Is this the new "normal" 7-10% unemployment?

[shah269 0]

Same here!
And the "stuff" I'm seeing, is going to make the world a better place for a very select few with very select problems.
I don't see another desk top boom or internet market any time soon.

Any time we were in a mess, be it WWII or the Great Depression or the subsequent recessions we were always able to reach and find technology to save our asses. Technology that was directly aimed at the middle class.

Be it electrification to the automobile to the home computer revolution which brought about the internet.

Now we if you look around are very topped out. Thus they reason why Forbs is not expecting us to achieve full employment until 2020.
That's another 8 years of slow growth regardless of who gets elected into office.

And I'm sorry please don't bet money on rocket, solar cells or for the love of god batteries.

Life through good thoughts, good words, and good deeds is necessary to ensure happiness and to keep chaos at bay.

The only thing that falls from the sky is birdshit and fools!

[billvon 2,407]

>Can you tell us what it is?

Right now wireless power transfer. Previously digital telephony, digital satellite telephony and 2G/3G modems.

[shah269 0]

Quote

wireless power transfer

Oh yeah that's cool stuff. Saw it the other day. A wall that no longer needs plugs to power your "stuff"
Cool idea! Just don't lick the wall...i kid i kid.
but yeah cool but..........not going to make 200k jobs per year is it?

Life through good thoughts, good words, and good deeds is necessary to ensure happiness and to keep chaos at bay.

The only thing that falls from the sky is birdshit and fools!

[billvon 2,407]

>And the "stuff" I'm seeing, is going to make the world a better place for
>a very select few with very select problems.

That's true of every technology ever developed.

The first cars were only available to the very, very wealthy. The first ARPANET connections were used only by eggheads in universities. The first electrical power plants were installed in the basements of homes and apartments of the wealthy to replace gas lights.

>And I'm sorry please don't bet money on rocket, solar cells or for the
>love of god batteries.

Rockets? Agreed. But space tourism might make some money.

Solar cells? My first solar panels were Tri-Lams; damaged panels that cost about $10 a watt. Back in 1987 they were just curiosities, used by survivalists and space programs when nothing else would work and you were willing to put up with the insane costs, low efficiencies (8%) and short lifetimes (the Tri-Lams were yellowing because of bad choice of encapsulant.) In 2000 solar installations were below 1 megawatt a year, worldwide. In 2005 they were installing 79 megawatts a year here in the US. In 2010 it was 878 megawatts in the US alone.

Indeed, solar equipment is one of the few fields where we still export more than we import. A lot of people are making a lot of money off those things - $6 billion in 2010. (And some, of course, are failing miserably.)

Batteries? We're already selling two pure EV's and two pluggable hybrids that use their batteries for no-gas-engine power. The market there is rising rapidly as well. For lithium ion alone it's $2 billion and growing by 30% a year, and that's just one of several competing battery technologies.

[mnealtx 0]

Regarding the battery stuff, do you see the problems with A123 having an effect on the hybrid market?

Mike
I love you, Shannon and Jim.
POPS 9708 , SCR 14706

[billvon 2,407]

>but yeah cool but..........not going to make 200k jobs per year is it?

No, probably 5-10K jobs at most if it really takes off in all the ways we hope it will (EV charging, portable device charging etc)

So that's 5% of the problem solved. Surely there are 19 other research programs like mine out there.

[shah269 0]

Holding my breath......

So to save our economy is to invent a new way to recharge a cell phone or light up a TV?

Life through good thoughts, good words, and good deeds is necessary to ensure happiness and to keep chaos at bay.

The only thing that falls from the sky is birdshit and fools!

[DanG 1]

Dude, if Bill said he was mere minutes away from perfecting cold fusion, you'd still say it wouldn't be a game changer. Your mind is made up.

- Dan G

[billvon 2,407]

>So to save our economy is to invent a new way to recharge a cell phone or
>light up a TV?

And invent much faster data access over existing cables. And invent smarter power grids that are immune to blackouts. And invent stronger, cheaper, lighter materials so that cars, bridges and aircraft can be more fuel efficient, cheaper and safer. Invent better augmented reality systems so that people can be more productive. Smarter solar power systems that will island and shed loads to stay up no matter what. Better VR systems so more people can effectively telecommute. More powerful processors. Denser memory. More efficient power switches. Efficient Carnot-cycle engines for energy recovery. Better, more efficient lighting. Unmanned aerial delivery vehicles. Railgun orbital vehicle launchers. The list of things to be invented is almost endless.

