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Science Technology

Wall Street Journal's Technology Innovation Awards 58

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the fun-places-to-work dept.
Carl Bialik writes "Gene-sequencing company 454 Life Sciences was selected as the Gold Winner in the Wall Street Journal's 2005 Technology Innovation Awards. 'Around 750 applications were screened by a Wall Street Journal editor, who narrowed the field to 104 semifinalists. Then a panel of expert judges from industry, research organizations and academia scored each entry and picked the winners.' (Listen to an MP3 clip on how the judges chose.) Other winners include a company that has developed a low-cost method for manufacturing RFID tags; Riverbed Technology's network appliances; Fujitsu's ID system that uses the veins in a person's palm instead of fingerprints; and the Agitator tool to debug code."
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Wall Street Journal's Technology Innovation Awards More

Wall Street Journal's Technology Innovation Awards

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  • WTF? (Score:5, Funny)

    by east coast ( 590680 ) on Monday October 24, 2005 @12:57PM (#13865329)
    Half-Life 2 didn't win for software? What a bunch of n00bz.

  • Other Awards (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ackthpt ( 218170 ) * on Monday October 24, 2005 @12:58PM (#13865340) Homepage Journal
    • Yahoo & Google for developing technology to assist PRC in filtering news and tracking radicals
    • Music companies for unmitigated greed in trying to muscle Apple into increasing prices
    • Sony and Blu-Ray coalition on develping new standards which drive a stake through the heart of, and bury Fair Use

    Kinda have to keep in mind what Wall Street is really interested in.

    • Flamebait (Score:5, Insightful)

      by slashing1 ( 818431 ) on Monday October 24, 2005 @01:35PM (#13865606)
      Parent is an unfair characterization of the WSJ article. Obviously we are talking about companies with a profit motive here, but even nonprofit international aid and development organizations talk about the profit motive-- in the form of "sustainable development." The article specifically cites inventions that are not financially rewarding, for example

      "Clean water is not sexy, and $20 a year won't make anyone rich," says Robert Drost, a scientist at Sun Microsystems Inc.

      from the overall Honorable mention award. The overall Silver went to a company that is reducing toxic pollutants and decreasing greenhouse gas emissions through energy reduction.

      • Parent is an unfair characterization of the WSJ article. Obviously we are talking about companies with a profit motive here, but even nonprofit international aid and development organizations talk about the profit motive-- in the form of "sustainable development." The article specifically cites inventions that are not financially rewarding, for example

        "Clean water is not sexy, and $20 a year won't make anyone rich," says Robert Drost, a scientist at Sun Microsystems Inc.

        from the overall Honorable men

        • Show me where in this criteria it is mentioned 'altruism', 'environment-friendly' or 'non-profit'

          Exactly-- the criteria do not include profit nor any of the above factors. If you take the article at face value, it is a general innovation award.

          I see no evidence that the choices will actually lead to a better world.

          I'm sorry to hear that you don't think cheaper clean water isn't going to make for a better world, or that a reduction in toxic chemicals and greenhouse gases might not make things better overa

          • I'm sorry to hear that you don't think cheaper clean water isn't going to make for a better world...

            This is you talking, not me. But since you were so off initially I figure this is the only way you figure you can save any face, by building a straw-man and then knocking it down.

          • I would think giving the Wall Street Journal the "Melvin T. Shit-out-of-luck Investor Best Newspaper to Wipe Your Ass With and Live Under" Award would be a great contribution to journalism.
      • The shot, as I understand it, was aimed at the Wall Street community itself and not at the particular article in the Wall Street Journal.
  • Around 750 applications were screened by a Wall Street Journal editor, who narrowed the field to 104 semifinalists.

    I have to wonder if there were any ideas that didn't make the final 104 that might have been better than the others but didn't sound as interesting or "cool" to the editor.

    • You should be able to describe any useful innovation in a way that's interesting to a layman, even if he doesn't understand the details. Consider an oft-touted feature of the Linux kernel, O(1) scheduling. Only programmers and mathemeticians know what that actually means. But we can explain it in a way that makes sense to non-programmers so they can see the advantages, even though they probably still don't know what O(1) scheduling really is. Similarly, you can explain some insanely technical new MRI te

  • How... (Score:1, Insightful)

    by wpiman ( 739077 ) *
    How many of these companies will actually be around in 2 years? Great products don't always translate into success.

    • Doesn't Matter... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ackthpt ( 218170 ) * on Monday October 24, 2005 @01:03PM (#13865384) Homepage Journal
      How many of these companies will actually be around in 2 years? Great products don't always translate into success.

      Their IP will live on forever and be accumulated by some little holding company with a PO Box in rural Wisconsin. A year after any company produces a product anything like what their portfolio includes and they'll up-end the Bucket o' Laywers and it's Game On!

    • But there is life after death. A lot of companies that produce great ideas usually lack the (marketing|distribution) strength of the giants in a field. If they get bought out by Microsoft: god help us all, we just lost something great.</toungeincheek> However, if somebody more concerned with making a good product picks it up, you may see that project resurrected with tech support and better features/integration in a year or two.
    • I don't think Douglas Engelbart made one red cent off his patent on the computer mouse, but that doesn't mean that the mouse wasn't a success.

