Cases: How Long Innovation Really Takes

Evidence for the ch.7 claim that technology is fast, but acceptance is slow (years → decades → centuries). See Incremental vs Radical Innovation.

• Multitouch / gesture control: Felt revolutionary to the public 2007, but multitouch displays had been in research labs for **30 years** (University of Toronto, early 1980s; Mitsubishi products for schools/labs). It took decades to make the tech cheap and reliable. Startup Fingerworks nearly ran out of money; Apple bought it, and its tech drove Apple's gesture products. ("Stigler's Law": credit goes to whoever capitalized on the idea, not the originator.)

• Videophone: Conceived in cartoon form (du Maurier, Punch, 1878) two years after the telephone; Bell worked on design issues by the 1890s. Still barely established 130+ years later. The idea was easy; the working details were not.

• HDTV: Japanese high-definition work began in the 1970s; US standard fight 1995–96 (TV vs computer industries, 720p vs 1080i); 10 more years to acceptance, helped by cheap flat displays. **35 years** total.

• Apple QuickTake & a digital picture frame: Early digital-camera/photo-frame products that failed — technology too limited, price too high, world not ready. The category later succeeded, but without these pioneers in the story. "Ideas that are too early often fail, even if others later introduce them successfully."

Cross-cutting: large companies are conservative and intolerant of failure; small companies take the radical risks and mostly fail (failure = a Silicon Valley "badge of honor"). The "rise of the small" (cheap tools, 3-D printing, DIY makers) is shifting where new ideas originate.

Confidence

1.0 — explicit cases.

Sources: ["DOET ch.7 p.268-282"]