[DrewEckhardt 0]

Quote

Holding my breath......

So to save our economy is to invent a new way to recharge a cell phone or light up a TV?

You can also genetically engineer e. coli so they eat waste and poop diesel fuel, figure out how to harvest electrical energy directly from plants, come up with an addictive casual game with tens of millions of people paying to play it, design autonomous quadracopters that can track potential criminals or deliver tacos, build a space elevator...

[kelpdiver 2]

Quote

So to save our economy is to invent a new way to recharge a cell phone or light up a TV?

practical induction charging opens up a lot of product redesign and improvement, depending on how small it can be done. Electronics cannot be waterproof when they have big ports for charging elements (see all of Apple's products), and user installable batteries are bulkier and more failure prone than internal.

My niche product of interest- the underwater camera housing would be much hardier if it could be charged without opening, and use wireless to transmit the data. Then I could limit the dangerous open/close process (a single stray hair can mean flooding and destruction of few thousand dollars in equipment) to when I want to change the lens.

poo-pooing 5-10k jobs guarantees you'll never be happy. It's like complaining that solar or wind can't replace oil by itself. Have to think in smaller increments of improvement.

[wolfriverjoe 1,346]

You mean engineering.

REAL, problem solving, developmental engineering.

Saying that it would be nice too... (insert any of the goals listed in the previous three posts here)

And then figuring out how to do it.

Yeah, those engineers really are stupid people aren't they. (we really need a sarcasm font here)

"There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy

"~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

[shah269 0]

Quote

Yeah, those engineers really are stupid people aren't they.

Nah they are good folks, I just wish they would stop trying to kill us with power point slides and learn how to communicate better to make my job easier!

Here is my typical day
Engineer "I would like to get funding to develop X136"
Me "OK, what makes the X136 better than the X135 and worthy of a Green Belt project?"
Engineer "It's better than the X135"
Me "OK how is it better than the X135?"
Engineer "It's just better than the X135"
Me "OK how is it just better than the X135?"
Engineer "Well it goes one higher."
Me "Ever see the movie Spinal Tap?"
Engineer "I don't watch TV."

But I know where these guys are coming from, yeah sure the new product has all of 5% more battery life or maybe it's 5% faster and the VOC is that they will replace any product with a newer product as long as it doesn't cost too much more than the last product and can be bought in a different color and has a new name?

You know that's like the model T Ford going on its 15th year and now the big change is that it can be bought in red!?

Sorry just don't see it, processors are getting faster and faster every day but we are kind of hitting a limit and let's be honest no one cares other than a handful of people. Cars are at 30mpg and that's about where they will stay for a good while.

Don’t get me started about electric cars! Yeah nice idea. Just don’t drive too far, don't charge them too fast and for the love of god don't drive too hard! Ever see a LiPo go high order! It's pretty!

I'm just not seeing that "next" leap in technology that will open up a new market place for your average techno illiterate middle class consumer who just wants to have product X because everyone else has product X.

But I hope I'm wrong. Because let's face it who wants to hang out in a economy that won't see full employment for another 8 years? That puts our recession at 20 years once it's all said and done.

Life through good thoughts, good words, and good deeds is necessary to ensure happiness and to keep chaos at bay.

The only thing that falls from the sky is birdshit and fools!

[billvon 2,407]

>But I know where these guys are coming from, yeah sure the new
>product has all of 5% more battery life or maybe it's 5% faster . . .

. . . . and if that project takes a year, and you keep with it for 30 years, you have a product that is more than four times as good as your competitors.

If you had a choice between car A, and car B that was the same price but had four times the power - which would you go for?

>You know that's like the model T Ford going on its 15th year and now the
>big change is that it can be bought in red!?

Ford is a good example. They've made those 5% improvements a year - but they've been doing it for over 100 years. And that means that cars today are one hundred and thirty one TIMES better than a Model T. Faster, more efficient, safer, more comfortable, more useful, longer lasting, cleaner, you name it.

>Sorry just don't see it, processors are getting faster and faster every day
>but we are kind of hitting a limit and let's be honest no one cares other
>than a handful of people. Cars are at 30mpg and that's about where they
>will stay for a good while.

My car gets 50mpg. My next car will probably get the equivalent of 90mpg.

>Ever see a LiPo go high order! It's pretty!

Ever see a gasoline car fire? You can roast marshmallows. For hours.

>I'm just not seeing that "next" leap in technology that will open up a
>new market place for your average techno illiterate middle class consumer
>who just wants to have product X because everyone else has product X.

