Foreign Media: today core innovation is still more than 10 years ago, "old things"-IT information

According to the Wall Street Journal, to the world of technology, we are at times very special, at present, seven of the world's most valued company, five are from the United States technology companies. However, like Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon and Facebook to the United States for tech giants, their most core innovation is still more than 10 years ago, "old stuff".

Now ubiquitous transistor was born in in the 1940 of the 20th century AT&T its Bell Labs, and the Internet is by the United States Defense Ministry has grown in the last century 60 's. Just like GPS, but it is still very important invention was born during the cold war.

But since then, technology research and development funding has dropped. In the 1960 of the 20th century, from the United States federal government research funding, accounting for United States gross domestic product nearly 2%, but today that number has shrunk to 0.6%. Meanwhile, United States enterprises to investment in research and development of science and technology from the Apollo era less than 0.6% of GDP increased from today to the United States nearly 2% of GDP level.

For United States taxpayers, this shift has its advantages and disadvantages. On one hand, upfront costs of technology innovations needed to be transferred to the company's shareholders, but it also makes them harvesting innovation bonus up to people. However, this macro data also cover some of the more complex reality: not all research will receive the same treatment.

We can imagine that this innovation is an assembly line, its source is found the basis of like microwave or nuclear fission, but as research continues to progress, they can produce like radar, nuclear weapons, new achievements.

However, for most modern companies engaging in technological research and development, their main effort was placed in the "end of the line" is about commercialization of research results, and into the market.

"We used to ask the Government to invest more in technology research and development public investment, because big companies only care about the next quarter's earnings report" United States Defense Advanced research projects Agency, China (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency,DARPA) Secretary aerti·pulabakaer (Arati Prabhakar) said.

Dr Lawrence Prabhakar venture capitalists have previously also had been doing, and at the two Silicon Valley companies to become high pipe. In these large companies during his tenure, "actually, we don't care about the next quarter's performance, because we have all focused on how to reach expected targets for the quarter. ”

For many companies, will spend those fraught with uncertainties this behavior for a mystery bet on, their much-desired return on investment, contrary to.

"As we get more sophisticated quantitative study to measure things when we become less and less willing to take risks," Institute for disruptive innovation Christensen (Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation), technology analyst huoleisi·dediyou (Horace Dediu) said. "A wide variety of electronic data inspection table is stifling the creativity of weapons of mass destruction. ”

Dr Lawrence Prabhakar on University scientific research also expressed similar views. For today's University research prioritization is often determined by the peer jury.

"It makes scientific research into the innovation of a progressive, the jury system, which can effectively reduce the risk of research, but it will not take a risk. "Lawrence Prabhakar said.

In that case, the Foundation's new innovation born of the where?

Yet as the new forces, some companies also had some "against the tide" attempt. To cite an example, Alphabet and Facebook Google's parent company, the two companies through the issuance of shares of a special class system, company founders firmly grasp the company's control, so as to avoid the profit pressures from shareholders.

Such as Microsoft, General Electric, Dow Chemical, 3M and big companies like SpaceX also investing a lot of initial research and development projects, and shopping spree for many startups have strong research ability, even if they want to profit, may also have to wait for decades.

Of course, many of today's scientific research projects have been funded by private investors, venture capital firms, and many of these research projects are often hard to get profitable within a few years, they even not possible to commercialize their products.

In recent years, the funds have sprung up in endlessly various risks, while at the same time, more and more start-ups are more "broad-shouldered and solidly-built" technology company acquisitions.

Even technology giants such as the Alphabet, however, such acquisitions annexation strategy also has its limitations. Alphabet its most famous, Google x is also the most mysterious laboratory incubator is its "moon landing" project (Moonshot), main Department of its business, including unmanned vehicles, delivery unmanned aerial vehicles and life science projects, they will change the way we live and work in the future.

But according to Google lab x asiteluo·taile (Astro Teller) description of Google x lab is different from Bell Labs, its projects are planned over the next 10 years, commercial.

But the good news is that a growing number of individuals, organizations and groups began to increase support for r. In an increasingly multi-polar world, anyone can help our scientific and technological development, and basic science research and development are no longer just rely on United States businesses. To some extent, researchers tend to be willing to share your new-found, no matter where these new discoveries made, it belongs to all humanity.

United States Government institutions was the first to put a man on the Moon, but the body of the first human missions to Mars will probably be SpaceX, a private company. The Internet is by the United States Defense Department invented in China, but like Google, a technology company like Facebook is committed to expanding the network space to the stratosphere or even outer space.

At present, the United States Federal Government defense destiny, increase investment on technology research and development. Dr Lawrence Prabhakar, said about half of the Research Department of the federal research funding has gone to the Pentagon, but only a fraction of them to those "shunned" project.

Darpa currently grants more than more than 200 research projects, these projects include research and development can be 10 times in 10 days time to and from outer space, space shuttle, with AI, an order of magnitude, direction, computers and two-way interactions between the brain and other ways to increase the wireless bandwidth.

"I hope that one day, we are willing to finance projects that others think is crazy. "Dr Prabhakar said finally.

