Wiki’s

Some people may call the wiki phenomenon as disruptive, but I think it’s an evolution of orthodox ways to collaborate. Individuals and organizations around the world have used multiple ways to interact with each other to create knowledge-bases in the past: teleconferences, netmeetings, symposiums, workouts, emails and what not.

Much like emails and instant messengers were evolutionary communication technologies, wiki’s are evolutionary collaboration technology. The most striking aspect of wiki’s is the self-policing aspect of the community. Skeptics may think that vandals would deface wiki entries and destroy the goal of anyone-can-edit environment. But it turns out that the delicate balance between good and bad intentions ultimately works out in favor of good ones. Nothing exemplifies this more than the most well-known wiki implementation out there- wikipedia.

ZINK

ZINK stands for ‘Zero Ink’. They market patented technology that enables inkless printing by embedding dye crystals in the paper iteself. So you can think about a portable printer that fits into your pocket or better still, integrates with your camera. All you need is the ’special’ zink paper to print anything on-the-go.

They showcased their 99$ mobile printer and 199$ camera-with-integrated-printer in the DEMO07 conference in January.

Terrafugia

Terrafugia, Inc. plans to blur the line between land and air travel. They are working on the design of a road-able aircraft called ‘Transition’ that will be able to fold up it’s wings and drive like a motor-vehicle. So you can land at the airport, and drive straight home to step out in your garage directly.

They are a great example of what I mean by ‘disruptive’ technology. If their$148,000 vehicle makes the the projected delivery timeline of late 2009, it’ll be the start of a revolutionary way of travelling 100-500 mile trips.  It’s about time that became a reality.