design lead firm, Concord Lighting. 20 years later, now in 2008, time-based competition can still give strategic advantages. In fact, time compression has become an industry in itself. But why still the need for speed?

Here’s 18 reasons:

Leave Competitors Behind and Disadvantaged: Companies with relatively slow processes are by definition slower to change, and as such are left behind as faster competitors innovate new business models. When slower companies do respond they do so from a disadvantaged position, and so incur all the costs of becoming more responsive without securing many of the benefits.

Move Ahead of the Industry: If the competitive environment develops faster than a firm is developing, then the writing is on the wall. If a firm is developing ahead of the market, then that company will eventually breakthrough a competitive wall.

Time to Insight: As the number of competitors that recognise the same opportunity goes up, so the value of that opportunity fall to wards a commodity proportionally. Hence, the time it takes to recognise an opportunity is key to sustaining value.

Accelerated Learning: Shorter-cycles enable faster feedback for learning. This greater and deeper understanding at a faster rate facilitates better project control; delivers better quality outputs; and ultimately gives more advanced solutions ahead of the competition.

Risk Reduction: Such accelerated learning also reduces risk and uncertainty. Learning is number one route to reduce the risk of anything. The faster one learns, the faster one understands the details of a risk.

Time Value: Show me a market that doesn’t have collapsing windows of opportunity and I’ll name a dozen that do. Thus, in markets with shrinking life-cycles ‘value’ is not only finite, it is time dependent. In as much as the earlier a firm can launch a new product the more share of that finite value is gained.

Rapid Return On Investment: One of the most evident challenges for new product introduction is that there’s no residual value until the new product reaches break-even point in the market. This can be a strain on both a company’s capitalisation and cash-flow. In sum, get faster to the break-even point, and ROI comes back faster.

Rapid Attack: The traditional attack strategy is the cut-price/add capacity stance. However, a time-based attack is about surprise, as competitors often get confused, don’t understand what happening, and therefore cannot intelligently respond. Such a surprise can gain much market share. Surprise the competition with rapid introduction of radically innovative goods and services, super-fast delivery, then wow them by delivering more than expected faster.

Fast Following: Copying something that moves faster than a firm can copy isn’t a good business to be in. Faster-cycles than the competition enable a firm to track close behind the leader, but with the benefit of lowered risk.

Fashionising: It’s a fickle, down right ephemeral world. Cellphones, laptops, MP3 players, DAB radios, palm-top assistants, training shoes, and robopets aren’t just functional items anymore - they’re fashion accessories. Fast new product introduction cycles are a significant part of setting and leading trends.

Technological Leadership: It’s said that a slower pace of innovation allows for refinement of technologies. But there is counter point here. Whilst slower competitors hone their wares in the lab, faster competitors are learning in the real world with real products at two and more time the speed. But more, because learning happen twice as fast, technological development is compounded and thus the leader can pull away.

Market Preemption: Fast-cycles mean that you can get to market first. And that means that such a preemptive strike can allow you set the industry standard, in turn lead and gain greater market share.

Premium Prices: Leading the market whether through technological leadership, setting fashion trends, or being in a position to gain a preemptive strike means that your product or service will command a premium. First to market with a new product that satisfies customer demands above and beyond the competition will put a firm in a premium value position.

Reduces Rework: Lengthy cycle-times can give way to loss of information, as data, ideas and learnt knowledge is lost in the drawn out gap between start and finish. This, in turn, may increase error rates and rework. Fast cycles give faster communication feedback, thus less gets lost, and hence less rework.

Increase Productivity: As time-to-market or production cycle-times get faster, throughput naturally increases. But more, accelerating cycle-times mean more time for process performance improvement, so setting up virtuous circle of increasing productivity.

Increased Customer Responsiveness: Speed gets a firm closer to the customer, in turn, customers become more dependent on the firm. Fixing a problem quick is close to the customer. Fastest and reliable delivery leadtimes is even closer.

Increase Variety Whilst Reducing Costs: Time’s money of course. Traditionally, the costs of an organisation, whether it be a product or service business, can be very sensitive to the amount of variety that company is attempting to manage. On-the-other-hand, speed subverts the rising cost dilemma. Rapid cycle-times enables a firm to increase product variety, whilst at the same time lower overheads and indirect costs.

Increasing Returns. Who is first with most, gets! You don’t even have to be the best technologically speaking. Recall the old Sony Betamax Vs VHS video cassette tape war. VHS won because VHS were out in the market earlier with more product in the market, even though Sony’s system was better! Today, Sony have learnt that lesson, and have won the Blue Laser CD as standard competition for exactly the same reason. Who is first with most, gets.

Breakthrough Technologies for Peering into the Brain.

Temporal and spatial resolution of brain - tomographic - scanning technologies are doubling each year.

What was a pipedream a mere 15 years ago - scanning and seeing the brain at the mol level - is in fast becoming eclipsed by even more sensitive instruments today.

New breakthroughs in scanning technologies now enable reduction of mol drift and noise in the apparatus to such an extent that such kit can see the tiniest motions of brain molecules and their connections to a distance less than the molecules own diameter.

Here’s the chronology:

In 1970 the best available scanning resolution was 2.0000mm in 1000 second graphical rendering, via Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI).

By 1980 it was 1.2000mm in 80 second graphical rendering, via Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI).

By 1990 it was 0.7000mm in 8 seconds graphical rendering, via Positron Emission Tomography (PET).

By 2000 it was 0.1000mm in 0.01 seconds graphical rendering, via Magnetoencephalograpy (MEG).

And by 2006 the best available scanning resolution was 0.0200mm in 0.004 seconds graphical rendering, via more advanced MEG.

Today, at the beginning of 2008, a breakthrough at the University of Pennsylvania Neuroengineering Research Laboratory is enabling spatial resolution high enough to image individual neurons, at 1 millisecond time resolution. This is a dramatic leap forward, as this is sufficient to record the firing of each neuron (a designation for the technology has not been announced yet).

As for the near future, there’s much excitement and activity.

One approach called ‘two-photon laser scanning microscopy (TPLSM).’ This creates a single point focus in 3D space which detects intracellular activation of individual synaptic receptors and dendritic spines at one millionth of a billionth of a second (10-15).

This steady march toward nano scale resolution (spatial and temporal) means greater elucidation of such dreadful neurological problems as Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s, and stroke.

'The public at large are blind to what's happening at the cusp of technological innovation... Governments are even worse... But what frightens me is that the average engineer working on the front line, doesn't have clue to what's happening at the edges of science and technology either...