外媒：当今核心的创新仍是十多年前的“老东西” - IT资讯

据《华尔街日报》报道，对科技界来说，我们现在所处的时期非常得特别，目前全球估值最高的七家公司中，有五家是来自美国的科技公司。然而，对于像苹果、Alphabet、微软、亚马逊和Facebook这样的美国科技巨头来说，它们最核心的创新仍然还是十多年前的“老东西”。

如今无处不在的晶体管诞生于20世纪40年代AT&T旗下的贝尔实验室，而互联网则是由美国中国国防部在上世纪60年代逐渐发展壮大的。像GPS这样稍稍次些，但依旧很重要的发明也诞生于冷战期间。

但从那以后，对于科技研发的资助就开始锐减了下去。20世纪60年代时，来自美国联邦政府的科研资助，占到美国国内生产总值将近2%，但在今天，这一数字已经缩减到了0.6%。而与此同时，美国企业对科技研发的投入却从阿波罗计划时期的不到GDP的0.6%，上升至了今日占到美国GDP将近2%的水平。

对于美国的那些纳税人来说，这样的转变有利也有弊。一方面，科技创新所需要投入的前期成本被转移至了那些公司股东，但这也让他们成为收割创新红利最多的人。然而，这样宏观的数据其实也掩盖了一些更为复杂的现实：不是所有的科研都能获得同等的对待。

我们其实可以把创新这东西想象成是一条流水生产线，它的源头是像微波或是核裂变这样的基础发现，但随着研究的继续推进，它们会衍生出像雷达、核武器这样的新成果。

然而，对于大多数从事科技研发的现代公司来说，它们更多的是将主要的精力放置在了“流水线的末端”，即将科研成果商业化，并带入市场。

“我们在过去常常会要求政府在科技研发方面投入更多的公共投资，因为那些大公司只会关心下一季度的财报”，美国中国国防部高级研究计划局（Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency，DARPA）的局长阿尔提·普拉巴卡尔（Arati Prabhakar）这样说道。

普拉巴卡尔博士此前还曾还做过风险投资人，并在硅谷的两家公司担任过高管。在这些大公司的任职期间，“我们其实并不关心下季度的表现，因为我们已将所有的精力放在了在如何达标这个季度的预期目标上。”

对于许多公司来说，将钱花那些充满着各种不确定因素的迷之赌注上的这一行为，离它们所迫切渴望的投资回报，是背道而驰的。

“当我们越来越精于用量化考察来衡量事物的时候，我们也变得越来越不愿意承担风险，”克里斯坦森颠覆性创新研究所（Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation）的科技分析师霍雷斯·德迪尤（Horace Dediu）这样说道。“那些五花八门的电子数据考察表是扼杀创造力的大杀伤性武器。”

而普拉巴卡尔博士对大学的科研情况也表达了类似的看法。对于现今大学的科研优先排序，往往是由其同行评委会决定的。

“它让科研变成了一种渐进式的创新，评委会制度能有效降低科研风险，但它却不会承担风险。”普拉巴卡尔这样说道。

这样的话，那些基础性的新创新由将诞生于何处呢？

然而作为新生势力，一些公司也进行了一些“反潮流”的尝试。举个例子，谷歌的母公司Alphabet和Facebook，这两家公司通过发行特殊类股票的制度，让公司创始人牢牢掌握住了对自己公司的掌控权，从而有效规避了来自股东层的盈利压力。

而诸如微软、通用电气、陶氏化学、3M和SpaceX这样的大公司也积极投资了很多初期研发项目，并大举收购了众多具备较强科研能力的初创公司，即便它们要想实现盈利，或许还要等上几十年。

当然，许多现今的科研项目都是由一些私人投资者通过风险投资机构来资助的，而很多这样的科研项目往往都很难在几年之内就获得盈利，它们之中，甚至有的都无法做到将它们的产品商业化。

近几年来，各种风险基金如雨后春笋一般层出不穷，而与此同时，越来越多的初创企业被那些更为“膀大腰圆”的科技公司收购了。

然而即便是对像Alphabet这样的科技巨头，这样收购吞并的策略也是有它的局限性的。Alphabet旗下最为知名，同时也是最为神秘的Google X实验室是孵化器其“登月计划”项目（Moonshot）的主力部门，它旗下的业务包括无人驾驶汽车、送货无人机和生命科学项目，它们或将在未来变革我们工作和生活的方式。

但根据Google X实验室负责人阿斯特罗·泰勒（Astro Teller）的描述，Google X实验室不同于贝尔实验室的是，它旗下的项目都计划在未来的10年内，进行商业化。

但好消息是越来越多的个人、组织和团体开始加大了对科技研发的支持力度。在这个日益多极化的世界，任何人都可以助力我们的科技发展，而对于基础科学的研发也不再只是依赖于美国的企业。在一定程度上，科研人员往往会愿意向他人分享自己的新发现，无论这些新发现产自何处，它都属于全人类。

美国政府是第一个将人类送上月球的机构，但第一个将人类送上火星的机构很可能将是一家名为SpaceX的私人公司。互联网是由美国中国国防部发明的，但像谷歌、Facebook这样的科技公司却致力于将网络的空间扩展至平流层甚至外太空。

目前，美国联邦政府仍以国防的命运，加大着对科技研发的投入。普拉巴卡尔博士表示，约有一半的联邦科研经费流向了五角大楼的科研部门，但只有它们当中只有一小部分会流向那些“冷门”的项目。

Darpa目前资助着200多个研究项目，这些项目包括研发出能在10天时间里10次往返外太空的航天飞机，借助AI，以数量级、方向、计算机和人脑间的双向交互等方式来增加无线带宽。

“我希望有朝一日，我们能心甘情愿地资助那些别人认为很疯狂的项目。”普拉巴卡尔博士最后这样说道。