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Stain
Joined: 08 Jan 2014
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 Posted: Wed Feb 12, 2014 9:02 am Post subject: |
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| aq8knyus wrote: |
| Stain wrote: |
| aq8knyus wrote: |
| atwood wrote: |
| aq8knyus wrote: |
The Koreans have only done what all countries do, that is learn and improve.
The hypocrisy of americans never ceases to amaze. During their industrilaization they copied, borrowed, stole and bought many technologies from Britain. There were cases of British innovations being memorized by american visitors and then rebuilt bolt by bolt back in the US.
The so-called Second Industrial Revolution, which did so much for america's global rise, was also based largely on advancements that began in Britain.
The countries of Asia are simply following in the footsteps of a well worn path. Identify the global leader, see what they do, copy it and then find a way to do it better/cheaper. |
What a dummy Thomas Edison was for doing all those experiments. He should have just taken a sea cruise and found out all he needed to know in London. |
You have chosen a guy born over 100 years after the Industrial Revolution in England to prove what exactly?
He was a great inventor and I never said you had none, but it is funny you chose him considering that his most famous 'invention' was more of an Asian style incremental evolution.
As I said before he like many americans of the time learnt and improved on a technology that had already been invented in Britain and made it better and cheaper. That is exactly what Chinese and Koreans are doing to americans today. |
Did you miss the part about the Greeks? |
Everyone owes a lot to the greeks, but it is not the same as sailing across the ocean seeing how someone else builds a machine and then copying it back home.
The Industrial Revolution was just that, a revolution. It changed human civilization forever and the world played catch up for over a century and a half, including americans. That is why I say stop complaining about the Chinese and Koreans who are just continuing the trend with the great innovator of today, the US. |
Ok, this goes back to that saying "don't re-invent the wheel". Society in all developing or developed countries is based on prior innovation.I agree with you about that. But having a list of the most innovative countries is ridiculous in a time where there are no new ideas, only modifications to old ones. There shouldn't even be a list. |
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aq8knyus
Joined: 28 Jul 2010
Location: London
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| Posted: Wed Feb 12, 2014 10:12 am Post subject: |
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| Stain wrote: |
| aq8knyus wrote: |
| Stain wrote: |
| aq8knyus wrote: |
| atwood wrote: |
| aq8knyus wrote: |
The Koreans have only done what all countries do, that is learn and improve.
The hypocrisy of americans never ceases to amaze. During their industrilaization they copied, borrowed, stole and bought many technologies from Britain. There were cases of British innovations being memorized by american visitors and then rebuilt bolt by bolt back in the US.
The so-called Second Industrial Revolution, which did so much for america's global rise, was also based largely on advancements that began in Britain.
The countries of Asia are simply following in the footsteps of a well worn path. Identify the global leader, see what they do, copy it and then find a way to do it better/cheaper. |
What a dummy Thomas Edison was for doing all those experiments. He should have just taken a sea cruise and found out all he needed to know in London. |
You have chosen a guy born over 100 years after the Industrial Revolution in England to prove what exactly?
He was a great inventor and I never said you had none, but it is funny you chose him considering that his most famous 'invention' was more of an Asian style incremental evolution.
As I said before he like many americans of the time learnt and improved on a technology that had already been invented in Britain and made it better and cheaper. That is exactly what Chinese and Koreans are doing to americans today. |
Did you miss the part about the Greeks? |
Everyone owes a lot to the greeks, but it is not the same as sailing across the ocean seeing how someone else builds a machine and then copying it back home.
The Industrial Revolution was just that, a revolution. It changed human civilization forever and the world played catch up for over a century and a half, including americans. That is why I say stop complaining about the Chinese and Koreans who are just continuing the trend with the great innovator of today, the US. |
Ok, this goes back to that saying "don't re-invent the wheel". Society in all developing or developed countries is based on prior innovation.I agree with you about that. But having a list of the most innovative countries is ridiculous in a time where there are no new ideas, only modifications to old ones. There shouldn't even be a list. |
The list is admittedly stupid, how can a country move multiple places in a single year.
A much better metric (if one can be used at all) would be the H-index. It ignores quality and focuses instead on quality by looking at the productivity and impact of the paper being counted.
This is useful because by simple force of numbers China will soon produce more scientific papers than the US, but many of those will be utter garbage.
