The Futurist

Cisco's HD Video Conferencing System - A Predicted Innovation

On August 22, 2006, I wrote an article titled Terrorism, Oil, Globalization, and the Impact of Computing.  The article described how four seemingly unrelated forces had emerged in the last few years to create a quadruple inflection point that unleashed massive new market dynamics.  Take a moment to go back and read that article. 

Just 3 weeks later, Google responded exactly to the market needs described in the article by adding immersive travel content into Google Earth, enabling users to have a moderately immersive experience of any location in the world, from the comfort of their own homes. 

But the first article also described another segment of this market :

While the life blood of business is the firm handshake, face-to-face meeting, and slick presentation, the quadruple inflection point above might just permanently elevate the bar that determines which meetings warrant the risks, costs, and hassle of business travel when there are technologies that can enable many of the same interactions.  While these technologies are only poor substitutes now, improved display quality, bandwidth, and software capabilities will greatly increase their utility.

And sure enough, on October 23, or just 2 months after the original article here on The Futurist, Cisco has announced their 'TelePresence' HD video conferencing system, which is a huge advancement over contemporary videoconference technologies.  It consists of three HD screens where conference participants are displayed in life-sized images. 

While the optimal experience requires both parties to have the system, limiting the opportunities for it's use in the near future, as more corporations adopt the system, using it becomes a routine practice in an increasing number of corporate settings.  Corporations will be able to save a decent portion of time and cost of employee business travel, and redeploy those savings into R&D.  Cisco itself expects to reduce business travel by 20%, saving $100 million per year.  If each of the Fortune Global 500 corporations adopted it, they would save anywhere from $20 to $80 Billion per year. 

The full system with three screens, cameras, and high-speed networking equipment costs $300,000.  However, almost all of the components of the system are full member technologies of the Impact of Computing, and hence the same system is bound to cost under $50,000 by 2011, and perhaps much less.  Cisco expects the market to reach $1 billion in annual revenue by 2011, which would amount to 20,000 units per year.  Eventually, prices for a single screen version (currently $80,000) might reach just $2000 by 2015, making them common household items, allowing more people to work from home and untethering them from living in expensive geographies against their preference. 

Two substantial innovations from Google and Cisco have emerged in just two months since the original article.  It is fascinating to watch the modern innovation economy adapt so rapidly to a new market need.  There will be much more to marvel over in the coming months and years.

Update (2/20/07) : A slideshow from BusinessWeek has more pictures.

New Nanosolution Can Block Bleeding and Reduce Troop Deaths

There was a time when America could wage wars and sustain 50,000 or more casualties without severe domestic opposition.  Not any more, as even 2000 hostile deaths in Iraq has caused many Americans to be demoralized from the seemingly immense body count.  Our technological and economic progress has caused our society to rightly place a premium on human life, but in order to preserve our society, we still need to wage brutal wars.  Thus, market forces demand innovations that reduce US troop deaths even further. 

On July 28, I had an article about a new ultrasound tourniquet that could quickly inhibit bleeding even in the midst of a battle.  Another innovation takes an entirely different approach to address the same problem.  Scientists at MIT have developed a liquid that quickly self-assembles into a viscous gel that seals up severed blood vessels, when it comes in contact with a wound.  Even better, the gel is biodegradeable and does not have to be removed from the wound - it simply dissolves into amino acids.  (Article : MIT Technology Review).

Active use by the military could be 8-10 years away.  After that, it could be used by ambulances at traffic scenes or even during surgery. 

But what is important is not whether this innovation, or the previously described ultrasound tourniquet, or some third technology wins out.  What is important is that multiple unrelated technologies are rapidly closing in on a market need, forcing each of them to continually improve their efficacy and reduce their costs.  This virtually ensures that the market need will be met in the near future. 

Update (5/14/08) : This is moving along more quickly than anticipated, and clinical trials are expected to start soon. 

North Korea and the Anti-Americans

North Korea has tested a nuclear device.  Much has been written on the subject, and I recommend The Fourth Rail as a source of information. 

What bothers me is the hypocritical mask that anti-Americans (8-10% of the US population, and substantial populations abroad) employ to condemn President Bush, and America in general, for the situation, with increasingly blatant misrepresentation of the facts. 

For example, they condemn the 'Axis of Evil' categorization from 2002, and yet criticize Bush for not doing enough to prevent North Korea from acquiring nuclear weapons, even while criticizing Bush for trying to do precisely that with Saddam - prevent him from advancing the WMD capabilities he already demonstrated many times before.

They complain that 'Saddam had no ties to terrorists', which is untrue, yet complain about a lack of action against North Korea, which truly has no ethnic, religious, or geographic ties with 'those who attacked us on 9/11'. 

They criticize our inability to win the Iraq War quickly, yet criticize our not taking action against North Korea, a country with a much stronger military than Iraq had. 

They criticize America for once being an ally with Saddam Hussein when we had a common enemy in Iran and before Saddam did anything against US interests, yet they criticize us for not 'engaging' North Korea in 'diplomacy' since they were never our ally. 

They criticize America for not having enough coalition members on board before going into Iraq, and not working through the UN, and now have no use for the six-party talks Bush has been proposing for 6 years, and are not holding the UN accountable for inaction. 

They criticize America for an alliance with Saddam in the 1980s, who later went on to commit atrocities against his own people, yet they never criticize Kim Jong-Il for the same, simply because America was never his ally, and thus this is not a viable angle through which to vent anti-Americanism.  So much for human rights.

Amidst all this, they offer no actual solution on how to deal with North Korea. 

Thus, the only common theme in all this is to find some way to criticize America at all turns, no matter how egregious the contradictions and blatant the dishonesty.  The notion of actually offering any ideas to improve society is long forgotten.  The intellectual bankruptcy of anti-American fanaticism is well-documented, but that it has devolved into a cult this detached from reality is remarkable. 

The always articulate Victor Davis Hanson has more. 

The Lighting Revolution - An Update

On September 5, we had an article titled The Imminent Revolution in Lighting, and Why it is More Important Than You Think, which described the massive change the economics of lighting will experience in the next few years. 

I would like to also add this article from MIT Technology Review, about advances in silicon-based white-light LEDs.  The article explains how the low cost of silicon, combined with the massive infrastructure already in place to process silicon into electronic and solar-cell products, provides a catalyst for this innovation to reach mass-market adoption sooner than others.  These LEDs could potentially use just one tenth the electricity of traditional incandescent bulbs, yet last 50 times longer. 

The point that many miss, however, is not whether this technology supplants compact fluorescent bulbs (CFLs), or whether another form of LED technology wins out.  The point is that there is rapid innovation in many unrelated technologies trying to address the same goal.  This much competition and participation inevitably leads to high-impact innovations that benefit society immensely. 

As stated before, the energy problem will be killed by a thousand cuts, of which this is one.