No More Next Big Thing? 564
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?
Everything that can be invented... (Score:5, Informative)
Say It Ain't So, Donofrio! (Score:2, Informative)
Is tech innovation dead?
Let's examine that.
The World Wide Web was hailed as a big innovation in the late 90's. Initially Bill "The Genius" Gates (III) didn't give it much thought in his ground-breaking (if you dropped it from a great enough height it could break some very brittle flooring) book, but the bandwagon was suddenly moving like a conestoga wagon with a super charged 426 hemi under the hood. Problem was start-ups and pundits alike predicted a massive and sudden revolution. A shame the infrastructure it would depend upon was like those old wooden wagon wheels when 500 ft-lbs of torque hit them, so the whole thing flopped. Now, it's actually gaining traction and moving because infrastructure is better and even old infrastructure was found to support high bandwidth with better technology to support it (this was actually a BIG THING, but most people didn't even notice it. Boy, I knew people working all over the place on ways to up the bandwidth of last-mile copper.)
So, you see, sometimes the NEXT BIG THING isn't so obvious. It's also, IMHO, heavily dependent upon social change, like Cell Phone adoption and use (once only for the elite, now any idiot can have one.)
Is that so? (Score:2, Informative)
In 1899, then Patent Commissioner, Charles H. Duell reportedly announced that "everything that can be invented has been invented."
Re:Everything that can be invented... (Score:5, Informative)
Yep. One of my favorite quotes on science is from Arthur C. Clarke:
Re: Yes Next Thing (Score:5, Informative)
Just an urban legend... (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:Exactly. (Score:2, Informative)