On my walkabouts around US and EU factories I ask what on the CEO's mind. Mostly it's procedure, organisation charts, and next quarters financial report and cash-flow... I ask questions about quantum computing, nano-scale engineering, and what radical projects are being worked on?; and it usually draws a blank...

This is what's at the centre of the economic down turn. The average CEO has forgoten how to radically think.'

Bill Gates (pissed off) @ Davos, January 2008.

Breakthrough Brain Interface Telecom Technology

A neckband that translates thought into speech by picking up nerve signals has been used to demonstrate a "voiceless" phone call for the first time.

With careful training a person can send nerve signals to their vocal cords without making a sound. These signals are picked up by the neckband and relayed wirelessly to a computer that converts them into words spoken by a computerised voice.

A video (click on above title) shows the system being used to place the first public voiceless phone call on stage at a recent conference held by microchip manufacturer Texas Instruments. Michael Callahan, co-founder of Ambient Corporation, which developed the neckband, demonstrates the device, called the Audeo.

Users needn't worry about that the system voicing their inner thoughts though. Callahan says producing signals for the Audeo to decipher requires "a level above thinking". Users must think specifically about voicing words for them to be picked up by the equipment.

The system demonstrated at the TI conference can recognise only a limited set of about 150 words and phrases, similar to the early days of speech recognition software.

At the end of the year Ambient plans to release an improved version, without a vocabulary limit. Instead of recognising whole words or phrases, it should identify the individual phonemes that make up complete words.

How to Accelerate Your New Product Processes in 5 Easy Steps.

Believe it or not, you don’t have to employ a £2000 an hour management consultant to reengineer you new product processes to get faster to market.

Here’s 5 things you can 'begin' do this quarter to get significant gains without upsetting the apple cart (to much).

Eliminate Bottlenecks: Where’s the number 1 bottleneck in your process? Obviously, look for the longest job queue. The reason for such a tailback is that there’s a linear and quite often single sub-process on the critical path to cope with a multitude of sub-projects waiting in series (e.g: one piece of major test kit, or lone mould M/C, etc). The solution? Multiply into a number of smaller pieces of kit, so that each project or sub-process can take place in parallel.

Reduce the number of projects by a half: This is about ‘results over time.’ Although there are less projects being worked on at any one time, the focus enables more projects to hit the market in much less time. The other issue here is what’s known as the ‘Bird Cage Effect.’ If there’s a heavy load of projects, the weaker projects (less perceived value or status of the engineer) will fall to the bottom of the cage. Half the number of projects and watch productivity boom.

Work a on small number of sub-systems at a time: Furthermore, working on a umpteen projects simultaneously will increase aggregate complexity. The danger here, is that this seemingly flexible approach is very wasteful and misleading. Why?… 2 reasons: First it causes so-called ‘Organisational Entropy.’ A multitude of people working on multiple projects, attacking several issues, sets up high and unnecessary levels of turbulence. Second - and as a result of the first - is something called the ‘Wait-State Trap.’ An endless string of stop/go situations. And a project on stop, is project on stop. Take all the wait-states situations and total organisational entropy, and it ends up in gross project time delays. The secret? Work on a small number of sub-system projects at a time, bring them up to specification, then move on to the next. In the long run, it’s is faster and more efficient.

Reduce the size of the team: Large organisations cause their own problems. We know that. Furthermore, product innovation is not a linear process, like counting the number of books in a library. Here, for every agent added (people counting the books) the faster the books are counted. However, product innovation is an acutely uncertain and highly interactive process. Where for every agent added, so the number of communication passes there are, in turn slowing the proces, that it was intended to speed up. QED: Small team are faster, more nimble, and efficient.

Give senior engineers multiple hats (but train in the skills): I know a very major hand tool OEM where senior engineers are designers, engineers, prototypers, testers, marketers and customer supporters all at one and the same time! And here’s the test. Have you seen the raft of innovative tools in the shops of late? Go look, you'll be surprised.

Watch Out for Internet TV Sets.

Apple Computers and Microsoft are joining the Hyperinnovation game, interconnecting the PC & TV set. For example, the ‘Windows Media Centre Internet TV’ is a living-room-ready system capable of playing DVDs, accessing websites, downloading internet data like digital movies and including a digital TV tuner all-in-one box.

Broadband access to homes is now a widespread reality, the problem that Apple and MS are attacking is the use of internet technology to deliver high-definition video to TV.

Desktop Factory Launch First Consumer 3D Printer

Regular vistors to my blog may recall the interveiw with Cathy Lewis, CEO of Desktop Factory.

She said the first version of the designed for 'businesses, schools and the home' 3D printer will be launched to market by end of 2007.

And Cathy and her team have done it!

The Jetsons-esque technology of fabricating three-dimensional objects is finally available for the home workshop, kitchen or den; and at a fraction of the cost of industrial machines.

Create your design on a PC, press 'print,' and voilà: you’ve got a new coffee cup, or washer for that darned dripping tap, or temporary whatever just to get you through the night — or just about any 'hard' plastic object that will fit inside the 5x5x5-inch chamber.

The 90-pound, microwave-size machine swaps the typical expensive printing materials for affordable nylon-based powder, which is hardened by a halogen lamp instead of a pricey laser and deposited in 0.01-inch layers onto a platform to build the final object.

Price: a mere $4,995; and expected to come down to less than $999 c.2011!

Synthetic DNA on the Brink of Yielding New Life Forms

It has been 50 years since scientists first created DNA in a test tube, stitching ordinary chemical ingredients together to make life's most extraordinary molecule.

Until recently, however, even the most sophisticated laboratories could make only small snippets of DNA (an extra gene or two to be inserted into corn plants to help the plants ward off insects for example).

Now researchers are poised to cross a dramatic barrier: the creation of brand new life forms driven by completely artificial DNA.

Scientists have already built the world's first entirely handcrafted chromosome: a large looping strand of DNA made from scratch in a laboratory, containing all the instructions a microbe needs to live and reproduce.

This year they intend to transplant it into a cell where it is expected to ‘boot itself up,’ like software downloaded from the Internet, and cajole the waiting cell to do its bidding.

And while the first synthetic chromosome is a plagiarized version of a natural one, others that code for life forms that have never existed before are already under construction.

This will be a watershed event, blurring the line between biological and artificial; and forcing a rethinking of what it means for a thing to be alive.

Nanorex's Animation of the World's First Design Concept for a Nanofactory.

