A while ago at a party, I was talking to eight or nine friends about the biggest events of the last year. Despite the fact that we are currently suffering a financial crisis of the same magnitude as the Great Depression, half of the people around the table agreed that the discovery of anatabine citrate, Anatabloc, ranked among the most-important developments of the year.
[Read more...]Robotics and Health Care: A New Growth Market
February 21, 2012 By Leave a Comment
There are truly exciting developments afoot in the field of robotics. Uncomfortably humanlike Japanese toys aside, we are starting to see more and more applications for robot technology gaining steam in the market.
According to the Japan Robotics Association, the consumer robotics market is projected to reach 24 billion this year, and balloon to 66 billion by 2025. I personally think that the long term estimate is a bit pessimistic. Bill Gates is on record for predicting that robots will be as common as computers are today.
[Read more...]Big Opportunity From Tiny Machines
February 9, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Back in 1959, Nobel-winning physicist Richard Feynman delivered a now-famous talk titled “There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom,” in which he envisioned the potential applications of tiny machines. Today, one of the most important innovations leading to the current generation of smartphones and tablets is known as MEMS…
[Read more...]Coming Soon: Smart Television!
February 9, 2012 By Leave a Comment
My colleague Ray Blanco and I recently attended the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The big story this year was the convergence in consumer electronics. Specifically, it was the arrival of extraordinary high-definition 3-D as well as “smart” TVs. In fact, Ray and I had backstage passes for the biggest 3-D events.
[Read more...]Get Rich Slow
February 6, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Get-rich-quick investment advice is a fantasy. Get-rich-slow is a validated strategy for real wealth.
Today, it is more important than ever to keep the long-run perspective firmly in mind…
Lest you’ve forgotten, world financial markets are in a state of unparalleled disorder. More capital has been drained from markets, thanks to the irresponsibility of politicians and the acquiescence of naive citizens, than at any time in modern history. The damage done by bombers and tanks in world wars has been matched by the unintended consequences of central planning and bureaucracies.
[Read more...]An Electrifying Profit Opportunity
October 26, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Biotechnology, nanotechnology and semiconductors are all areas investors watch closely for the next great new tech. However, transformational technology investment opportunities aren’t always found in what are commonly regarded as “breakthrough technology” fields.
Sometimes, breakthrough technologies quietly emerge in mature, well-established industries. One particular transformational technology company, for example, can more than double the economic efficiency of electrical motors and generators.
[Read more...]Remember This
September 28, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Periodically, we see articles heralding the imminent death of Moore’s law and accelerating progress in the world of electronics. For the sake of your portfolio, don’t buy it. Creative destruction, using Joseph Schumpeter’s term, will continue to create breakthrough profit opportunities.
In 2007, Hewlett-Packard’s labs demonstrated the first memristor recognized as such. A portmanteau of “memory” and “resistor,” “memristance” was the theoretical fourth circuit variable first described in 1971. While HP stock will probably not yield the sort of profits we’re looking for here, it will help generate them indirectly.
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The Cloud That Rains Money
We live in a time when you can pick up a tiny computer, ask it a question out loud and have a satisfactory answer provided in a matter of seconds. It’s amazing if you stop to think about it.
Voice-recognizing digital personal assistants have become commonplace. One such assistant is among the most important new features unveiled in Apple’s latest smartphone. Called Siri, it recognizes natural language questions and accesses a plethora of web services to provide an answer. Android-based phone users (like yours truly), on the other hand, have enjoyed voice recognition to navigate, search or compose messages since summer of last year.
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