Nature published an interesting paper at the weekend, a Canadian meta study into public attitudes to nanotechnology. The key finding is that “those who perceive greater benefits outnumber those who perceive greater risks by 3 to 1.” That’s probably not too surprising, as the majority of press stories about nanotechnology tend to be along the lines of it curing cancer …
A Tale of Two Quantum Dots
With a heavy heart I predicted a few high profile nanotechnology failures this year, and Evident Technologies are the latest to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. In common with Oxonica, Evident found themselves in a patent infringement fight with someone with deeper pockets then them, in this case Life Technologies (formerly Invitrogen) who got into the business by acquiring …
IBM Double Dips With Nanotech Centres
It’s interesting that IBM seems to be the partner of choice for a number of nanotechnology in emerging economies such as Bulgaria and Egypt, (where there are large number of vacancies, including the post of “Centre Director.”) IBM, as we all know, was responsible for the STM/AFM and holds a wide variety of nanotechnology related patents, including some fairly fundamental …
Zettacore Change Tack
Interesting to see Zettacore raising a $21m series C, some six years after they first started our promising to replace silicon with molecular memories, although that’s not the application that is attracting interest right now. As Nikkei Electronics reported last week – they look to have a customer for their Molecular Interface (aren’t most interfaces molecular?) technology that helps with …
The Future Will Be Battery Powered
An interesting battle is brewing over the hydrogen economy with the Obama administration doubting that fuel cells will make much of a difference over the next ten years to be worth funding and describing the decision as a reduction of “less effective programs so we can invest in our economic future.” Honda, Toyota & General Motors have grumbled bitterly about …
China & US Neck & Neck For Third Place In Global Nanotech Funding
A few years ago I spent a long time explaining to journalists that it didn’t actually matter whether Europe, the US or Japan was spending the most on nanotechnology R&D, it was how they spent it that mattered. But of course numbers and league tables make good copy. Looking at the 2009 numbers, which you can see on the left …
The Hype That Came Back to Bite
I received an email from the US NanoBusiness Alliance (yes they are still limping along) appealing for data on jobs created by nanotechnologies, a clear case of the hype that came back to bite. We Need Your Jobs Data During the Public Policy Tour, we received an assignment from Senator Wyden, Tom Kalil, and several other champions of nanotechnology: in …
The Chinese are Coming! Oops, They Are Already Here!
The chart below shows nanotechnology R&D spending in the US and China corrected for purchasing power parity – i.e things are cheaper in China so $1 gets you more minutes of a researcher or a bigger bowl of noodles in Wuhan than in San Francisco (and parking is probably cheaper too).
The Nanotech Taliban Claim “Dexter Johnson is an ignoramus whose ignorance leads him to view optimists with contempt.”
My estwhile colleague Dexter Johnson who also blogs for IEEE Spectrum received a number of plaudits from readers of the Foresight Institutes Nanodot blog after daring to suggest that the sunny optimism of current President J Storrs Hall might be rather displaced and that the assertion nanobots will save us may be rather missing the point. Illustrating the difficullty of …
Building a .-tech economy from the ashes of the current one
Thomas Friedman in this weekends New York Times echoes my recent thoughts on how to get us out of the credit crunch recession: As we invest taxpayer money, let’s do it with an eye to starting a new generation of biotech, info-tech, nanotech and clean-tech companies, with real innovators, real 21st-century jobs and potentially real profits for taxpayers. Our motto …