By the emperical trends, full blown nanofacturing capable of manufacturing whole complex systems in the comfort of your home (e.g.,supercomputers, motobike engines, TVs) will be here some where between 2020 & 2025.

Click on above title to see video animation.

The British are coming!

Paul Revere c.1734.
American Political Revolutionary.

The Robots are coming.

Chris Harris, 2007.
British Technological Revolutionary.

The Moller M400 Skycar to be launched to market c.2010.

The working prototype of the M400X has successfully completed its initial hover tests.

The next phase of the testing will be to extend the hover flight characteristics with manned and untethered flights, hopefully within the next several months.

Moller are preparing the M400X for the new, more powerful Rotapower engines required for this phase, and are working to integrate these engines with updated electronics that make up the artificial stability system.

The next set of tests will be announced as soon as Moller can safely demonstrate the new features including a set of piloted test flights with parameters defined by the FAA for an Experimental Aircraft.

After the completion of these tests, Moller hope to build up to three M400 pre-production aircraft that will incorporate changes to the fuselage and cabin and prepare us for high-speed, and mid-air VTOL to high-speed cruise transition maneuvers.

It is Moller's intent to test the full-scale preproduction Skycar in a wind tunnel to validate the transition characteristics prior to performing this transition in flight, but high-speed flight tests may be performed that originate with the nacelles (engine pods) in the horizontal position rather than their VTOL-mode orientation of 45 degrees of rotation.

These tests will require that the Skycar use a conventional runway for take off and landing and will be required only for these tests. The Skycar's VTOL mode take off and landing capabilities will continue to be demonstrated during other low-speed test flights.

Initial use of the Skycar will require a pilots license, just as any other aircraft. The combined VTOL and conventional flight characteristics may require additional certifications (similar to type-license requirements for rotary winged aircraft) but the final determination has not yet been made and will be subject to FAA regulations and guidelines.

We believe the ease of use of the Skycar will eventually result in a gradually decreasing requirement for pilot training and, hopefully, less costly pilots training requirements. It may also result in changes to the current FAA mandated requirements for pilots operating licenses.

The earliest Moller anticipate an FAA certified production Skycar is 2010.

Hydrogen fuel cell powered jet takes flight!

An unmanned, hydrogen fuel cell powered jet engine made its high-pitched debut earlier this today. Which, according to the group of developers behind it, makes it the world's first environmentally friendly jet engine.

They don't seem to have been content with simply getting the jet off the ground, the pushing itself to a top speed of 700km per hour, and even performed a few aerial acrobatics (click on above title to see video).

Horizon Fuel Cell Technologies Inc see the technology winding up in other unmanned fly machines (military recon, mapping, search and find, etc) which they say would be capable of 30 hour flight times.

General Electric (GE) have not officially made a comment, but when I emailed Mark Dunn, a Senior Aerospace Engineer I know who works for GE, said:

'We have informal plans in the works, but there's no reason - if we start now -why we shouldn't get a full scale commercial airliner HydroJet prototype up and running by 2012.'

My estimate, technically speaking, is that we could replace all conventional gas guzzling, CO2 emitting, commercial jet turbines replaced by 2020.

I foresee a real scramble coming between the commercial jet heavy weights.

RR V GE Hydrogen Jet Engine development will be the biggest aerospace boxing bout of the early 21st century.

And Hay! We can all go on far away holidays again, without denting our conscience - and planet - anymore.

Pippa Pola

An artist who hails from Sussex, England will be putting on her first art exhibition in the famous Alexandra Arms Pub in Eastbourne, on Tuesday 18th December.

How to write a factual book, get it published, and make it sell in 30++'' steps.

1. Write not only what you know about, not only what you are passionate about, but what will make a difference to people for the best. Get that big idea.

2. Does the idea in the form of a book have a market?

3. Who are you customers and what do they want?

4. Where are they?

5. Segment them into categories, there'll be many kinds, with many different needs and problems to solve.

7. Who are the highest value, and who are the early adopters?

8. Go talk to them and learn and anticipate their needs.

9. Do your technical homework, do the '3Rs' (Research, Research, Research), but find and learn from the best (even a Don Professor will give you time if you're serious).

10. Find out which magazines, radio programmes, newspapers, websites, etc, that address your subject.

11. Write short pieces about your idea and send them to the decision makers of these communication media. Gather ideas.

12. Start a blog dedicated to your thesis. Write, learn and add as you go. Not only will you build a rich stock of ideas and writing, you would have begun to build you're audiance.

13. Draft the synopsis.

14. Draft the table of contents.

15. Draft 2 example chapters.

16. Readers need facts, but prefer to have them embedded in a narrative.

17. Tell them lively anecdotes and embed them in your life story.

18. Make’em laugh, cry, angry and amazed.

19. Find out [ALL] the publishers that focus on your kind of idea.

20. Find out the book publisher’s contract decision maker’s name and title.

21. Send out a covering letter, a copy of your Résumé, the draft synopsis, table of contents, and 2 sample chapters to [ALL] the targeted publishers simultaneously (over 100 is not uncommon).

22. Be patient, it can take months to get a reply, and expect loads of rejections.

23. Start planning your marketing campaign.

24. When a publisher(s) is/are interested, show professional enthusiasm, you will meet over dinner (don't order beer or wine... It's a Scotch and soda please!)

25. If you get an offer, and only once you signed the contract, get in touch with your media network (as above).

26. Start writing to the publishers specification (layout, standards, etc), and whatever you do meet the agreed deadlines.

27. Start emailing people and organisations that are affected by your forthcoming book.

28. Ask for testimonials for the cover of your book.

29. When your sample books arrive, keep one, but send the rest to the most influential people in your field.

30++''. And this is just the beginning.

Success is 99% inspiration.

1% going for it.

I've just changed my blog background colour to Turquoise.

Why?

I will keep you posted.

A novel group of drugs that target a gene linked to longevity could provide a way to turn back the clock on the diseases of aging.

The compounds are 1,000 times more potent than Resveratrol, the molecule thought to underlie the health benefits of red wine, and have shown promise in treating rodent models of obesity and diabetes.

Human clinical trials to test the compounds in diabetes are slated to begin early next year, according to Sirtris Pharmaceuticals, based in Cambridge, MA, USA which developed the drugs.

As far as I'm aware, this is the first anti-aging molecule going into [testing in] man.

The new drugs target an enzyme called SIRT1, which belongs to a class of proteins known as sirtuins that have been shown to lengthen life span in lower organisms.

Last winter, scientists took the first step when they showed that mice given resveratrol, a molecule that activates SIRT1, stayed healthy when fed high-fat foods.