The results pretty much match what people would expect. The US way out in front at number 1 followed by the UK, Germany, France, Canada and Japan. China and South Korea are in comparison very lowly ranked. |
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Ginormousaurus
Joined: 27 Jul 2006
Location: 700 Ft. Pulpit
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| Posted: Wed Feb 12, 2014 10:44 am Post subject: |
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| Stain wrote: |
Ok, this goes back to that saying "don't re-invent the wheel". Society in all developing or developed countries is based on prior innovation.I agree with you about that. But having a list of the most innovative countries is ridiculous in a time where there are no new ideas, only modifications to old ones. There shouldn't even be a list. |
You don't really believe this, do you? That sounds similar to when Charles H. Duell, the Commissioner of US patent office in 1899, said there is "nothing left to invent", or something along those lines. |
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Stain
Joined: 08 Jan 2014
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| Posted: Wed Feb 12, 2014 2:57 pm Post subject: |
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| Ginormousaurus wrote: |
| Stain wrote: |
Ok, this goes back to that saying "don't re-invent the wheel". Society in all developing or developed countries is based on prior innovation.I agree with you about that. But having a list of the most innovative countries is ridiculous in a time where there are no new ideas, only modifications to old ones. There shouldn't even be a list. |
You don't really believe this, do you? That sounds similar to when Charles H. Duell, the Commissioner of US patent office in 1899, said there is "nothing left to invent", or something along those lines. |
I believe there are many things left to invent as well as things long since invented that we have no idea about yet. My point is that many countries aren't interested in radically different concepts but just want to improve upon what's already there. Understandable and to some degree innovative but not to a high degree. |
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Lefil
Joined: 06 Nov 2013
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| Posted: Sat Feb 15, 2014 6:05 am Post subject: |
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| radcon wrote: |
| You know this argument is coming so let me be the 1st " If Korea is so innovative why hasn't any Korean won a Nobel prize (other than peace)? |
I personally haven't seen any ground-breaking innovation from Korea yet. Some people here compares Japan to Korea but they should know that Japan actually produced some ground-breaking products. For example, Sony's Walkman created the portable music scene and changed part of people's lives. When did Korea come up with something like that? Korea's ratio of R&D spending to GDP is very high, but the low ratio of essential patents to total patent filings suggests low R&D productivity.
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Korea Has Only 1/5 of Japan's, 1/9 of U.S.' Essential Patents
The number of essential patents held by Korean businesses and research institutes amounts to just one-ninth of those held by the U.S. and one-fifth of those held by Japan. The figures refer only to patents are deemed essential in making certain products.
According to Democratic Party lawmaker Oh Young-sik on Wednesday, a total of 365 such patents were registered with the International Organization for Standardization and other IT patent agencies as of June this year. But the U.S. had 3,256 and Japan 1,754, Finland 1,754, France 1,210 and Germany 483.
The chief concern for Korea is that its lack of such patents widened the deficit in the technological trade balance due to royalty payments. The deficit rose from US$2.9 billion (US$1=W1,115) in 2006 to $6.9 billion in 2011.
http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2012/10/11/2012101101206.html |
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S. Korea's technology trade balance lowest among OECD members
South Korea's trade balance in technology transactions ranked the lowest among a group of advanced countries due to its weakness in original technologies, data showed Monday.
According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the technology trade balance ratio of Asia's fourth-largest economy came to 0.33 in 2010, the lowest among the 25 member countries surveyed.
The export-to-import ratio serves as a barometer of a country's competitiveness in path-breaking technology. An index below the 1.0 unit level indicates expenditure outnumbers earnings in royalty payments.
The figure lagged far behind other advanced countries such as Japan and the United States, which reported 4.6 and 1.46, respectively, the data showed.
"The country has been reporting shortfalls in technology trade balance as it focuses more on reprocessing foreign patents rather than developing its own," said Kang Hyun-chul, an analyst at Woori Investment & Securities Co.
The country spent US$10.2 billion on overseas payments of royalties in 2010, up 21.3 percent from a year earlier, the organization said.
In the cited period, local firms earned $3.35 billion from royalties paid by foreign companies, but their overseas payments far outweighed their income, leading the country to post a royalty balance deficit of $6.88 billion, the data showed.
South Korea's dependency on the U.S., which accounts for 57.4 percent of its royalty expenditures, also increased 23.4 percent on-year in 2010, the Paris-based club of industrialized economies added.
