Who wants a 'robot companion'? Look no further than Intel Labs Can you imagine IBM Research ever developing a social robot companion? Intel CTO Justin Rattner can’t, but he’s happy for his own researchers to build one – and for the technology to find its way into the market. Eventually. Ask most techies of a certain age how a company should carry out research and development and they will …
The focus on technologies that have a predefined roadmap is a shame. It has certainly made a lot of people a lot of money, but without the purely academic research component technology is stuck in second gear: Making incremental improvements on technologies developed at those 'quaint old fashioned labs'. There really aren't many groundbreaking new foundation technologies being turned out. The lack of totally new tech is also major factor in the escalating patent wars. There are only so many ways to uniquely leverage decades old tech.
It is easy to look through the Captain Hindsight spectacles that come with every MBA and fault Bell for not realizing the potential of the transistor but without that research where would we be? I think it is funny, in a sad way, that a guy from transistor giant Intel is using devices full of transistors to say that there is no longer a place for the type of research that developed transistors.
"Just a heads up: We're gonna have a superconductor turned up full blast and pointed at you for the duration of this next test. I'll be honest, we're throwing science at the wall here to see what sticks. No idea what it'll do. Probably nothing. Best-case scenario, you might get some superpowers. Worst case, some tumors, which we'll cut out."
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