Michael Berger of the useful Nanowerk website has produced a clarification essay on the size of the nanotechnology market, helping to put the hype in perspective. Some excerpts: First of all, these market size forecasts are dealing with what is called evolutionary nanotechnology. The goal of evolutionary nanotechnology is to improve existing ...

Small Times reports on a meeting held in Oregon among a wide variety of nanotechnology-based business participants, at which many commercialization challenges were discussed. One was difficulties encountered with the U.S. Patent office: Start-ups expressed frustration with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Long waits for patent ...

The Harvard Business Review has named its top 20 Breakthrough Ideas for 2007, and home-based, atomically-precise manufacturing makes the list. Business in the Nanocosm, by UC Berkeley business prof Rashi Glazer, does a good job of conveying the future of home-based nanomanufacturing. Excerpts: Conventional manufacturing carves or distills a ...

Nanowerk reports that the German branch of Friends of the Earth (BUND) is calling for Samsung to withdraw from the market its washing machine using silver nanoparticles: …BUND criticized that considerable amounts of silver could enter sewage plants and seriously trouble the biologic purification process of the waste water. In addition, ...

The Australian site InfoLink brings word of a new nanotech product from Australia-based company Nanovations: a silver nanoparticle-based paint which will kill antibiotic-resistant bacteria. The product is meant for hospitals and other facilities that have serious problems with infections caused by such bacteria. (Credit: Meridian) One problem ...

Phil McCallister warns over at SeekingAlpha that some investors fall for nanotech hype: owever, investors have been burned (charred to a crisp actually) by the big Nanotech hype back in January of 2004. Remember that? George W. Bush signed the 21st Century Nanotechnology Research and Development Act in 2003, and continued mentioning nanotech ...