Net Results: Any new technology is the converged endpoint of the people, research and incidents that led up to it, writes Karlin Lillington.
Well, if it is a technology, that continues to develop into or contribute to new technologies, then it is not quite an endpoint, but is the point at which many pathways currently converge, and not necessarily the final destination.
Usually, we see only that convergence point, which may be marvellous in itself and eminently newsworthy.
But, as the well-known technology futurist, pundit and investment newsletterist George Gilder shows in his most recent book, The Silicon Eye, the many paths that lead to the endpoint are infinitely more fascinating.
Gilder doesn't just focus on the individuals and events that lead up to an endpoint, but actually unravels the individuals. He goes all the way back to their mostly geeky, quirky and brilliant childhoods and takes us step by step towards the magical coincidences that pulled them all together, leading ultimately to a company called Foveon and its ground-breaking product, an imager for digital cameras. Or more accurately, one should say, the coincidence that brings them together - in this case, a goateed California legend among engineers named Carver Mead.
Mead, professor of science and technology at California Institute of Technology (CalTech), is not just the engineer's ultimate engineer; he is also, in the portrait painted wonderfully by Gilder able to hone in on practical applications for the most seemingly obtuse technological innovations and to recognise unselfishly who among his students and colleagues might be the right person to develop some aspect of that innovation.
This led to an intellectual hothouse of studentry at CalTech that, over the years, contributed to or became part of Foveon, bringing to the market a very special silicon "eye", or imager, that meshes analogue and digital technology to "see" the world accurately, in all its correct colours, right at pixel level.
Foveon's X3 technology actually surpasses film. So why haven't you heard of it? And why isn't it likely to be in the camera you own right now?
Well, that's all part of the mad dash through technology, people and time that is The Silicon Eye.
The book's perspective is, literally, perspective. Just like those drawings that explain perspective through a sequence of long lines converging on a distant endpoint, so do Gilder's cast of amazing characters (which include some of the most famous inventors in the Valley) converge on Foveon and its imager technology.
Gilder's style can be mildly grating and though there's a helpful glossary at the back, anyone without a physics and/or engineering degree will have to view a lot of the technical explanations with a willing suspension of disbelief.
Those small struggles aside, I enjoyed every minute of this book, and you should too.
• George Gilder, The Silicon Eye: Microchip Swashbucklers and the Future of High-Tech Innovation (Atlas Books, $14.95).
