World's 50 most innovative companies

Here's a great list of the World's 50 Most Innovative Companies of 2011 by the Fast Company. These companies have made innovation the core of their DNA. Interestingly W+K features at No. 25. Now thats something. When will the others learn?

Innovative changes in our lives

IBM recently unveiled its new study called "IBM Next Five in Five" - Five innovations that have the potential of changing the way people work, live and play over the next five years. So what are they:

• Remote healthcare access system from anywhere in the world: Now this is a big innovation. Imagine a Doctor keeping an eye on you 24/7/365 from somewhere in the world. WOW.
  
• Mobile Phones will start reading your mind: Intelligent phones which will adapt to the user. Termed as "presence" technology. Which means it will do things as per your preference. Well, do remember that features will vary based on price.
  
• Real-time speech translation: This is already happening in Japan and Korea. For example when you travel from Delhi to Rameshwaram and you don't know how to speak Tamil, don't worry. Your hand-held device will translate real time Tamil into English as you speak to the person for direction.
• There will be 3D internet: Hmmm, that means from now on I can walk the retail aisles in Ebay or Amazon. An assistant or an expert will be ready to help me out. Makes sense in a techno-ambivalent nation like India.
  
• Nano-technology will address environmental issues: Nano-technology has the ability to manipulate which I always knew. But now it will be able to manipulate the environment. Get you fresh drinking water, help grow more trees, etc. etc.
  

Out of the 'Big Five' I like only one - Remote Healthcare. I'd love to have a doctor attending me all the time. Though it might be pain in arse after sometime, but doctors are good people. In this case, I guess it will be a 'supercomdoc' monitoring me. I also think real time speech translation and mobile mind readers will become standard features like we have 2.0 megapixel cam, FM radio. Go ahead read the entire article here.

Start thinking digital, baby, but do remember not to become a humanoid.