Innovative Minds Donât Think Alike
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Experts in a field can benefit from an outsiderâs perspective.
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Science & environment: The world's best thinkers admit that from time to time even they are forced to change their minds
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But not necessarily for the reason you think.
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By Krell, Eric  IN THE BUSINESS WORLD, TECHNOLOGY MATTERS-EVEN IF SOME HIGHLY INFLUENTIAL THOUGHT LEADERS MIGHT SAY, OR WRITE, OTHERWISE.
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It doesn't take a genius to catch on to the fact that in IT, innovation is a mandate. Push the envelope of what's possible, or find yourself relegated to wayside. But, to borrow a favored David St. Hubbins Spinal Tap aphorism, there's a fine line between clever and crackpot when it comes to making good on technological breakthroughs in the enterprise.                                                      It is in that spirit that we revisit last year's level-headed look at crackpot technologies that could transform the enterprise, putting the screws to a new rack of could-be enterprise contenders. But before you write off nanotech or direct brain interfaces as the next big enterprise thing, consider this:  [ For an in-depth look at last year's crackpot tech assessments, see: 12 crackpot tech ideas that could transform the enterprise ]  Of the dozen technologies we examined last year, several made significant enterprise-minded strides since we first assessed their IT prospects. Desktop Web apps, for one, lent credence to the conjecture that fat productivity suites might just have a shorter future than previously thought; solid-state drives popped up everywhere, from ultramobile laptops to the datacenter; and Sun's datacenter-in-a-box proved compelling enough for Google to move first to patent it. Even quantum cryptography received a vote of confidence, with Switzerland tapping the technology to protect parliamentary election transmissions.   Sure, some of this year's out-there technologies may prove fruit for future high-profile tech flops lists, but without forward-thinking, there would be no worthwhile enterprise advancement. So raise your eyebrows or your suspicions as you deem fit, and join us in assessing the potential each of the following technologies has to earn IT's respect or derision.  ? Nanotechnology ? Optical computing ? Pervasive computing ? Wireless power ? The $100 laptop ? Direct brain interfaces ? Enterprise supercomputing ? Virtual worlds
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Nanotechnology is confronting the U.S. with a familiar problem - assessing claims of innovation that do not match up neatly with the way patent examiners are trained to categorize them.
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Thought might not be dependent on language, according to new research by UK scientists.
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Sometimes, the two concepts can blur.
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Watch out when litigation trumps innovation.
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perspective More people should follow the lead of Microsoft's co-founder in freeing up innovative thinkers to help the developing world, and not just cause it feels good.
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Young people don't think of technology as separate from their daily lives.
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Fools can draw too many conclusions from too little data.
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But it's not as simple as point-and-click.
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Among the handiest villains in science fiction are Computers That Know Too Much. Think of the dream-weaving despots of "The Matrix" or murderous HAL in "2001: A Space Odyssey." But in reality, even the most super supercomputer lacks the reasoning capacity of a child engrossed in a Dr. Seuss book. Computers can't read the way we do. They can't learn or reason like us.
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By Simon Usborne  In 2005, when Nicholas Negroponte of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology announced his vision, experts queued up to say it couldn't be done, and that the professor's plan was little more than a well-intentioned dream.
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A cadre of unknown designers shapes everyday human-machine interactions. By Andrew Blum from Wired magazine.
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Google isn&#39;t conventional and so aren&#39;t its co-founders. Meeting them is pure fun. Larry Page and Sergey Brin founded this search engine and have been applying some really unconventional approaches to constantly