government laying a foundation for innovation

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

Comments

[garote]

It's a tribute to the design of the iPhone that it is used in this diagram. All the technologies that surround it in the diagram were also subject to intense private-sector refinement before they grew into the products they are illustrated as. (The example LCD display illustration is actually another Apple product, released some 15-20 years after 1988, for example)

It's true that the U.S. funds experimental research with a breadth and depth unmatched by any other country. You can get funding to shoot for innovations that would be laughed at in other countries.

It's also true that private industry here is very good at both innovation and execution, and deserves plenty of credit for it. Love it or hate it, the iPhone has become the most publicly recognized example of that.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

Iphone is just an example. Apple did not build it from scratch and they started from the fruits of some heavy lifting prior to their innovations. Several of those R&D projects cited above were controversially funded.

[garote]

Yup.