Big ideas and small steps

The general take on this year's Consumer Electronics Show is that there was a lot to see but not much in the way of breakthrough ideas.  This L.A. Times story is fairly typical of reactions among attendees.

Once again, we are reminded that big ideas don't come along on schedule.  But that's okay.  Refinements of existing products and finding new applications for technology are good enough to make our lives -- and our economy -- better.

If you follow the technology media day to day, you'd think the iPad -- last year's big idea -- had saturated the market.  At the moment, it has achieved less than one percent share of the global PC market.  It simply takes time for users and developers to find practical applications for new platforms and technologies. For heaven's sake, we're still finding new applications for baking soda, something that the Egyptians were using thousands of years ago.