Window to the future
People are notoriously bad at predicting the future further than a few years down the line. We think geometrically and have a really hard time dealing with exponential growth. As a result it’s hard for us to imagine what the future will be like in 25 years with the continued doubling of processor power every 18 months.
A recent article in Fortune called Quantum Leap tells a credible story of brain prosthetics, telepathy, video games where you can see, hear, touch, taste or smell anything and much much more!
Read the full article at:
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2006/08/07/8382582/index.htm
Fabrice,
Great stuff. What really excites me at the moment is the exponential growth of knowledge in the biosciences, coupled with advances in nanotechnology, quantum computing, and electronics. It is this convergence between biological and physical scientists which will yield tremendous opportunity and the next great technical boom.
This is what i’m watching as an entrepreneur: internet now, but excited by this convergence in the long run.
Likewise – though biotech is still moving slower than I would like. Have you read: “The Singularity is Near”?
No, but the “Singularity is Near” definately appears to be required reading.
On the research end in Biotech, our knowledge is definately maturing rapidly regarding the molecular basis of a number of infectious diseases and more established human disease. I’m currently in Malaria Vaccine research which is rapidly assimilating vast insights from “post genomic” information.
Over the next few years will our insights get more interesting and coupled with the pace of change in nanotechnology and quantum electronics the first convergence applications which will make significant impact will be in medical diagnostics. These will include, nanosensors for cancer, infectious diseases of viral and bacterial origin.
These sorts of companies will require both advances in the biology before any significant R&D can be invested. There is an interesting Stanford company called Theranos (http://www.theranos.com/solutions.html) which is indicative of the first generation of these “convergence” applications. There may be a few years left until everything is mature in that industry but at least it gives time to focus on the second dot com wave first 😉