from the sifting-wheat-from-chaff dept.
There has been a surge in the number and variety of articles in financial and investment-oriented media — some more successful than others at presenting the science and the potential and the pitfalls of nanotechnology research and development. Most spend a lot of verbiage trying to separate science from hype. Hereís a few examples:
- An item from Reuters News Service ("Nanotech Brings New Hope, and Hype, to Market", by Dane Hamilton, 12 February 2002) asserts that "a growing number of Wall Street specialists say the new technology could be a foundation for a new bull market, just as personal computers, biotech and the Internet underpinned previous rallies. Others say the field is way too early for widespread investment and is already being over-hyped."
- An article on the News.com website ("Breaking free from Newton", by Jennifer Fonstad, 5 February 2002) is generally enthusiastic: "For technology, the last half of the 20th century has been a march to miniaturization–make it smaller, make it faster, make it cheaper. While there are seemingly limits to the continuation of this march, a quantum leap to the world of the small may yet enable us to break through the barrier." Fonstad is a managing director at venture capital firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson. [Thanks to David Wallace Croft for submitting this item.]
- And Small Times weighs in with an article ("Investors see the reality behind the nanohype — and some nice pants", by Jayne Fried, 12 February 2002) that points up the accelerating trend in which companies in old-line industries try to reinvent themselves with the ënanoí label — and sometimes even some actual nano-scale technology.