When I was in college we built a music transposer, something that would move music up and down in key. To do that we needed to store a song digitally. So I built a 4x4 inch board crammed full of UV erasable EPROM's. We had to hunt to find a song less than 60 seconds that would fit in the thing's tiny (by today's standards) memory. Programmed it in and used the processor to change the song's key.

I remember walking around with that thing, 20 some odd years ago, telling people I had stored a song on it, and that someday we'd be able to store entire albums on such a device and play them back any time you wanted - then erase them and put another song on it, with no moving parts and no fast forwarding or rewinding. Of course, if you had seen it that wire wrapped mess back then you'd have said "that's not going to open up a new market place for your average techno illiterate middle class consumer!"

Fast forward 20 years. Do you know of anyone who DOESN'T have a personal media player?

[marks2065 0]

Quote

>But I know where these guys are coming from, yeah sure the new
>product has all of 5% more battery life or maybe it's 5% faster . . .

. . . . and if that project takes a year, and you keep with it for 30 years, you have a product that is more than four times as good as your competitors.

If you had a choice between car A, and car B that was the same price but had four times the power - which would you go for?

>You know that's like the model T Ford going on its 15th year and now the
>big change is that it can be bought in red!?

Ford is a good example. They've made those 5% improvements a year - but they've been doing it for over 100 years. And that means that cars today are one hundred and thirty one TIMES better than a Model T. Faster, more efficient, safer, more comfortable, more useful, longer lasting, cleaner, you name it.

>Sorry just don't see it, processors are getting faster and faster every day
>but we are kind of hitting a limit and let's be honest no one cares other
>than a handful of people. Cars are at 30mpg and that's about where they
>will stay for a good while.

My car gets 50mpg. My next car will probably get the equivalent of 90mpg.

>Ever see a LiPo go high order! It's pretty!

Ever see a gasoline car fire? You can roast marshmallows. For hours.

>I'm just not seeing that "next" leap in technology that will open up a
>new market place for your average techno illiterate middle class consumer
>who just wants to have product X because everyone else has product X.

When I was in college we built a music transposer, something that would move music up and down in key. To do that we needed to store a song digitally. So I built a 4x4 inch board crammed full of UV erasable EPROM's. We had to hunt to find a song less than 60 seconds that would fit in the thing's tiny (by today's standards) memory. Programmed it in and used the processor to change the song's key.

I remember walking around with that thing, 20 some odd years ago, telling people I had stored a song on it, and that someday we'd be able to store entire albums on such a device and play them back any time you wanted - then erase them and put another song on it, with no moving parts and no fast forwarding or rewinding. Of course, if you had seen it that wire wrapped mess back then you'd have said "that's not going to open up a new market place for your average techno illiterate middle class consumer!"

Fast forward 20 years. Do you know of anyone who DOESN'T have a personal media player?

Billvon, you are correct that technology will advance alot over the next 20 years, but the technology is not to a point that we can achieve what the left wants right now. I say we work towards better technology but not have it forced on us until it can achieve what is wanted. the costs associated with building and repairing these new cars is astounding because of the fast change over. constantly retooling every year drives the manufacture and repair pricing up to where we cannot afford to buy the equipment and other tools needed to repair these cars.

[billvon 2,407]

>I say we work towards better technology but not have it forced on us
>until it can achieve what is wanted.

I agree. No one should be forced to buy a certain car.

>the costs associated with building and repairing these new cars is
>astounding because of the fast change over.

Also agreed. We spend a lot of money on our cars.

>constantly retooling every year drives the manufacture and repair pricing
>up to where we cannot afford to buy the equipment and other tools
>needed to repair these cars.

Given that car ownership has gone up steadily over the past 100 years, I don't see any evidence that we can't afford to support them. People seem to like new cars with new gadgets in them, and seem willing to pay the price (purchase price, maintenance costs etc)

[marks2065 0]

Quote

>I say we work towards better technology but not have it forced on us
>until it can achieve what is wanted.

I agree. No one should be forced to buy a certain car.

>the costs associated with building and repairing these new cars is
>astounding because of the fast change over.

Also agreed. We spend a lot of money on our cars.

>constantly retooling every year drives the manufacture and repair pricing
>up to where we cannot afford to buy the equipment and other tools
>needed to repair these cars.

Given that car ownership has gone up steadily over the past 100 years, I don't see any evidence that we can't afford to support them. People seem to like new cars with new gadgets in them, and seem willing to pay the price (purchase price, maintenance costs etc)

I guess you haven't spent any time telling a single mother or someone on welfare that it will cost a $1000 to fix their car. or the guy that bought a cadilac that it is $1600 to replace his struts.