But there was a catch: mice were dosed with the human equivalent of more than 1,000 wine bottles' worth of the compound (hic-up), an amount not possible for humans to imbibe or take in pill form.

Now a team at Sirtris have identified a group of compounds that activate SIRT1 1,000 times more potently than Resveratrol does. According to findings published in the journal Nature, the compounds bind to the enzyme and dramatically increase its activity.

They also found that the drugs improved insulin sensitivity and blood glucose levels in three rodent models: diet-induced obese mice, genetically obese mice, and a rat model of type 2 diabetes. Theoretically, this is a perfect drug,. Animals seem to have no change in weight, yet they have improved metabolic status.

In short, they live twice as long!

New! Mini Projector.

Most projectors are pretty bulky affairs, designed to take up a shelf facing a wall and never move. But what if you want to bring your projector with you, setting it up wherever you want and turning any surface into your own personal theatre? Well, then you need something smaller. Much smaller.

Like this Hikari Pro920 projector, which is so small you can stick it in one of your larger pockets. Of course, at that size the picture size is gonna be pretty small as well, with it designed to toss a 24-inch picture or smaller on the wall with quality dropping significantly at higher sizes. But hey, with it being that small and it costing only $299-$399, how can you go wrong with a projector like that?

How to Put the Breaks on Climate Change.

Click on above title and watch this David Keith TED lecture, and you'll have a peaceful weekend.

World's fastest elevator makes elevators scary.

If you aren't spooked by elevators, that might change if you take a ride in Taipei's Taipei 101 building.

That's because it sports the fastest elevator in the world, shooting people up from the 5th floor to the 89th floor in a mere 37 seconds. Wizzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!

It uses triple-stage, anti-overshooting systems and high-tech emergency break systems to keep it safe, but that won't make your stomach drop any faster once it starts off on its rocket flight.

My advice is to avoid the Taipei 101 building if you can

The End of Aging

Aubrey de Grey may be wrong but, evidence suggests, he's not nuts. This is a no small assertion. De Grey argues that some people alive today will live in a robust and youthful fashion for 1,000 years.

In 2005, an authoritative publication offered $20,000 to any molecular biologist who could demonstrate that de Grey's plan for treating aging as a disease -- and curing it -- was "so wrong that it was unworthy of learned debate."

Aubrey de Grey created the Methuselah Foundation to support scientific research into extending the life span, oh, 900 year.

Now mere mortals - who may wish to be significantly less mortal - can judge whether de Grey's proposals are 'science or fantasy.'

De Grey's much-awaited "Ending Aging: The Rejuvenation Breakthroughs That Could Reverse Human Aging in Our Lifetime" has just been published.

The judges were formidable for that MIT Technology Review challenge prize. They included Rodney Brooks, then director of MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory; Nathan Myhrvold, former chief technology officer of Microsoft; and J. Craig Venter, who shares credit for first sequencing the human genome.

In the end, they decided no scientist had succeeded in blowing de Grey out of the water. At issue is the conflict between the scientific process and the ambiguous status of ideas that have not yet been subjected to that process.

Well yes, that. Plus the question that has tantalized humans forever. What if the only certainty is taxes?

Dodging death has long been a dream.

Our earliest recorded legend is that of Gilgamesh, who finds and loses the secret of immortality.

The Greek goddess Eos prevails on Zeus to allow her human lover Tithonus to live eternally, forgetting, unfortunately, to ask that he also not become aged and frail. He winds up such a dried husk she turns him into a grasshopper.

How to Manage Complex Innovation.

Complexity in terms of up-scale, intricacy, and the increasing number of sub-systems has been noted as a prime sandbag, and often acute limit on many fields of technological and systems innovation. Hyperinnovations build an ever higher mounting for organisations to climb.

This is known as The Wall.

NASA, Airbus and IBM are working with their nose flat against The Wall.

NASA’s ‘Mission to Mars’ includes the development, integration, qualification and commission of 10s of 1000s of technological sub-systems.

Airbus’ A380 dual deck airliner has over 10 million components that have to fit and function to peak aerospace standards.

IBM’s Bluegene/Peta-FLOP supercomputer integrates 100’s of Pentium microprocessors.

Molecular chemists and their retrovirus pharmaceuticals, software hackers and their code length, telecoms engineers and the connection models, even CEOs and their strategic alliances, join the pack.

So what to do?

Work harder? Redouble efforts? Put the pedal to the metal?

A common error when toiling to heat up the pace of innovation in the face of increasing complexity, is to load more agents. That’s more staff, more managers, tighter control, stricter rules, more policies, ever sophisticated technologies, fatter resources, and a bank load more financial capital, in an attempt to increase effort and raise output.

This might be a correct action for a highly certain, steady-state, linear process, like counting the number of books in a library. In this case, for every agent added, there is a significant increase in output.

Innovation, and especially multidimensional innovation, is, however, a highly uncertain and acutely interactive process.

The point?

The more agents employed, the greater the number of interactions and communication passes there are. There is a point where for every extra agent added, there is a decline in productivity, which ultimately adds to the complexity of the innovation that it was intended to advance.

The answer to managing n-dimensional innovation at a faster pace, is not to add yet more agents, but to innovate multidimensional management systems. They are smarter, simpler, integral, and exactly suited for Hyperinnovation.

My book Hyperinnovation describes such a management model. See sidebar for table of contents and excerpts.

TED, Not So Cuddly After All.

I recently had a chat with a rather amiable TEDster (a TEDster is an aficionado of the famous TED lectures).

She purported with verve and glee that the TED lectures are a real boon for our world. The bringing together of the most successful, smartest, insightful and driven people on the planet to speak about their achievements, and how they are, or will, benefit mankind.

I’m, in fact, a TEDster, and proud of it. But I do have may reservations.

In the constructive sense, I can be quite critical of TED. Here’s an example.

Steven Pinker, the Harvard University Professor of Psychology, gave a lecture on ‘The Myth of Violence.’ He maintained, in his own words, that ‘Our ancestors were far more violent than we are… violence has been in decline for long stretches of time… and that today we are probably living in the most peaceful time in our existence.’

Looking at human history, there is much evidence that backs this. Going way back to the beginning of human history, human’s would wage war for no reason other than to dominate. War and outright murder just because one human or tribe was bigger than another. It was outright savagery.

In the recent past, invasions and wars were base on economic and territorial gain, which, if the truth be known, were based on primitive ego and mania (re: Genghis Kuhn, Caesar, Napoleon, Hitler, at el).

