"given the way fields are getting narrower and narrower and the way the academe has devolved, I see little real connection between stuff being shown in academic research papers and the technology that we'll be hyping in 2032."
I think that's a myth. The fields I studied aren't any narrower today than they were two decades ago -- the fields I studied didn't exist two decades ago. They barely existed ten years ago. And now there's a vibrant field of research. The same is true all over the biological sciences, computer science, chemistry, biochemistry, bioengineering, etc. The fields where a PhD means something are constantly re-inventing themselves, because the frontier of technology keeps getting bigger.
In the 1980s, Rodney Brooks at MIT was doing some interesting academic work with simple, toy robots, while everyone else was building thinking machines and planning systems and industrial robots. Twenty years later, and there are multiple companies commercializing the technologies emerged from that work. Some people might look at iRobot and say "what an innovative startup!", but I look at them and see a company that has done a good job of commercializing 20-year-old technology. They've definitely refined it since then, but the core technology was invented at MIT, in the 80s. The same applies to nearly every "hot" technology that startups are pimping today -- dig a bit below the surface, and you find an iceberg of academic research.
And that's what I mean when I say that the startups of 2032 will be hyping academic research done in 2012. It's all a matter of perspective.
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"given the way fields are getting narrower and narrower and the way the academe has devolved, I see little real connection between stuff being shown in academic research papers and the technology that we'll be hyping in 2032."
I think that's a myth. The fields I studied aren't any narrower today than they were two decades ago -- the fields I studied didn't exist two decades ago. They barely existed ten years ago. And now there's a vibrant field of research. The same is true all over the biological sciences, computer science, chemistry, biochemistry, bioengineering, etc. The fields where a PhD means something are constantly re-inventing themselves, because the frontier of technology keeps getting bigger.
In the 1980s, Rodney Brooks at MIT was doing some interesting academic work with simple, toy robots, while everyone else was building thinking machines and planning systems and industrial robots. Twenty years later, and there are multiple companies commercializing the technologies emerged from that work. Some people might look at iRobot and say "what an innovative startup!", but I look at them and see a company that has done a good job of commercializing 20-year-old technology. They've definitely refined it since then, but the core technology was invented at MIT, in the 80s. The same applies to nearly every "hot" technology that startups are pimping today -- dig a bit below the surface, and you find an iceberg of academic research.
And that's what I mean when I say that the startups of 2032 will be hyping academic research done in 2012. It's all a matter of perspective.