The Wall Street Journal has recognized the world's hottest new innovations with its annual Technology Innovation Awards, highlighted in today's paper. Culled from 536 applications originating in two dozen countries, the 37 winners and runners up span 18 categories and include start-ups as well as larger, more established companies.
"Today, innovation can come from anywhere," said Scott Anthony, one of the judges, and managing director of Innosight Ventures, as quoted in The WSJ.
To win the top spots, an innovations was judged on its creativity, i.e., whether it broke with convention, and the strength of its potential impact, among other criteria.
Editors and reporters from the paper made the first cut, followed by an independent panel made up of venture capital firms and other companies, as well as universities, The WSJ reported.
The Gold Winner is Printechnologics, a German print functionality developer, for its Touchcode technology that enables invisible codes on printed items to be read instantly on by any touch screen device, and to link to "just about any other online feature."
The Silver Winner was Pure Storage Inc., of Mountain View California, for its data storage system that economically utilizes flash memory instead of disk drives to hold information in corporate data centers. Pure Storage's mission, as stated on its website, is "to enable the widespread adoption of flash in the enterprise data center."
The Bronze Winner was Vidacare Corp., a privately held company located in San Antonio, Texas, for its OnControl Bone Marrow System, designed to ease the pain associated with bone marrow transplants. The device bores into the bone like an electric drill that cues the doctor when it reaches the right spot in the bone for a sample, by the sound of its motor and change in resistance. Vidacare products are marketed to 50 countries around the world.
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