Re: R: Re: R: Re: a wish list
- From: "W. Nick Dotson" <nickdotson@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "optacon-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <optacon-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 12 May 2006 12:34:58 -0500
As a person who's worked on product development, all I can tell you is that
"wish lists" need to be grounded in reality. Those requiring development of as
not extant technologies, aren't going to acquire attention of those who can
bring product ideas into being. Basic Research, and engineering are two
different things. We, in the blindness community, particularly the small
subset using an out of production device, which most educators, rehabilitators,
and
blind people found to difficult to use to be practicable, are a small universe
indeed. It seems to me that Treticoff's (spelling?) vision didn't get very far
because the focus was too loose. The closer one can come to formulating the
equivalent of "pseudo code" for a hardware device, the more likely one is to
find someone willing to put forth the time energy and money requisite necessary
to bring forth a product. It is extremely disappointing that here, where I
would've expected realism to prevail, as we know the sweat and persistence it
takes to use this device effectively, we are still contending with a lack of
realism with respect to what it takes to bring a product into being. We can
look realistically at how lack of ongoing cash flow, and the combination of
unrealistic hopes and market hype worked together to kill this most useful of
devices. Dreams are necessary, but we're not talking about dreams here, if our
efforts are to be of use--rather we're talking about refining an idea of
product design down to a set of parameters which can be considered by those
with the
engineering talent to assess the extant technology on-the-shelf, design
criteria, and cost of manufacture on a certain quantity of units.
Nick
On Fri, 12 May 2006 17:59:22 +0200, Francesca Diodati wrote:
I think we shouldn't focus on the hopes that were not fulfilled, but rather
on those which have. Failures are important - they teach us to be cautious
and not to build our life on dreams. But if inventors weren't far sighted
and lost the ability to dream, they would give up any new idea that most
people would label foolish, or a mere waste of time. History is full of
failures, but also of successes. The subject of this very list is a device
that would have been unthinkable at the beginning of the century.
Remember that Dr. Barnard was called insane by his colleagues when he
attempted the first heart transplant. Now heart patients get a brand new
life with a new heart.
The wish list we compiled is full of dreams, I know. But let's keep
brainstorming and discussing, and even if just one item of that wish list
comes true (provided the new optacon is produced) that would be in itself a
dream come true for all.
Fran
----- Original Message -----
From: "W. Nick Dotson" <nickdotson@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <optacon-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, May 12, 2006 5:15 PM
Subject: Re: R: Re: R: Re: a wish list
> First of all, you err in your assumptions about me. I have been working
> professionally in the field of blindness since 1978, as an educator and
> rehabilitator,
> and in the fields of product development/training/sales/and support since
> 1985. That should encourage you to inhibit tendencies toward assumptive
> logic
> and statements pertaining to others based on insufficient data regarding
> their perspectives...
>
> Next, prognostication is risky. Engineering systematic. The less
> knowledgeable one is about any area, the more prone they are to "leaps of
> faith" or
> misapprehension and the more seceptible to the yoyo of hope and deflation
> of that hope/or depression, when some problem not taken into account, or,
> minimized difficulty causes a redefinition of a problem and the necessity
> to rework it's apparently easy and overy hyped solution. I've been
> reading about
> replacements to Pizo-electric braille displays since 1972, and none have
> come to market. To hype an as yet unmanufactured, preprototype proof of
> concept
> technology is a disservice to the technologically naive and ingnorant.
> Similarly, to discuss problems and their solutions outside the practical
> capabilities of
> available technologies engineers can forge into a manufacturable and
> potentially marketable wolution is a waste of time and energy--except
> possibly for
> accademics, or engineers gathered at a bar after 5:00pm. Similarly,
> without a saleable business case, all the good ideas and intentions don't
> generate
> requisite venture capital to bring a device into production and
> distribution. This doesn't mean being dour--merely methodical. (grin)
>
> Several of the companies mentioned in the article you reference have been
> working toward where they are now for nearly 2 decades. Ray Kurzweil and
> others at Xerox invisioned a paperless office, which has never come to
> fruition, while other of their technological efforts have. However, they,
> and others
> rarely remember those prognostications which haven't come to fruition,
> rather, they crow about those which have...
>
> Nick
>
> On Fri, 12 May 2006 15:24:25 +0100 (GMT+01:00), Francesca Diodati wrote:
>
> eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=51200440
>
>
>
>
>
>
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