Only lately, in relative human history terms, have wars been waged on ethical grounds. So-called principled wars doing the right thing, putting a fullstop on the spread of illegitimate or corrupt causes. And in the extreme halt genocidle tyranny

But what Pinker neglected to say was the fact that at no other time have we had the capacity to totally and utterly wipe humanity off the planet. He didn’t include the fact that the UK’s Ministry of Defence, and the US’s DRAPA are R&Ding weapons of a destructive magnitude that make Nuclear and Biological warheads look like pop guns.

For me, the real issue is not simply how peaceful we are, but how safe we are.

I’d like to hear Prof Pinker lecture on that.

Internet Versions: 5 Steps to Nirvana.

Somebody just asked me to describe what ‘Internet 2.0’ (Internet Two Point O) means/is?

Internet version 1.0 was the original slow, unreliable and basic 15k bps version, which took ages to down load a simple text file.

Internet version 2.0 is the 1 to 10Meg (ish) bps system most have now, that down loads 30 second video clips in a few seconds. Augmented with applications that make it easy for people to come together, share images, ideas, video link and more (you know this of course).

But this is only the beginning.

Internet version 3.0 (c.2012+) will be an always-on, always connected form, that can download multiple high-definition full-length feature films in real-time.

Internet version 4.0 (c.2018+) will be always-on, always connected 3D high definition immersive environments, where users engage in virtual augmented realities with other users at their leisure.

Internet version 5.0 (c.2025) will be always-on, always-in direct nervous system injection of real-time augmented realities. Most people will want to live in a Matrix kind of world, because of the increased magnitude of fun, intrigue, discovery, companionship, freedom, easy-of-life, and clean and safe ambience.

Many will reject, scoff, and even attempt to stop V5.0.

However:

People with chronic debilitating illnesses or crippling disabilities will think they've risen to Nirvana.

The blind will see not just reality in all its beauty, but hyperreailty in all it unknown mystery.

The profoundly deaf will hear not mere dampened hissy dins, but virgin clear blasts of vibrant ecstasy.

Wheelchair bound paraplegics on oxygen respirators will fly over Manhattan and the Himalayas, walk on the Moon; and if they so choose, walk down the local High Street with their partner.

BBC, Let Go of Your Comfort Blanky.

In times of accelerated and discontinuous change, there is (all to often) a reflex to cling to the past. To hold on to what we know well. A kind of comfort blanket.

Comfort blankets and corporations alike, there is a long list of companies that went out of business because they failed to embrace the future.

Examples:

When mains feed electricity arrived, instead of moving into incandescent lamps, gas and kerosene lamp manufacturers diligently polished their old lamp designs; coming up with wondrously efficient, quite ingenious concepts. Yet, all of the hundred or so mechanical lamp outfits went out of business within a decade.

The same story surrounds the US railway firms, as freeways and commercial airlines took off. In the same vein, Vaudeville vanished and Hollywood barely escaped being totally ravished by TV; most showbiz companies simply disappeared. Again, the reliability and plain availability of newfangled Electric Motors cut the Steam Engine to ribbons.

The lesson:

Instead of moving forward into the changing reality, the vanguard of the future, these companies honed incumbent strategies. They clung to their comfort blanket, their anxiety crutch of the past.

Compare this to companies and individuals that revolutionise their business strategies:

General Electric, a giant business that was exclusively into big machines like Jet Turbines, Hydro Electric Dams, and Theatre Lighting, etc. Then came the Capital Markets and Electronic Commerce. But instead of just getting lean and improving quality in their lumps of metal businesses (which incidentally they did to the highest standards) CEO Jack Welch (recently retired) transformed GE into the world’s number one consumer finance company. A radical depart from chunks of iron.

Virgin Group never stands still, willing to let go of much beloved core businesses. Virgin sold Virgin Records to gain the investment capital to pump-up their airline business (just as the likes of Napster and MP3 showed up… Smart!). And they did it again with Virgin Radio to develop Virgin Media. Today, Virgin Group is a $25 billion outfit, in markets that many a business has folded.

But this bold innovation strategy doesn’t stop at corporate door.

Radio Head are developing web-based music distribution. They’re also letting fans set a price for down-loading recordings. Instead, they’re asking aficionados to set the price on a purchase (a penny, a pound, eight quid, or what?). Then further enable fans (who bought their web-based product) to get into certain Night Clubs and Gigs at greatly reduced admission.

Madonna recently walked away from Warner Music Group Corp and signed a £100 million landmark deal with concert promoter Live Nation Inc. She said, ‘The paradigm in the music business has shifted and as an artist and a business woman, I have to move with that shift…. For the first time in my career, the way that my music can reach my fans is unlimited. I've never wanted to think in a limited way and with this new partnership, the possibilities are endless.’

So a question: who are now your competition? An important question in these times of tidal wave change.

Let’s take the case of the BBC. Who, now, are their predators?

Well, it’s not simply ITV, Sky or Channel 4.

The BBC’s Nine O’Clock News main rival is not purely ITN’s News at Ten.

BBC Radio 1 to 7 is not merely in opposition with incumbents Juice or Classic FM.

No, not in the least.

It’s nascent cyberspace outfits like Joost, YouTube, and Channelchooser. It’s laptop desktop clips and IPodcasts. It’s the Ministry-of-Sound, Helterskelter, Space and Oasis online Channels. It’s even across the pond, but now online Fox News and ABC. These are the entrepreneurial ether outfits that are blazing the TV and Radio trail.

BBC, let go of your comfort blanky. Get radical!

Here’s some Hyperinnovation tips:

End territorial TV by 2014. Bandwidth capacity to carry real-time high definition TV will there.

Scale down your admin work force, and redeploy admin staff to technical, production and creative roles.

Create an ‘any and all’ web-based TV on demand multichannel, and put all programming on online. Want to watch an episode of Handcocks Half Hour or Hill Street Blue? Down load it.

Create individual channels for all popular TV programs: an Eastenders channel, a Blue Peter channel, an Horizon channel, and so forth.

Democratise viewing, by integrating a vote casts to lead what’s on-line.

Regular pod cast the most popular.

Simultaneously take bigger risks in programming.

Make at least half the programming short 5, 10, 15 and 20 minute programs (it’s a time crunched world).

Hypersociety.

Society was once highly uniform. Organised in top-down hierarchy, in pyramid like structures. At the apex lived the state, the church, the army, the university.

