What happens when a global recession is met by massive bailouts? When large corporations are not allowed to fail?

First, natural market corrections are not allowed to take place. If the economy goes into recession and companies fail, competition is reduced and the market share of the failed companies is spread out among the remaining members of the industry. The industry is then able to build back up as the remaining companies are in a properly saturated market in relation to the current state of the economy. However, when companies are bailed out the market remains overly saturated and all companies suffer for a longer period of time.

Second, there is no longer fair competition. When the large corporation fails and is bailed out, they are allowed to survive in their mismanaged state. However, the “little guy” who may be extremely innovative and well managed, may fail in the resulting economic downturn. Then the mismanaged large corporation carries on business as usual, possibly to fail again.

The result of all this is that innovation becomes effectively meaningless. I do not mean that world changing ideas are going to be rendered meaningless. What I do mean is that when an innovative company is allowed to suffer and fail for the benefit of a mismanaged company there is no reason to innovate. Sure you can innovate to gain a share of the market, but take too much and cause your competition to fail, and they will be bailed out and the economy will crash and your innovative company will fail!

Well the bloggsphere continues to buzz over EEStor’s ultra secret innovation; it’s a new type of battery currently referred to as an Electrical Energy Storage Units (EESU). According to the buzz that started in 2005 in late 2008 we would start seeing production of this secretive innovation. It is with that anticipation that I write this article.

Let me be the first to state that there are few things known for certain about EEStor and their Electrical Energy Storage Units. And that is just how EEStor wants it. Is the secrecy used to drive the hype… or to hide a flaw in the technology? I’ll let you decide. But one thing is certain, if the claims EEStor makes about their Electrical Energy Storage Units are true, then we are in for a Green Industrial Revolution.

Why the hype? Essentially using EESU which is 1/10th the weight of a lead-acid battery you could drive your car from Toronto to Montreal (543 km or 337 miles) on a 3 or 4 minute charge! Forget plugging your car in overnight! Better still the EESU doesn’t use chemicals it uses solid state technology so it is completely green.

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The hype is wrong, Google Phone isn’t a phone at all. It is actually an open source operating system for mobile phones called Android. But here is the best part. Google has set aside 10 million dollars for developers to create innovative applications for this new operating system. If you want to take part in this innovation opportunity, you can start developing applications for Android right now.

You thought BlackBerry was all the rage… just wait. Android has the ability to once again revolutionize the computing world. Its limitations will be only related to the phone hardware. Do you need more storage on your phone? Just store your large files on the internet. Do you want to play the lasted 3D game? You can, especially if phones begin using 3D acceleration hardware. Want a bigger screen? It won’t be long before phones will start plugging into your TV. If you need to type on a full size keyboard or use a mouse, just use you wireless bluetooth enabled keyboard and mouse. None of this happens over night, but the personal computer of the future could be your phone. This wont replace your work computer, but Google has put together a framework that combined with advances in cellphone technology has the ability to change the way most of us live.

Watch this video to learn more about Android and what it can do.

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Canada received a “D” on innovation. The Conference Board of Canada release a 154 page report on Canada’s economy, innovation, environment, education, health and society compared to 16 other major industrialized countries. Canada’s “D” on innovation placed us 4^th last in that category.

“We’re not a low-wage economy, we’re a high-wage economy. We’re never going to be able to compete just on price. We have to compete on innovation, on new technology, on new products, high-level services in unique niches. And we’re not doing that.”

This is a scary result for Canada. The impact won’t be seen for five or ten years, but this failure to innovate will have drastic economic impact in the future. That isn’t to say it is too late. As someone who lives around innovation I see the positive side everyday.

If you would like to learn more about the report, Anne Golden will present the findings during a webcast on Wednesday, June 13 at 1:30 p.m. ET.

Well the experience design community and the tech community in general seem to be buzzing around Microsoft’s big new thing Surface. Surface is an interactive table. The user interface is touch – no mouse, no keyboard. The applications for Surface and opportunities for innovation and interaction are very exciting.

Make no mistake Microsoft Surface is nothing new. See TouchTable, Perceptive Pixel, not to mention the common touchscreen display.

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