Disruptive innovation breakthrough from incremental improvements
Disruptive innovation breakthrough from incremental improvements. The 3D controller in the video uses brute force pattern recognition and cheap hardware. It’s what Ray Kurzweil claims will lead to the Singularity.
Cheap camera based 3D controllers have been on the market for close to 2 years. The interesting part of this video is how they do it. They have a large database of images for hand positions then compare what the camera sees to an image in the database. That is an extremely crude approach but the speed of cheap hardware makes it economical.
Most people view breakthroughs as rare and hard to achieve. Using the random creativity based approach that is very true. Business leaders want the disruptive breakthroughs because of the huge profit potential. If you are not using Predictive Innovation your only option is incremental improvements and mediocre little to no increases in profits. However you can achieve breakthroughs with incremental improvements. Read more
Predictive Innovation at TED
One dimension used by Predictive Innovation is the 3 Scales of the Alternatives. Cesar Harada used the 3 scales to create a better boat to clean up oil spills.
When Cesar Harada attempted to make a boat to zig-zag back and forth to efficiently mop up an oil spill he found that a traditional boat with a rudder in the rear was difficult to control. So he applied Inversion to solve the problem. Instead of having the rudder in the rear he put the rudder in the front, that helped. Inversion is just one technique for applying the 5 Directions of the Predictive Innovation Alternatives Grid. It is a very powerful technique because it can fundamentally change the problem and provide an entirely new set of 15 Alternatives. In this case Cesar only used a simple change but that was enough to get the desired result.
After moving the rudder he then thought about having more than 1 rudder. He moved to multiple rudders. Then he finally moved to having a continuous rudder. That is the 3 Scales of the Predictive Innovation Alternatives grid:
- Single
- Multiple
- Continuous
The 3 Scales are how I predicted in 2004 that s service like Youtube would be the next disruptive innovation for video.
The 15 Alternatives is a key part of how Predictive Innovation gives you a structured approach to describing the complete idea space. It can help you find new and better solutions and show you the next big thing.
You can learn the entire 15 Alternatives through a new stand alone self-paced video tutorial. The 15 Alternatives apply to every dimension, it’s the essential tool for describing the entire idea space. This self paced online video tutorial will open your eyes to see the entire idea space in crystal clear detail.
Click here to register for Predictive Innovation Core Skill: Alternatives.
Spray-on battery, 3D printing
Rice University demos a process to spray-on batteries. This is Another step towards fully automated fabrication.
It was easy to predict that 3D printing would be able to make electronic parts. The process Rice uses probably doesn’t actually need 3D printing to work but it fits the concept. Multiple layers of different materials are sprayed on a surface to create a battery.
Circuits are already being made using normal 2D printers by varying the thickness of the traces to create resistors and conductors. By using a 2 or 3 different materials the full range of electronic parts could be printed directly into the circuit so a robot could literally print a copy of itself. Stratasys and Optomec have already printed electronics.
The spray-on battery will make it easier to build batteries of different shapes and sizes. It will also make it possible for nearly anyone to make batteries anywhere in the world. This can drastically reduce the real costs in terms of time and materials.
Predictive Innovation Training
Predictive Innovation: Core Skills Book
RoundSquareTriangle.com