"South Korea's information technology industry focuses on applied technology and therefore makes huge royalty payments to foreign countries," said Son Min-sun, a researcher at LG Economic Research Institute.
"The country needs to make efforts in securing its own path-breaking technology and increase its royalty earnings," he added.
http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/business/2012/09/10/16/0501000000AEN20120910003200320F.HTML |
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Steelrails
Joined: 12 Mar 2009
Location: Earth, Solar System
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| Posted: Sat Feb 15, 2014 4:34 pm Post subject: |
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| Japan actually produced some ground-breaking products. |
Whenever I hear this or something like it, I always think about Japan inventing crystal meth. |
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Mix1
Joined: 08 May 2007
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| Posted: Mon Feb 17, 2014 1:22 pm Post subject: |
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| Fox wrote: |
The reality is that Korea has a lot of patents per capita and has managed to make products that people all over the world want to buy.
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The reality, from their own sources even, is more like this:
| Quote: |
Quote:
Korea Has Only 1/5 of Japan's, 1/9 of U.S.' Essential Patents
The number of essential patents held by Korean businesses and research institutes amounts to just one-ninth of those held by the U.S. and one-fifth of those held by Japan. The figures refer only to patents are deemed essential in making certain products.
According to Democratic Party lawmaker Oh Young-sik on Wednesday, a total of 365 such patents were registered with the International Organization for Standardization and other IT patent agencies as of June this year. But the U.S. had 3,256 and Japan 1,754, Finland 1,754, France 1,210 and Germany 483.
The chief concern for Korea is that its lack of such patents widened the deficit in the technological trade balance due to royalty payments. The deficit rose from US$2.9 billion (US$1=W1,115) in 2006 to $6.9 billion in 2011.
http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2012/10/11/2012101101206.html
Quote:
S. Korea's technology trade balance lowest among OECD members
South Korea's trade balance in technology transactions ranked the lowest among a group of advanced countries due to its weakness in original technologies, data showed Monday.
According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the technology trade balance ratio of Asia's fourth-largest economy came to 0.33 in 2010, the lowest among the 25 member countries surveyed.
The export-to-import ratio serves as a barometer of a country's competitiveness in path-breaking technology. An index below the 1.0 unit level indicates expenditure outnumbers earnings in royalty payments.
The figure lagged far behind other advanced countries such as Japan and the United States, which reported 4.6 and 1.46, respectively, the data showed.
"The country has been reporting shortfalls in technology trade balance as it focuses more on reprocessing foreign patents rather than developing its own," said Kang Hyun-chul, an analyst at Woori Investment & Securities Co.
The country spent US$10.2 billion on overseas payments of royalties in 2010, up 21.3 percent from a year earlier, the organization said.
In the cited period, local firms earned $3.35 billion from royalties paid by foreign companies, but their overseas payments far outweighed their income, leading the country to post a royalty balance deficit of $6.88 billion, the data showed.
South Korea's dependency on the U.S., which accounts for 57.4 percent of its royalty expenditures, also increased 23.4 percent on-year in 2010, the Paris-based club of industrialized economies added.
"South Korea's information technology industry focuses on applied technology and therefore makes huge royalty payments to foreign countries," said Son Min-sun, a researcher at LG Economic Research Institute.
"The country needs to make efforts in securing its own path-breaking technology and increase its royalty earnings," he added.
http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/business/2012/09/10/16/0501000000AEN20120910003200320F.HTML
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So.... it's not about people buying the products or not, or even how beneficial they may be, it's about the definition of innovation and whether or not they deserve to be labeled as the most "innovative" country in the world. Cheerleading and fudging definitions doesn't change that.
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You say, "Sure people can benefit from copying innovations, but copies hold less clout and are less respected," but the topic is innovation, not necessarily clout or respect. It's no surprise that many westerners do not respect the Korean method: they've been raised to not respect it, having grown up in a very different culture. That's fine, but it's subjective.
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So, when your students copy each other, do you just let it happen because it's all "subjective"... or do you take a stance on it and judge it in some way? Do you respect that behavior?
If you had a contest in class called "The Most Innovative Essay". Would you award it to the kid with the most original essay with the most novel ideas, or... would you award it to the kid who copied him word for word and just changed the title and font, then tried to pawn it off as his own work?