[billvon 2,407]

>I guess you haven't spent any time telling a single mother or someone on
>welfare that it will cost a $1000 to fix their car. or the guy that bought a
>cadilac that it is $1600 to replace his struts.

?? Are you saying that people should be happy that car maintenance costs what it does? No one is happy with what ANYTHING costs. Give people a 99 cent lunch and they'll complain about the size of the fries. Heck, you give people free wifi and they'll complain that it's not faster.

But it's not keeping people from buying ever more complex/sophisticated/expensive cars - so it's clearly not TOO expensive. If it ever gets too expensive car sales will fall off as people can no longer afford the maintenance on them, and the market will adjust.

[marks2065 0]

Quote

>I guess you haven't spent any time telling a single mother or someone on
>welfare that it will cost a $1000 to fix their car. or the guy that bought a
>cadilac that it is $1600 to replace his struts.

?? Are you saying that people should be happy that car maintenance costs what it does? No one is happy with what ANYTHING costs. Give people a 99 cent lunch and they'll complain about the size of the fries. Heck, you give people free wifi and they'll complain that it's not faster.

But it's not keeping people from buying ever more complex/sophisticated/expensive cars - so it's clearly not TOO expensive. If it ever gets too expensive car sales will fall off as people can no longer afford the maintenance on them, and the market will adjust.

but you don't understand, when those that can afford the new cars trade in the old ones, the lower income people buy the used cars, they are the ones that can not afford to repair them. with all the technology on the newer cars they are very expensive to repair and alot of the buyers of used cars can not afford them, if they colud they would have just bought a new car.

[rushmc 18]

And here is some info on those who HAVE tried these newest tech cars

Quote

Hybrid owners unlikely to buy another one, study shows

http://bottomline.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/04/10/11101762-hybrid-owners-unlikely-to-buy-another-one-study-shows?lite

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[billvon 2,407]

>but you don't understand, when those that can afford the new cars trade in
>the old ones, the lower income people buy the used cars, they are the
>ones that can not afford to repair them.

?? Right. But they have cars - and they are owning more cars than ever before. So if your goal is "cars for everyone" the system is working.

They will, of course, complain about it, because everyone complains about everything.

>if they colud they would have just bought a new car.

Right. And if it breaks and they can't fix it they'll buy another crappy $250 car.

[shah269 0]

And the number of jobs we got from Ipods is.....a few. Not bad not bad at all.

Right now I'm sorry I'm just not seeing the next technology for the middle class.

I hope I'm wrong.

Life through good thoughts, good words, and good deeds is necessary to ensure happiness and to keep chaos at bay.

The only thing that falls from the sky is birdshit and fools!

[kelpdiver 2]

Quote

And here is some info on those who HAVE tried these newest tech cars

Quote

Hybrid owners unlikely to buy another one, study shows

http://bottomline.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/04/10/11101762-hybrid-owners-unlikely-to-buy-another-one-study-shows?lite

interesting, but leaves the reader looking for more detail. In particular, what cars did the 59% of Prius owners buy instead? And how many owners are we talking about? People who are happy with their car, and particularly those that are very green oriented, don't replace their car for a long time. Those who are unhappy with their car, as well as those who have older cars or want to buy the next thing, do replace their car. Obviously you don't expect the unhappy ones to buy another.

My subaru will fit 15 years this summer. The Prius wasn't for sale in America for another 4 years. And though people claimed the battery packs would become a albatross for these hybrids, the actual history with the Prius killed that. So I'd want to compare the number of sales to tradeins before I run with a conclusion.

[kelpdiver 2]

Quote

And the number of jobs we got from Ipods is.....a few. Not bad not bad at all.

Right now I'm sorry I'm just not seeing the next technology for the middle class.

I hope I'm wrong.

Apple directly employs 60 thousand people. Indirectly a good number more. Does it have to be the size of Walmart to get your attention?

[kelpdiver 2]

Quote

Here is my typical day
Engineer "I would like to get funding to develop X136"
Me "OK, what makes the X136 better than the X135 and worthy of a Green Belt project?"
Engineer "It's better than the X135"
Me "OK how is it better than the X135?"
Engineer "It's just better than the X135"
Me "OK how is it just better than the X135?"
Engineer "Well it goes one higher."
Me "Ever see the movie Spinal Tap?"
Engineer "I don't watch TV."

Then there's Tom Smykowski. He's useless. Gone. Sounds good to me.