Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with technology and innovation

Where's my flying car?

le morte de bea arthur — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 13:32:22 -0800

Tracking the progress of technological innovations that appear in the news - is there a site somewhere that does this? Pretty much every day some technological breakthrough or other appears in the news. A new super-cheap process for manufacturing gallium nitride LEDs was one I stumbled on recently - the news was full of it for a single day early in January 2009. Apparently we were all set to be lighting our homes with LEDs by 2011. Then... nothing. Or maybe they'll be in the shops in a couple of months. The problem is that I have no idea.

I realise that most of these things hit the media via press releases by universities with their eyes on investment. But is there anyone actually making an effort, ideally with a website, to track the progress of these innovations in any kind of systematic way?

Intra-company knowledge exchange

philosophistry — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:08:02 -0800

How to increase knowledge exchange in a tech company. (i.e. imitate Google)? I work at a tech. company, and often we have redundant work. For example, someone spent a full day digging through implementing something from one API that another person knew how to do in 10 minutes. The thing is, former didn't know the latter knew about it, and the latter didn't know the former was working on it.

How do you increase the knowledge exchange within a technology company?

Are there books/resources on this?

I know Google has a lot of good strategies in this arena. Their most famous one is an excellent and open cafeteria which simply increases socialization among normally narrow developers.

Less famously, they also have heavenly snack rooms that keeps developers chatty.

Some in our company suggested wikis where people post their knowledge, but I believe that those strategies tend to fail as developers become wiki-shy.

Who's doing neat stuff with the web and comics?

Brandon Blatcher — Wed, 27 May 2009 08:57:34 -0800

Most comics on the web seem to be just scanned in print comics or the equivalent of same. Can you point me to any web comics that are making use of web/internet technology to make the comics reading experience different from print comics? No need to mention Scott McCloud. For instance, all the web comics I've seen are essentially just one gif or jpeg per page. Are there any web comics that are putting each panel of a page in a div and layering them via css for dramatic effect? Are any using selectable web text in their word balloons instead of hand or computer done lettering that is just part of the art? Stuff like this, which incorporate aspects of the web to make comics, is what I'm looking for.

what's new in technology. I mean really, really new

brandnew — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 04:28:36 -0800

Sites for tracking new technologies, technology trends, and innovations? I've recently been moved into a position that requires me to drive R&D projects and new innovations. I lead a small team that mainly looks at how to apply our existing IP and software to emerging technologies and social contexts.

I've got all the techniques down for turning my team into a gushing innovation factory. However, I struggle in providing the inputs: interesting new social contexts and emerging technologies. Currently I suck down the popular technology news sites and journals, but I always feel that we're behind the curve.

Are there blogs out there (or even subscription services) that discuss emerging technologies, social trends, etc? Perhaps a daily newsletter that showcases interesting new patent submissions, or top-secret products, or hype curves showing where VCs are putting their money?

Help me type without ever needing to look?

parmanparman — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 21:38:38 -0800

Is there a wireless, battery rechargeable, full-sized or laptop-sized keyboard available that has a memory card which will allow me to leave the office, go to the gym or a cafe and type without needing or even glancing at a monitor? So that later, I can return to give my work a good editing without caring about how it looks on the first draft? I'm not looking for a laptop or that thing Apple produced for elementary school students. I am also not looking for a braille computer. If there is a wireless full-sized or laptop sized keyboard out there that will allow me to leave the room, the building, the campus, the house, and go to the park, the gym, sit on the bus, sit in an airplane and keep typing to a large memory that I can access later, preferably in a format like SD or mini-SD (but if there is only USB, I'd me somewhat OK) I am in the market for this. Any ideas?

Introductions to technological development

sindark — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 12:07:21 -0800

Is anybody familiar with one or more good textbooks (or introductory volumes) on technology development and/or deployment? Specifically, I am looking for books that discuss deployment, barriers to access, and technology transfer in the context of sustainable technologies. For example, the deployment of renewable power technology or emissions reduction technology in the developing world.

I am not looking for something that is hugely technical, bur rather something that lays out the technological issues in a manner that would be useful for developing long term policy.

Ideas for innovative uses of technology in higher education?

genial — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 07:57:56 -0800

For many years our university has touted itself as being "cutting-edge" with technology by requiring students to buy laptops. Obviously we need to be doing more and I'd like some ideas for ways we can be innovative in this sector and reach out to the students, faculty, and staff with new resources that will actually be used. Bonus points for ideas that go against the grain, defend easily for funding, and generally rock. To get things started my boss mentioned the possibility of sponsoring lan parties for the students and dedicating the bandwidth and resources to really help them work. Possibly inviting outside high school students and things of the sort to make it a community effort.

So in other words, if you were still in college or worked in a university, what kind of things would you have wanted to see get implemented if no one was standing over you saying "We can't possibly do that, we've never done that before."

Where's my future-car?

limeonaire — Sat, 25 Nov 2006 13:54:43 -0800

It seems that taillights have evolved rather radically from their humble origins, now featuring LED configurations spanning cars' entire back ends. Why hasn't this kind of innovation been seen with headlights? I thought of a few questions along these lines last night while sitting in the back of a friend's van, watching the headlights around us on the highway.

Specifically:

1. Why don't car manufacturers use fluorescent or LED bulbs (backed by reflective material, just as incandescent bulbs are) in headlights? It seems to me that they'd be just as sturdy as incandescent bulbs, and probably provide brighter light with less energy required.

2. Are there practical reasons why car manufacturers continue to stick to the tried-and-true "two headlights, one on the left, one on the right" configuration, rather than using, say, a centrally mounted light bar? (Think something like the Millennium Falcon's propulsion bar, only on the front of the car and used solely for lighting purposes...) Or is it just convention?

When I discussed this with my friends, we speculated that it could be an issue of redundancy—i.e. if one gets knocked out, you still have one left. But then, I countered, couldn't that be addressed by mounting, say, two or more fluorescent tubes in the "light bar"? Or if fluorescent tubes are too fragile, perhaps multiple tiny white LEDs?

We also speculated that perhaps it was just a design/functionality issue, wherein, say, the grill is a standard air intake area for the engine, and it's easier to keep it there, rather than trying to create a radically new air intake system.

Any ideas which, if any, of these issues have curtailed the introduction of new forms of headlights?

Tales of the origins of now-ubiquitous innovations?

padraigin — Tue, 02 May 2006 09:38:16 -0800

I'd love some help/direction/inspiration finding stories and quotes about inventions and technologies that are now ubiquitous, but were once considered to be unnecessary or impractical. I'm thinking along the lines of the Bill Gates-attributed "640k ought to be enough for anybody", or Henry Ford's quip that customers could have their car in any color they want, as long as it's black.

What I'm looking for are examples that illustrate how a new idea was once considered to be either a luxury, or to have no practical application in everyday life, but eventually came to be a household word--automobiles, washing machines, the television, etc. Specific examples would be most helpful, or general commentary on a certain area of technology or day-to-day life.

I'm already sifting through the various quote repositories, but would love any other sources, online or otherwise, that you can point me toward.