The Technology Innovation of the Year

Technology leaders at the Brainstorm Tech conference, organized by the Fortune magazine, were asked about the most exciting technology innovation they had seen in the past 12 months. The following article summarizes the answers, and contains this statement. "An astonishing number - about half - said the iPhone was the most exciting thing they'd seen." I find that sad. Rebecca McKinnon, who mentions this statistic on her blog, uses the expression "amazingly and somewhat disappointingly." It is not difficult to understand why: the iPhone is, ultimately, a fashion object that fulfills no greater purpose in society. You could be forgiven for thinking that technology leaders, invited to a high-visibility summit, would cite innovations that contribute to the greater good. Some do (the other half of the respondents), and list the following: cloud computing/Web services, one laptop per child, and even "the use of algae to create oil", which at least suggests an awareness of the great engineering challenges ahead of us, and of current efforts to address them.

My own vote for this survey would be cast for the Metropolitan Opera's high-definition, live broadcasts of performances during the season and, in a related vein, the use of Internet2 connections to bring live classical concerts to university campuses. This allows people to discover the power of opera and music in a way that simply is not possible through, say, a car radio, while spending very little (if anything) for the concert. Of course, if the iPhone fulfills no greater purpose in society, one can ask what opera adds to the grand scheme of things. I am not going to enter that debate - some people out there will always be convinced art is superfluous. But focus on the technology rather than its current application for a second: live broadcasting technologies make it possible to reach - educate - clusters of people throughout the country. If it works for opera, why not for presidential debates? State of the Union addresses? It is common knowledge in psychology that experiences in bright colors, on large screens and at loud volumes are remembered more vividly - the most widely used technique in post-traumatic stress disorders is to picture the difficult memory in one's head and change its modalities: darken the image, make it smaller, decrease the sounds, etc. The appeal of the Met's high-definition, live broadcasts in particular is that they give patrons an "in your face" experience, with better views than if they had attended the actual opera at Lincoln Center. The immediacy of it is what draws in the crowds. Maybe it is time we treated political events as we treat opera performances. I am not sure if McCain would be a people magnet, but I could see Obama fans crowding every single movie theater in the country. Now let's just hope their man doesn't turn into an opera diva.