Underneath lay a large wall of homogeneous social blocks, with class as its mortar, and the family unit as it foundation. In this time, stability and centralisation was the scheme for the individual, the family, the firm and government alike.

Stability gave a predicable future, which encouraged the laying of plans and roots, with a sure knowledge that tomorrow would be pretty much the same as yesterday. Centrality gave everyone a place, everything a demarcation.

So in this old world prudence mandated the rules of the game, and of course efficiency the ultimate and absolute aim.

But now look? We live in a kind of network society, where ideas transcend borders at the speed of light via ubiquitous media from elementary comic book to live internet television.

Where the great wall of social conformance quakes and crumbles to mere rubble. Where hierarchy and deference is eroded by egalitarianism, where rank and title matters increasingly little. Where homogeneity and class is supplanted by diversity and multiidentity.

Suddenly we are confronted by a profusion of styles, ethnicity and brands. We are all - in the workplace, at play, at school, even within the privacy of our own home -progressively multiviewed, multilingual, multivalued, multifaceted and multichannelled.

A Hypersociety now swarms through and around us all......

Emerging Hypergovernment.

Government ideology, once obstinate and biased in the extreme. Idealism; them and us; you are wrong, I am right. The left verses the right, the middle takes on all. It was outright war.

But nowadays?.... Political dogma is all but dead. The potency of idealism is old and grey. So the absolute left steal ideas from the far right. The far right sits comfortably with the L-word. Ideas and all cells alike, have lost their sense of loyalty it seems. So communism adopts capitalist concepts to oil its wheels. Capitalism embraces socialism to soften its tone.

In a transdimensional reality, dogged political pragmatism pinches from wherever, whoever and whatever it must to achieve its ultimate aim - Hypergovernment.

The Power of Hyperscience.

Science, since its early origins, was held in separate, often totally isolated schools. The intellectual wars amid the disparate schools of thought that raged for hundreds of years, have at the very least slowed scientific discovery and innovation; at worst, stopped advance dead.

Now a sea change; a seed change even. At last the intellectual turf guarding is falling sway to the interconnection of ideas.

Ponder this:

To construct a new theory today, a hypothesis must stand with an astronomical number of findings, with many contradicting ideas. The reason? For a scientific discipline to reach maximum evolvability the number of idea interconnections needs to be very rich. As the number of connections goes up, so the possibilities for new discoveries increase.

And now think of this if you will:

To comprehend how life on earth emerged, you have to understand the complexity and systems theories; understand phase transition and thermodynamics; comprehend computational and information theory; grasp quantum and molecular mechanics; interpret microgeology, electro-magnetism and radioisotope decay physics.

You have to interconnect and interrelated each of these discrete science to begin to see how life may have emerged. Neglect or miss any of these disciplines and the answer to life remains a mystery.

The lesson:

Many of the most significant scientific breakthroughs, now and in future, will be a consequence of the interconnection of diverse and often unrelated scientific discoveries and innovation.

The New Hypereconomics.

Economic systems used to be exclusively rationalised and planned via giant macroblocks of data (income, interest, tax and unemployment).

It said that resources where so scarce that you could have one thing or the other, not both. It viewed national economies as autonomous, where outcomes were predictable and controllable.

But what happened? Well, the world began to interconnect on all levels, plans and markets fragmented, all expectations increased, then demand began to customise.

So the old way of managing and sustaining economies is defunct. The new way, the bright way, is the network way. Where billions-upon-billions of tiny variables chaotically swarm around each other interdependently. Where concrete fiscal value is an effect of synergy amongst such energetic dancing dependence. Where the most significant resources are imagination and knowledge, that are, in effect, limitless in scope and potential. Where your competitors become your partners, your customers, your stockholders all at one and the same time.

Hypereconomics is with us now.

Hyperlanguage

Human language, in a most rudimentary plan, first emerged around one million years ago.

Of course, since then language has continued to advance and diverge into many distinct lingua. But it is the rate and interconnection of change in language today that captures our attention here.

Knowledge of the fact that at least three-thousand distinct tongues have disappeared over a period of three generations, among with the cultures they represent, is perhaps softened by the associate fact that at least one-third of the words in any modern full volume English dictionary are less than twenty years old!

The reasons? In part due to the amazing pace of scientific progress and technological advance (bosson, toxinal, cynoacrolate, C++, hyperlinks, simplexity: new science simply need new words). Lately, global media and brands have spurred novel vernacular (digerati, MTV, yarhoo, raves, nike, nokia.

WAP textlife brings new gist (CU@10...!). Mass-mood changes due to shifts in social dynamics and habit require new words (Nanostalgia, the yearning desire to see a repeat of Star Trek that was only shown the day before. Ampathy, the ultra-intense feeling of unity people experience at a rave. And Edutainment, meshing of fun with learning.

Languages have also evolved because of mass migration (Brazilian-Portuguese is quite different to native Portuguese...why?...Neo-tribes means new ideas; new ideas needs new language).

Fundamentally, and most of all, languages have come and gone as a consequence of the multidimensional interconnection of words. For example, as English language flows across cultural boundaries it can not help but eat-up the colloquial phrases of say Hindi to produce a new language now known as Hinglish, often seamlessly combining two different tongues in mid-sentence, even mid-word.

English, the king of predatory lingua, preys on inflections and phrases from literally every known and available language on the surface of this planet. One hundred years or so from now there will dozens of version of English, each seen as a separate language in their own right.

As English interconnects and gobbles up more and more words, it changes and diverges, but will remain a ravenous predator. The result? From street slang to the edge of the arts, media, science and technology the diversity of languages and never been so multidimensional.

Or is it Meist?

Here are some words I heard via the BBC this week:

'Healthily.'

'Moslemist.'

'Pottable.'

Not withstanding the above post, at the other end of the spectrum the English language seems to going to pot (Pottable?).

On the BBC’s Six O’Clock News: ‘Eat Healthily.’ Which not so long ago used to be ‘Healthy eating.’

On the BBC‘s Politics Show: ‘He is a Moslemist.’ Which used to be ‘He’s a Moslem.’

On the BBC‘s Snooker Grand Prix: ‘The ball is Pottable.’ Which used to be ‘the ball might just go in the pot.’

New words that describe new issues are necessary and important (as above post). In fact, it's an occupational delight for me. I enjoy coining new words, playing with sentences, and jiving vernacular.

But come on. ’Healthily.’ ‘Moslemist.’ ‘Pottable.' You’ve godda be joking me, an'it.

Have you ever heard of a 'Christianist,' or 'Hinduist,' or 'Jewishist?' It's an insult.

