Damon Diehl
Author's posts
May 30
Cool Tech: Kodak Laser Digital Cinema Projector
This past Tuesday I got to see a demo of Kodak’s new laser-based digital cinematic projector prototype. The venue itself was pretty impressive: Kodak’s “Theater on the Ridge.” When we entered the lobby my friend (and fellow cinema-geek) Paul said, “Did we just walk through a time machine to the 1950s?”, and he meant that …
May 27
Do Not Adjust Your Sets…
May 23
On the Importance of Contacting Your SBIR Topic Author
In just three days the window of opportunity for applying for the new round of DoD SBIRs will open. More importantly, though, the window for talking privately to the topic authors will slam shut. Any business that is planning to submit a proposal would be foolish to miss that opportunity. Talking to the “technical point …
May 16
STEM Required for SBIRs to Bear Fruit
Last week at the SPIE Optifab conference, Chris L. Koliopolis of Zygo Corporation made the radical pronouncement, “There is no unemployment in the tech industry.” He stated that the unemployment rate in the optics industry is 2.5%. That means that unemployment in the tech sector during the worst recession since 1982 (which was the worst …
May 08
Weird Science SBIRs
It’s not a secret that I love the Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) program. At some point I’ll write a bit more on the history and motivation of the SBIR program, but the short version is that SBIR grants and contracts foster radical and risky innovation… stuff that is more likely to come from a …
Apr 23
“Mad Science” Returns to NASA (updated May 9, 2011)
Once upon a time, in the land of Georgia, there existed a tiny little program called the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts, or “NIAC.” NIAC was not directly concerned with shuttles or satellites or space-stations. NIAC was about the future, and by “future” I mean the far future. I mean “Antimatter Driven Sails for Deep-Space Missions.” …