It's not completely subjective, one is clearly more innovative than the other. And that's the definition we are talking about here. |
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Steelrails
Joined: 12 Mar 2009
Location: Earth, Solar System
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| Posted: Mon Feb 17, 2014 3:00 pm Post subject: |
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Would you award it to the kid with the most original essay with the most novel ideas, or... would you award it to the kid who copied him word for word and just changed the title and font, then tried to pawn it off as his own work?
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Which would be more innovative- an original essay with or the student doing a Korean sonnet in iambic pentameter and perhaps adding a twist or two to it? I don't think Korea is merely changing the title and font. If they were, they wouldn't make up part of the guts of the iphone.
There's merit to both in that case. While the second idea may draw upon a previous one's inspiration, it may present something new in and of itself. After all Shakespeare innovated off of that which came before him or was being done by others at the same time, but it still resulted in something innovative and great. That's not to compare a Galaxy smartphone to Shakespeare, but it is to say that you can certainly have great and meaningful incremental innovation.
I'd use a variety of criteria to judge the essays. Utter originality is not the sole one. |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Mon Feb 17, 2014 4:14 pm Post subject: |
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| Mix1 wrote: |
| Fox wrote: |
The reality is that Korea has a lot of patents per capita and has managed to make products that people all over the world want to buy.
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The reality, from their own sources even, is more like this:
| Quote: |
Quote:
Korea Has Only 1/5 of Japan's, 1/9 of U.S.' Essential Patents |
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Korea having fewer essential patents than its competition falls in line exactly with the situation as I portrayed it: few real ground-breaking innovations, many small tweaks. "Focuses on applied technology" is a fine way to put it, and the royalty payments they make are a legitimate cost of their approach. As an aside, it should be noted that in any case where royalty payments are made, there's a clear difference between copying and licensing.
| Mix1 wrote: |
| So, when your students copy each other, do you just let it happen because it's all "subjective"... or do you take a stance on it and judge it in some way? Do you respect that behavior? |
When my students copy each other, I take issue precisely to the extent that it impacts the intended goal: their education. Sometimes copying to a certain extent is all right, and sometimes it isn't. Likewise, as I all ready suggested, Korea's innovational scheme should be understood in terms of the goals towards which it works. If it enriches Korea (it does), and if it provides benefit to the rest of the world (it does), then denying it on the grounds of it being "less respected" seems pointless.
| Mix1 wrote: |
| If you had a contest in class called "The Most Innovative Essay". Would you award it to the kid with the most original essay with the most novel ideas, or... would you award it to the kid who copied him word for word and just changed the title and font, then tried to pawn it off as his own work? |
I feel like what you wrote right here highlights the our difference of opinion on the matter: you're looking at innovation almost as a kind of talent show, which is probably also why you're thinking in subjective terms like respectability instead of objective terms like usefulness. If all you care about is essential patents, then yes, Korea is obviously not at the top. But if that's all to which you pay attention, then you aren't talking about innovation in its entirety, but merely one flashy sub-category of it, so I don't blame the original article for not viewing the matter that way. |
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atwood
Joined: 26 Dec 2009
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| Posted: Mon Feb 17, 2014 5:37 pm Post subject: |
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| Steelrails wrote: |
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Would you award it to the kid with the most original essay with the most novel ideas, or... would you award it to the kid who copied him word for word and just changed the title and font, then tried to pawn it off as his own work?
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Which would be more innovative- an original essay with or the student doing a Korean sonnet in iambic pentameter and perhaps adding a twist or two to it? I don't think Korea is merely changing the title and font. If they were, they wouldn't make up part of the guts of the iphone.
There's merit to both in that case. While the second idea may draw upon a previous one's inspiration, it may present something new in and of itself. After all Shakespeare innovated off of that which came before him or was being done by others at the same time, but it still resulted in something innovative and great. That's not to compare a Galaxy smartphone to Shakespeare, but it is to say that you can certainly have great and meaningful incremental innovation.
I'd use a variety of criteria to judge the essays. Utter originality is not the sole one. |
A very poor example, a very poor analogy and a poor definition of originality. You're confusing form for content. And setting up a new straw man in the bargain; the OP did not specify originality as the "sole" criteria.
After centuries Shakespeare stills stands atop all literature. What he did was much more than innovate.
A smartphone, however, is a product with a finite lifespan that will be replaced by a newer model in a very short time. It is disposable. The innovation involved in a new model may be termed great by tech geeks and marketing execs, but most won't even notice. Some users will prefer one model, others another and the reviewers will probably again put an HTC phone at the head of the class.
