Social media mining of consumer trends is not just for your marketing department anymore. It should be part of your overall corporate R&D/innovation toolkit.

The world is awash in data ranging from e-commerce, in-store data, and the supply chain. Today, big data has gotten even more significant due to the rise in social media. There are over 3 billion users of social media. While you read this sentence, hundreds of thousands of tweets, comments, pictures, and videos have posted. An astonishing 73% of marketers believe companies that fail to use social data analysis effectively won’t survive in the long run. Social data has the potential to inform every aspect of a business.

Viewed through the eyes of an innovation manager, quantum dot technology could either represent the best thing since sliced bread or your darkest nightmare. Quantum dots are dependent on the size of the nanoparticle and not the chemical nature of the material and enable applications ranging from large screen televisions (TVs) to packaging to medical diagnosis and imaging. Quantum dots have the potential to disrupt the status quo across virtually all industrial sectors. Your product may be obsolete and you just don’t know it yet.

As creepy as Hal was in “2001: A Space Odyssey” to the cuteness of Pixar’s “Wall-E”, the science fiction community has both unsettled and entertained generations of readers and movie goers. A machine that can perform tasks that normally require the skills of a human being defines the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and it is transforming the medical device industry. Investors are pouring money into start-ups in the AI med devices sector at higher rates than the other industries exploiting AI. Since 2013, this segment has raised $4.3B USD in start-up funding.

The holy grail of AI in healthcare is in improving patient outcomes and reducing healthcare costs. The key in medical devices is the development of both diagnostic and treatment tools. However, the primary stumbling block for AI in medical devices has been the FDA. But the regulatory dam finally broke this year.

Running out of battery power in a cell phone is annoying. For a medical device, it can be life-threatening!

Technology has come a long way since the 1890s when Nikola Tesla first envisioned a wireless power transmission system. Twenty years ago, WiFi was first introduced to transmit voice and data wirelessly to consumers and the consumer market never looked back. Will recharging electronics wirelessly become as ubiquitous? A handful of start-up companies are working to do just that.

This report summarizes the state of the art in through-air distance wireless power, and the impact of these disruptive technologies on the market.

Synthetic biology is the engineering of biological components, systems or organisms to make chemicals or materials. It has the potential to disrupt highly disparate industries ranging from pharma to chemicals, materials, plastics, agriculture, food and even lighting and electronics. Synthetic biology is poised to change the fundamental building blocks of many industries.

Nerac’s review of a large number of reports (2016-2017) clearly indicates that no matter what the industry sector, the biggest challenge to a successful digitalization depend on the capabilities of a company’s employees and their ability to transform the organization.

Chaos theory proposes that a butterfly flapping its wings in South America can cause a tornado in Kansas. The “Amazon Effect” is when the digital marketplace grabs significant market share from brick-and-mortar stores. Like the butterfly, this ripples across the supply chain and can cause major chaos for unprepared industries.

Polymeric membranes have many features that can be tailored and that are beneficial in membrane design including performance capabilities, cost and use versus ceramic and inorganic counterparts.

Carbon fiber has been incorporated into everything from tennis rackets to airplanes. It increases the strength and stiffness of structural parts without adding weight. Unfortunately, carbon fiber itself is not cheap to produce. A new tool for the carbon fiber toolbox is 3D printing. This article explores the emerging market opportunity for 3D printing of carbon fiber composite materials.

Researchers have isolated a 2-dimensional sheet of the 12th element of the periodic table from graphite called graphene, and both academic and industrial scientists have fantasized about applications in areas such as energy, aerospace, biomedical & life sciences, electronics, oil & gas, paints, coatings & adhesives, and defense. Where will the killer app for graphene be found?