    • 454 will be around (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Mab_Mass ( 903149 )
      As someone who is working in biotech, I can tell you that 454 Life Sciences is definitely going to be around in 2 years. Not only is this a great technology, they have already built an instrument which is being distributed by Roche (ie, one of the bigger names in biotech). At this point in the game, they can deliver more sequence information faster than anybody else.

      Also, this company does not do "gene-sequencing" as the summary states, but it instead goes "genome sequencing". This is a huge differenc

  • Riverbed's stuff rocks! (Score:3, Informative)

    by wedding ( 618458 ) on Monday October 24, 2005 @01:00PM (#13865352)
    Great to see this company getting some attention. We're using their devices, and it borders on black magic how much data reduction they're able to do over our WAN. I highly recommend them for anyone setting up a branch office!

  • Fujitsu's ID system is Big Brother scary! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 24, 2005 @01:02PM (#13865367)
    Fujitsu's ID system that uses the veins in a person's palm instead of fingerprints

    Fujitsu's system can not only identify you, but alert authorities to the last time you masturbated.

  • Its nice to see (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mymaxx ( 924704 ) on Monday October 24, 2005 @01:03PM (#13865380)
    that someone recognized an innovation (see MIT's water purification solution) that isn't going to make a lot of money, but works to solve a serious problem.
  • Too bad they didn't say HOW to apply! I think the pool could be bigger, and then teh chouces would be more broadly based. Also, I'd like to know the judges' CVs.
  • So what happens if you get your hand wound in an accident? Suddenly all your ID's stop working? With fingerprints, at least you have a chance...

    Now think about id theft. With fingerprints, the thief requires to cut a finger from you. That, I could live with (unless I was a pianist of course). But having my entire hand ripped off? No, thanks, I think I'll pass.

    • Re:Palm Vein identification? (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Pulse. There is the possibility such technology could also detect pulse and surface temperatures and many other factors. Safety nets to prevent the hand removal thievery you mentioned. If that tech isn't in it now, I'm sure some kind would be added in the future.

      Daakon

  • Solar Power (Score:5, Informative)

    by saskboy ( 600063 ) on Monday October 24, 2005 @01:06PM (#13865408) Homepage Journal
    "Solar Integrated Technologies Inc., Los Angeles, won for its solar roof system designed for large commercial and industrial buildings. The company combines a lightweight, flexible solar-energy system with a single-ply roofing membrane, enabling buildings to generate solar power from their flat rooftops. It has installed SmartRoof panels on a Coca-Cola bottling plant in Los Angeles and a Frito-Lay distribution warehouse in Torrance, Calif.; the Frito-Lay building's 70,000-square-foot roof is less than half covered with solar panels, but the system generates more than a quarter of the building's annual energy needs."

    Too bad that 50% roof coverage only generates 25% of the power they need. Perhaps they could get the rest from geothermal energy, although at some plants that would certainly be out of the question.

    It pains me to see new buildings going up without any form of solar panels, or light tubes put into them, when it wouldn't cost much to do so, and saves energy in the long run.

    • Re:Solar Power (Score:4, Interesting)

      by fbg111 ( 529550 ) on Monday October 24, 2005 @02:43PM (#13866096)
      Too bad that 50% roof coverage only generates 25% of the power they need.

      Why too bad? Depending on the durability of the solar cells, it sounds like getting 25% of your energy needs for a fixed cost and no recurring costs would be quite efficient. Further, cover 100% of the roof (if possible) and get 50% of annual needs from solar? Sounds great. Add a fuel cell storage system to the mix and you've mitigated the risk of business stoppage from blackouts. Sounds like there's a lot of potential there.
    • Too bad that 50% roof coverage only generates 25% of the power they need. Perhaps they could get the rest from geothermal energy, although at some plants that would certainly be out of the question.


      The solution is simple. They just new to cover their car park with solar cells. The roofing would keeping cars cool by being in the shade, and they would get the additional power. But only during Sunny days.

  • mp3 clip (Score:2, Funny)

    by minus_273 ( 174041 )
    this is slashdot! it's not and MP3 clip it's a PODCAST!
    • While a podcast is referred to on the article page, the link in the /.summary is in fact a link to an actual ordinary 8Meg MP3 file.
      • go read a few other stories linking to mp3 clips (see "podcast from space" etc) and you will understand this post. Explanations: the best way to kill a joke.
  • Why? They generally have no clue about how useful their innovations are to ordinary people. (Remember my story about the professor who justified memory metal on the grounds that it could reveal fish had been defosted? Yeah.) They're going to be biased in favor of solvers of "difficult" problems which confer no benefit on anyone. Just a thought.
  • From a scan of the Agitar forums [agitar.com] it looks like they use JDK 1.5 annotations to do a sort of design by contract thing. Annotations are a great idea for this sort of thing; I've been working annotations into PMD [blogs.com] to suppress warnings and it makes things a lot clearer.
  • Has anybody noticed how a "Wall street journal editor" got to can 6 out of 7 candidates with no oversight ? That's pretty much enough to strip these awards of any credibility whatsoever.
  • Genetic engineering is the new frontier - more amateurs should hack DNA. There is a lot of information on this at DNAhack.com [dnahack.com].
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

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