The English language is blessed with aesthetically pleasing grammar and flowing prose. To bastardise any language in this inane way, is nothing less than sacrilege.

So please, I beg, please try to resist the influx of ‘***ables,’ and ‘***ists.’

Or is it ‘Meist.’

Click to See Bee Movie Clips.

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And talking about a play on words.

If you know me, you'll know my favourite insect is the humble bumble bee. Especially when they swarm. So when I heard about 'Bee Movie' I got excited (big kid).

Digital Terrestrial Broadcast: Not a Cock-up; but a Real Catastrophe Born of a Complete Lack of Foresight.

The big switch over has begun. UK Terrestrial TV is going digital.

How nice, how quaint.

You detect a hint of sarcasm.

No, it’s not sarcasm, it’s utter contempt.

Why?

Well the 20 years of planning (early meetings began way back in 1989) and the estimated £1 billion that has gone into R&D, infrastructure and switch over rollout is a complete waste and ultra-vein endeavour.

Why?

Nielsen's Law dictates exponential growth in Internet Bandwidth similar to the more established Moore's Law.

Comparing the two laws:

Moore's Law says that computers doubles in capabilities every 18 months: this corresponds to about 60% annual growth (or x100 over 10 years).

Nielsen's Law says that bandwidth doubles every two years (or x57 over 10 years).

Data supports Nielsen's Law:

The Internet backbone bandwidth in 1975 was on the order of 1000 bits per second (bps), by 1985 it was 1 million bps, by 1995 it had reached 100 million bps, and now in 2007 it is approaching 100 billion bps.

Going by the above trends, by the year 2014 most house holds in the UK will readily watch high definition documentaries, serials and films in real-time over the internet.

By 2018 high definition 3D TV programs with file sizes on the order of terra-terra bytes will be transferred in real-time over the Internet.

You wont want to get a signal over the airways, when you can plug your TV into the Internet and gain real-time, multiway, high definition TV and all that comes with it.

Terrestrial digital TV is biggest technological white elephant in recent history.

Failing the Way to Success!

People don’t like the word failure, let alone the actual outcome.

But tell that to nature.

Life has adapted to every calamity and catastrophe that has befallen the earth in the last 4 and half billion years.

So it's instructive that most of life’s ‘experiments’ are failures.

All species become extinct eventually. Most all mutations don't survive. Most all life’s designs don’t even get a chance to fail, because the don’t get a chance to live.

Yet the overall results are anything but a failure.

Nature has it all worked out. So what can we learn?

If you trip, blip, or bomb, take out a leaf from nature.

Try, fail, try, trip, try blip, try, bomb, try, learn, try, adapt, try, win....!

Promising Breakthrough Set to Revolutionise Crash Helmets and X-Sports Wear.

d3o (dee-three-oh) is a specially engineered material made with intelligent molecules.

The molecules flow with you as you move, but on shock the molecules lock together to absorb the impact energy.

Head protection has conventionally been provided by helmets with hard outer shells where the inner structure is energy absorbent and often sacrificed.

Although the protective qualities of tradiational helmets are undeniable, their cumbersome nature has prevented widespread adoption in many sporting activities.

d3o technology allows helmets to deliver better performance and fit, and for the creation of a completely new type of flexible headwear.

The 3do material is impression moulded into custom sheets, between 4mm & 10mm thick, then assembled (slid) between the headwear's inner and outer fabric.

The relatively thin d3o material is hardly noticable in situ, resulting in stylish, street credible merchandise....

....Skaters, Snowboarders and BMXers, et al, will love it!

d3o Video Link

d3o Impact Material Impression Moulding.

Pleo: Interactive, Emotions Learning Robotpet.

Tipped to be a big Christmas winner, Pleo is a ‘Robpet’ that mimicks a one-week old infant Dinosaur from the Jurassic period.

Design engineers @ UGOBE Inc have studied the extinct Camarasaurus, which lived in giant fern forests.

Pleo incorporates all the basic traits of autonomous life, specifically engineered to mimic a living animal and relate to the owner on a personal level.

Pleo is equipped with senses for sight, sound, and touch; learns as he explores his environment; exhibits genuine reactions to sensory stimuli; and eventually exhibits a unique personality.

He can feel joy and sorrow, anger and annoyance, and when Pleo is tired, he will become drowsy, goes to sleep, and even dreams.

Two or more Pleos will recognize one another. Be careful though. They can transmit colds to each other. Achoo! Pleo even sneezes!

Quote of the month:

'How do I know what I think until I see what I say.'

C.K. Chesterton.

Meaning?

Test the idea! Re: Experiments, Prototypes, Pilots, Dialogues, Models, Walk-abouts, tours, visits, go f***ing see it for God's sake!

Wonna do Six-Sigma QA, go to Motorola.

Wonna do rapid product development, visit HP Inkjet Inc.

Wonna do something new, original, breakthrough, radical, transformative, first to the world? Then: '...see what I (you) say!'

Sceince Friction: Radical Tribology Breakthrough may lead to Friction Free Micro Machines.

Why do your hands heat-up when you rub them together? Why do you have to change your car tires ever 50,000 miles or so?

The answer, in the main, is found through the science of Tribology (or the study of friction). Rub things together and they heat up and eventually wear away to nothing.

There’s a lot of engineering science behind understanding friction. I wont go there.

What I will do here is talk about an area of high concept friction science called the Casimir Force (CF), which - without getting to technical - causes an attractive affect in the space between atom, so that molecules are drawn together as that move or flow across each other.

As the CF attracts each moving atom they rub together, thus heating and causing atoms to displace. Hence friction; hence wear.

But what if you could turn off the CF? Well, you get no friction, no ware! Things wouldn’t wear out. You wouldn’t have to change your car tires. Cells in your body wouldn’t rub together. You wouldn’t were out.

But what if you could reverse the CF in a controlled way? Atoms would move away from each other. You’d get levitation.

Science fiction (friction) right?

No!

Scientists at the University of St Andrews have created an 'incredible levitation effect’ by engineering the CF so that it repels instead of attracts.

Their discovery could ultimately lead to frictionless micro-machines with moving parts that levitate. But they say that, in principle at least, the same effect could be used to levitate bigger objects too, even a person.

The force is due to neither electrical charge or gravity, for example, but the fluctuations in all-pervasive energy fields in the intervening empty space between the objects and is one reason atoms stick together, also explaining a “dry glue” effect that enables a gecko to walk across a ceiling.

