This is what the editors of MIT Technology Review looked for as we assembled this list. We didn’t count patents or PhDs; instead, we asked whether a company had made strides in the past year that will define its field. The biggest of these strides happened at Illumina, which is driving down the price of DNA sequencing to levels that will change the practice of medicine. We also found dramatic developments on the Web, in batteries, and even in agricultural technologies.
Illumina already held 70 percent of the market for genome-sequencing machines when it made a landmark announcement in January: using 10 of its latest machines in parallel makes it feasible to read a person’s genome for $1,000, long considered a crucial threshold for moving sequencing into clinical applications. Medical research stands to benefit as well. More researchers will have the ability to do large-scale studies that could lead to more precise understanding of diseases and help usher in truly personalized medicine.
******** Solexa took advantage of a novel way of sequencing, known as sequencing by synthesis, that was 100 times faster than other technologies and correspondingly cheaper, says Flatley. But it was a small business, with just $2.5 million in revenue in 2006. After Illumina provided the global distribution Solexa needed, “we built it into a $100 million business in one year,” he says. “It was an inflection point for us. We began this super-rapid growth.”
The deal also turned out to be a turning point for Illumina’s competitors, which quickly fell behind technologically. Roche, which bought 454 Life Sciences in 2007, announced last October that it would shutter the company and phase out its sequencers. Complete Genomics, another competitor, cut jobs and began looking for a buyer in 2012; last year the Chinese company BGI-Shenzhen bought it, although Illumina made a failed bid for it as well.
今後はゲノム情報を一般顧客に得るサービス提供が視野に入っているようです。
The Solexa deal was far from the last time that Flatley transformed Illumina by buying the technology he thought it needed. Another pivotal point came last year, when the company bought Verinata Health, maker of a noninvasive prenatal sequencing test to identify fetal abnormalities. That gave Illumina a service that consumers can buy (through their doctors), in a market that could be worth billions of dollars in revenue.
MIT Technology Reviewとう雑誌恒例の35 Innovators under 35という特集で日本人が選ばれていました。
35 Innovators under 35 For our 13th annual celebration of people who are driving the next generation of technological breakthroughs, we’re presenting the stories in a new way. We’ve grouped them by categories that reflect the variety of approaches that people can take to solving big problems. The Inventors, for instance, are creating new technologies. The Entrepreneurs are turning technologies into viable businesses. The Visionaries are anticipating how technologies can make life better, while Humanitarians are concentrating on expanding opportunities. And the Pioneers are exploring new frontiers, setting the stage for future innovations.
This project takes months of effort. It begins with nominations from the public and MIT Technology Review editors. People who have been selected by our publishing partners as local Innovators Under 35 in several regions worldwide are also considered. The editors go through the hundreds of candidates and select fewer than 100 finalists, all of whom will be younger than 35 on October 1. A panel of judges rates the finalists on the originality and impact of their work. Finally, the editors take the judges’ scores into account to select the group.
Kuniharu Takei is exploring new ways of printing different kinds of nano devices. An early prototype of electronic skin uses a plastic substrate and carbon nanotubes.
“The mobile phone, the Net, the spread of information – a deadly combination for dictators.”
まあ、この号のテーマはBig Data will save politics（ビッグデータが政治を救う）でしたが、Bono自身はBig Dataという言葉は使っていませんでした（汗）特集記事はオバマ大統領の選挙キャンペーンがBig Dataをどのように用いたかというData Makes Elections Smarterというものでした。こちらの記事も機会があれば取り上げたいと思います。
Bono Sings the Praises of Technology The musician and activist explains how technology provides the means to help us eradicate disease and extreme poverty. By Brian Bergstein on January 2, 2013
技術が貧困撲滅に役立っていることを語っている部分は以下です。
What should be the role of technology in making a better world? Are some problems beyond its reach, like poverty?
