Category: Nanodot

from the The-buzz dept.
A spate of news items about nanotechnology has emerged in the wake of the Nanotech Planet conference held last week in Boston. Some items of interest:

• An article on the Wired ("Nanotech, but Not in a Nanosecond") website that reiterates the cautionary statements regarding investment-oriented nanohype made by HPís Stanley Williams and others.
• Another Wired item ("Don't Fear Science You Can't See") features some level-headed comments by Foresight Senior Associate and Board member Glenn Reynolds (who spoke at the conference) and others on negative reactions to the other kind of nanohype ñ fears of runaway self-replicating nanobots and the like.
• An article on the Small Times ("European nanotech depends too much on government handouts, expert says", by M. Kelley, 30 November 2001) website presents comments by Ramon Compano, a member of the European Commissionís Program for Future and Emerging Technologies, who claims European nanotech ventures receive far more support from public investment and research grants than the private sector.
• Small Times also ran an article that reported the comments of venture capitalists and investors who were speakers and in the audience at the conference: "While bullish on nanotechís promise in general and confident that it will lure its share of investment dollars, the speakers also warned that the sector is a long way from practical success."
• A similar item appeared on the The Deal.com website ("VCs see slow start to nanotech investing", by Charles Sisk, 30 November 2001): "Despite predictions that the market for nanotechnology . . . will take off in the next 15 years, most ideas are still too under-developed to warrant funding, venture capitalists and other investors said."

An article on the Small Times website ("HP Official: 'Ignorance and greed' could spoil nanotech's credibility", by Jeff Karoub) reports an address to the Nanotech Planetís Fall 2001 Conference and Expo in Boston on 29 November 2001, by R. Stanley Williams, a leading nanotechnology researcher and director of Hewlett-Packardís Quantum Science Research. According to the article, Williams said a major challenge facing the immature nanotechnology field is not the science, but the combination of misleading media reports and venture capitalists looking for the next big thing in the wake of the dot-com collapse.
"Ignorance and greed meeting in the marketplace is a recipe for disaster," Williams told attendees from business, government and academia. "As a consequence, the field will lose credibility and momentum."

Williams also noted that even though most nanotech-related research in the United States is funded by the federal government, that funding represents only a tiny fraction of the federal research and development budget, and is unlikely to see any large increases. He said most nanotech research concepts currently go unfunded.