Portland International Engineering and Technology Management Center

PICMET @ Newsletter
January, 2004, Vol.1 Number 1

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Knowledge Diversity in the Nano-Era

By Charles Weber
Over the past 40 years, humankind’s capacity to store, process and manage information has increased at a staggering, yet relatively predictable pace. In one way or another, progress in the information age has been tied to ‘Moore’s Law’, which states that the number of devices on integrated circuits (or silicon chips) tends to quadruple about every three years. The cost of storing, processing and managing information has dropped accordingly. A personal computer costing less than $1000 at a retail outlet today, has more capabilities than a mainframe computer of the 1960s, which may have cost more than $ 1 million to build. More

Nanotechnology : It is small, but will create next big industry

The U.S. government showed dedication to growth of the new nanotech industry. Nanotechnology is the manipulation of materials at the atomic scale. The National Science Foundation has estimated that nanotechnology applications may be worth more than $1 trillion in the global economy in little more than a decade. President Bush signed legislation in December 3, 2003 to fund nanotechnology research and development for four years starting next Oct. 1. The 21st Century Nanotechnology Research and Development Act puts on the books programs and activities already supported by the National Nanotechnology Initiative. The bill will provide $3.67 billion over the next four years for programs accelerating research and development of new nano-scale technologies in the United States. More

Three Main Reasons Why India is Leading the World Software Market

There are some facts that make India very interesting to study. In one side, India is considered
today as the second largest country in population in the world, a country with the highest number
of unemployment’s people, a country with more than 400 million people living with less than US$1
per day, a country with 36% of the poor people in the world, and 20% of the world’s out-of-school children. However, at the same time India has been focus of study from many developed and developing countries for their rapid growing and leading position in the software field around the
world. More

Microsoft Fights in the MATRIX Movie : Linux Versus Microsoft

Brazil, China and India decided to go with Linux
The war of the operating systems between Microsoft Windows and Linux is a contest between proprietary software and free software. Actually Linux is spreading at the grass roots level. It’s interesting to note that China, India and Brazil governments are supporting Linux. I watched Microsoft’s version of the Matrix parodgy at the 2003 Comdex as part of Bill Gate’s keynote. It was really interesting. Bill Gates showed a spoof of the Matrix with chief executive officer Steve Ballmer cast as Neo and himself as Morpheus. More

Nanogen's New Patent Boosts the Competion in Biochip Industry

The new Nanogen patent describes a unique electric field 'pick and place' process that facilitates the bringing together or integration of diverse DNA nano components, thereby helping solve difficult scaling issues. Combining the top-down electric field process with the bottom-up DNA self-assembly process enables more selective and higher precision incorporation of nanoscale components into higher order devices and structures," said Dr. Michael J. Heller, co-founder of Nanogen, one of the inventors, and currently a Professor in the Departments of Bioengineering and Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of California, San Diego. More

Growth of Biotech Industry in Oregon

Bioscience industry in Oregon is still small and growing incrementally. Oregon state has three main components necessary to foster its biotech industry growth: government support, strong research universities and a well-trained work force. In fact, there is strong commitment for development of biotech cluster both at public and private level. According to Oregon Bioscience Association (OBA) "Oregon Bioscience Industry Study 2002", Oregon's commercial bioscience sector includes 185 companies in the following industries: medical devices, chemicals and reagents, human therapeutics (drug discovery and development), life sciences-oriented information technology, in vitro diagnostics, agriculture and food, and environment and waste. More than 3,300 people are currently employed by bioscience companies in Oregon, a 10 percent increase since 1999. More