Technology has already helped tackle extreme poverty in Africa. Extreme poverty is the empirical condition of living on under $1.25 a day. Nelson Mandela once demanded we be the “great generation” to beat extreme poverty, noting how we have the technology and resources to achieve this extraordinary vision. And we do. We could achieve it by 2030, maybe before. The digital revolution that we are living through, the rapid advances in health and agrotechnology—these things have become core weapons in responding to Mandela’s clarion call. They enable people to get on with it themselves, to fight their way out of the condition they find themselves in. In Africa, things are changing so rapidly. What’s been a slow march is suddenly picking up pace in ways we could not have imagined even 10 years ago. Innovations like farmers using mobile phones to check seed prices, for banking, for sending payments … to the macro effect we saw with the Arab Spring thanks to Facebook and Twitter.
But people can use technology for bad as well as good. The social systems and the social capital within networks must be strong and positive to nurture a progressive use of technology. Let’s be honest.
You admired Steve Jobs. Did he make the world better or just make nice computers?
（中略）
He told me he would love to spend more time on philanthropy and would get to it one day. He wasn’t interested in half doing it, as is obvious with his personality. Still, Apple very quietly has contributed more than $50 million to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria through the sale of (RED) iPods, Nanos, etc. They are the biggest corporate donor. Tim Cook is passionate about this stuff. By attaching themselves to what is, in recessionary times at home, an unpopular emergency (people dying in far-off places because they can’t afford AIDS drugs), he and Apple have really helped to keep the heat on the issue.
One great color. One great cause. When you buy (PRODUCT) RED merchandise, Apple gives a portion of the purchase price to the Global Fund to fight AIDS in Africa.
The Global Fund. The numbers don’t lie: Every day more than 900 babies are born with HIV. By 2015 that number can be nearly zero. (RED) works with companies like Apple to fight for an AIDS-free generation by 2015 by creating (PRODUCT) RED merchandise. A percentage of gross profits from the sale of those products goes to the Global Fund to help fund AIDS programs in Africa. Since its introduction, (PRODUCT) RED has generated more than $190 million — more than $50 million from Apple alone — for the Global Fund. Now you can make an impact, too, by purchasing a (PRODUCT) RED iPod shuffle, iPod nano, iPod touch, iPad Smart Cover, iPad Smart Case, or iPhone Bumper.
For more information about the Global Fund and (RED)™, visit JOINRED.com.
MIT Technology Reviewへのリップサービスもあるのかもしれませんが、インタビューは最後まで技術への希望を語っていました。Like any parent, I wonder what kind of world we’re leaving behind.（他の親と同じように、どんな世界を残してあげられるかを考えています）とあくまで希望を語っているエネルギーに感銘を受けます。
Do you despair? If not, why not?
Like any parent, I wonder what kind of world we’re leaving behind. But I’ve also been blessed to be involved in some great movements that helped bring major challenges—like debt or AIDS or malaria—from the margins to the mainstream. These social movements are the things that make the real difference, people from different walks of life coming together to stand up for what they believe in. Whether they do it by marching, by writing, by tweeting, by posting, by singing, or by going to jail. It’s hard not to be an optimist when you see what happens when people join forces.
Right now, though, I think things do hang in the balance. I just heard about a report that predicts the world by 2030 will be fracturing further as rising populations and consumption patterns compete over scarce natural resources. That’s a real recipe for conflict and instability. But it’s avoidable. I’m confident we can overcome the worst trends—but only if we get even better at building innovative networks to do more of what works and less of what doesn’t.
How might this happen? Collecting more data and more open data so we can drill down further on knowing what to do. Continued technological innovations, no question, on more and more fronts. The connectivity of social media, harnessed for action, not apathy. Hundreds of thousands marched in the “Drop the Debt” campaign, and now an extra 51 million kids in Africa are going to school because of monies freed up by debt cancellation—it’s a staggering number. That wouldn’t have happened without people across the globe demanding it. The tools that technology provides mean we know more and we understand more about previously-thought-unsolvable problems. With this data informing our course we can describe the kind of world we want to live in and then without airy-fairyness or wishful thinking go after it. It’s the greatest opportunity that has ever been offered any generation. Which is the truth. Wow.
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