Because the CF causes problems for nanotechnologists, who are trying to build electrical circuits and tiny mechanical devices on silicon chips, among other things, the team believes the feat could initially be used to stop tiny objects from sticking to each other.

Micro and even nanomachines could run smoother and with less or no friction at all.

Google's 9 Steps to Innovation.

Innovation, not instant perfection. Google believes in launching new products and ideas early and often, rather than trying to perfect those ideas behind closed doors before releasing them to the public. Then, customer feedback and popularity prove which projects are most successful.

Share everything you can. Small teams that communicate openly have proved the best results for Google. They believe in transparency in the workplace so that everyone knows what everyone else is working on. (Scary, right?) They have a computer program where employees can look up names and see what others are working on, so if they have an idea to contribute they know who to talk to.

You’re brilliant, we’re hiring. When Google interviews employees, Lecinski said they set the bar very high. They focus more on hiring generalists rather than specialists, as they have found generalists are more valuable and can contribute ideas to different parts of the company.

Allow employees to pursue their dreams. Lecinski said Google allows its employees’ time in a 70/20/10 model. Seventy percent of the time they work on Google’s search and ad flagships; they develop new programs like Images, Desktop and Finance 20 percent of the time; and 10 percent of the time employees are allowed to pursue their own high risk/high reward projects. Lecinski said Google Earth is a result of one of those projects.

Ideas come from everywhere. Sometimes Google turns to the public for new ideas. The Google mastheads, which are customized for holidays and events, are taken from non-employee submissions. One of the mastheads was designed by a 12-year-old girl.

Don’t politic – use data. With all the ideas floating around Google, the best way to determine which may work is to use supportive data. As Lecinski said, “Data beats opinion.”

Creativity loves restraint. Again, Google has to have some way to keep all of the employee-generated ideas streamlined towards the company’s goals. “Let people explore, but set clear boundaries for that exploration,” Lecinski said.

Get users and usage – the money will follow. This goes back to one of Lecinski’s larger points, “respect for end users,” but is a principle to follow in any form of business. He says to focus on creating things that are innovative and useful for people, not something you can sell.

Don’t kill projects, morph them. Google doesn’t waste ideas. Instead, they try to change and transform them into something the company finds useful.

Hydrogen Fuelcells (HFC): So You Thought Wide Spread Application is Years Away?

A demonstration of a 'General Hydrogen Inc' fuelcell powered forklift truck has proved successful. The fuelcell pack is applicable to any electric drive vehicle.

The hybrid fuelcell system consisted of proprietary components in combination with a fuelcell stack, an ultra-capacitor bank, and hydrogen storage equipment.

The demonstration proved that fuelcell technology is more practical, more efficient, more cost effective and safer than conventional electric battery or diesel systems.

Trivial? No. A key indicator that HFC technology is already diffusing.

Whoosssh.... There goes me Nan on her Granny Mobile!

Click on picture to see design.

General Hydrogen Inc's Prototype Fuelcell Service System Set Up.

A Medieval 21st Century?

Buck Rogers was way out!….

For 60 percent of the world‘s population, the 21st century is medieval.

2 billion people live in squatter cities, 2 billion more live in countries dominated by ideas over a 1000 years old!

How Near is Robbie Robot?

Robotics is already a £16 billion market.

Surprisingly, 60% of market value today is in marine robotics - not industrial automation!

By the trends:

Domestic, but expensive, humanoid robots will hit the market before 2015.

Buy 2020 they'll be ubiquitous, at a price comparable to a small second family car.

By 2025, you get 'demestibots' from Tesco. High-end robots that start to match human emotional/intellectual intelligence will be used in war theatre.

How will you feel about your Robot?

The most effective way to find and destroy a land mine is to step on it.

This has bad results, of course, if you're a human. But not so much if you're a robot and have as many legs as a centipede sticking out from your body. That's why Mark Tilden, a robotics physicist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, built something like that.

At the Yuma Test Grounds in Arizona, the autonomous robot, 5 feet long and modeled on a stick-insect, strutted out for a live-fire test and worked beautifully, he says.

Every time it found a mine, blew it up and lost a limb, it picked itself up and readjusted to move forward on its remaining legs, continuing to clear a path through the minefield.

Finally it was down to one leg. Still, it pulled itself forward. Tilden was ecstatic. The machine was working splendidly.

The human in command of the exercise, however -- an Army colonel -- blew a fuse.

The colonel ordered the test stopped.

Why? asked Tilden. What's wrong?

The colonel just could not stand the pathos of watching the burned, scarred and crippled machine drag itself forward on its last leg.

This test, he charged, was inhumane.

Fly little Fly!

A life-size, robotic fly has taken flight at Harvard University. Weighing only 60 milligrams, with a wingspan of three centimeters, the tiny robot's movements are modeled on those of a real fly.

While much work remains to be done on the mechanical insect, the researchers say that such small flying machines, in swarming 1000s, could one day be used as spies, or for detecting harmful chemicals, and even clean your house dust up.

An Age of Continuous Discontinuity.

Charles Handy the Author, Businessman and Philosopher said back in the 1980s that we are entering ‘The Age of Discontinuity.’

He meant that both technological and social changes will be so uncompromising and dramatic that competitive contexts and the pace at which we have to learn and adjust to will be a wrenching experience.

The evidence since the 80s is plan to see. The Internet is radically changing every kind of media: TV, Radio, Advertising, Music, Retail, Purchasing, Cost Centres, Disintermediation, etc, etc.

Hyperinnovation is transforming what we consider the car, the bank account, energy supply, the telephone, the camera, food stuff, and even high finance to be.

But I think Handy didn’t go far enough. Because what’s around the corner lies what I call The Age of Continuous Discontinuity.

There are dozens of life changing technologies now in the lab, ready for commercialisation.

1. Nanofacturing will allow you to print out domestic products in the comfort of your own home.

2. Hydrogen Fuelcells at a price point we can all afford.

3. Super efficient and cheap solar panels that will supply of you domestic energy needs.

4. Skycars and Skyways are not on the drawing board, but functional prototypes have been in test for years.

5. Dozens of different designs of domestic humanoid robots exists designed to help the infirm, elderly, and do the washing up.

6. Immersive high definition virtual reality and telepresence will enable you to visit far of places, again in the comfort of your own home.

7. Strong Artificial Intelligence that will one day soon surpass human intelligence, giving us the capability to explore ideas, science and technology that will have no conception of at present.

All of these technologies and the associated sociological ramifications will be here before 2025. Are you ready for The Age of Continuous Discontinuity?