I'm also curious how TVs, smartphones and home appliances came to be defined as "beneficial." And how that becomes some unknown benefit Korea is providing the West, although there are companies in the West , as well as other Asian countries, manufacturing most of these products as well. |
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mayorhaggar
Joined: 01 Jan 2013
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| Posted: Mon Feb 17, 2014 6:26 pm Post subject: |
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| Let's be fair, Korea has been pretty good at making smartphones that can be used by teenage girls to put on their makeup 500 times a day. Steve Jobs is a chump because he never innovated that. |
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Steelrails
Joined: 12 Mar 2009
Location: Earth, Solar System
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| Posted: Mon Feb 17, 2014 8:04 pm Post subject: |
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| Korea is a lot more than smartphones. Appliances, semiconductors, nuclear power, shipbuilding and shipping, automobiles, steel, and more. In many of these they are world leaders. There must be at least some innovation going on in order to achieve that. |
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atwood
Joined: 26 Dec 2009
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| Posted: Mon Feb 17, 2014 9:07 pm Post subject: |
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| Steelrails wrote: |
| Korea is a lot more than smartphones. Appliances, semiconductors, nuclear power, shipbuilding and shipping, automobiles, steel, and more. In many of these they are world leaders. There must be at least some innovation going on in order to achieve that. |
Not necessarily. Everyone knows it was cheap labor that drove the Korean economy.
And how are you defining "world leader"? They are a leading manufacturer, but how are they a leader in automobiles, for example? Look into Hyundai Cars' partnership with Mitsubishi. When did Hyundai first produce a car that it could say it had built from the ground up?
New Hyundais are basically designed overseas. They may do the finishing touches in Namyang, but the concepts come from abroad. Where's the innovation?
Nuclear power? They're trying but they don't seem to be there yet. Unless you're talking about NK.
The fast follower paradigm has worked for Korea, as it has for other Asian economies. But that's not innovation. |
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Steelrails
Joined: 12 Mar 2009
Location: Earth, Solar System
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| Posted: Mon Feb 17, 2014 9:43 pm Post subject: |
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| Nuclear power? They're trying but they don't seem to be there yet. Unless you're talking about NK. |
You are confusing nuclear power with nuclear weapons. South Korea recently landed a 20 billion dollar contract to build plants in the UAE. They are really gearing up to start exporting their nuclear construction efforts.
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| Everyone knows it was cheap labor that drove the Korean economy. |
And what is continuing to drive it? It certainly isn't cheap labor.
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| And how are you defining "world leader"? They are a leading manufacturer, but how are they a leader in automobiles, for example? Look into Hyundai Cars' partnership with Mitsubishi. When did Hyundai first produce a car that it could say it had built from the ground up? |
When was the last time any automobile manufacturer built anything alone? They are all multinats that have acquired varying companies and formed partnerships. |
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atwood
Joined: 26 Dec 2009
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| Posted: Mon Feb 17, 2014 10:25 pm Post subject: |
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| Steelrails wrote: |
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| Nuclear power? They're trying but they don't seem to be there yet. Unless you're talking about NK. |
You are confusing nuclear power with nuclear weapons. South Korea recently landed a 20 billion dollar contract to build plants in the UAE. They are really gearing up to start exporting their nuclear construction efforts.
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| Everyone knows it was cheap labor that drove the Korean economy. |
And what is continuing to drive it? It certainly isn't cheap labor.
| Quote: |
| And how are you defining "world leader"? They are a leading manufacturer, but how are they a leader in automobiles, for example? Look into Hyundai Cars' partnership with Mitsubishi. When did Hyundai first produce a car that it could say it had built from the ground up? |
When was the last time any automobile manufacturer built anything alone? They are all multinats that have acquired varying companies and formed partnerships. |
I was joking about NK. No surprise you didn't get it.
As for nuclear power, as you post, "They are gearing up." So not there yet, as I posted. And is there anything innovative about what they're doing regarding nuclear power?
As for the rest, I see you've resorted to asking pointless questions rather than trying to actually support your opinion.
Not all car companies are multinationals. You've heard of Telsa, haven't you?
What partnership is responsible for a Ford F-150? Or a Chevy Corvette?
So I guess we can scratch Korea as world leader in connection with innovation. |
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