Waterloo chemist develops 'holy grail' LED lightbulb

Sounds good, but like all these "amazing discovery" stories it's believe it when you see it.

Or when it's on the shelf for $16.99 instead of $18.99
Because they only have to beat the price enough to persuade you to buy it instead...

Waterloo has become Canada's high tech innovation centre.


Thanks, Blackberry!

Thanks, Fortran.

Waterloo was a computer programming mecca two generations before Blackberry. The old (revolutionary) Fortran was partly developed, there.

We inherited one of the Bletchley Park geniuses after the war who helped make Waterloo a leader in computerization This all happened a long, long time before Blackberry:

Bill Tutte was recruited to Bletchley Park in 1941, becoming a leading member of the Research Section. For a few months he worked on Italian ciphers, then turned his attention to the problem of Tunny. Tutte made three major breakthroughs which formed the backbone of the operation against Tunny: he deduced the structure of the Tunny machine, he devised the �statistical method� which made Heath Robinson and the Colossi possible, and he invented the method of �rectangling� necessary to keep pace with the Germans� daily changes to the Tunny code-wheel patterns. At the end of the war Tutte was elected a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and subsequently became Professor of Mathematics at the University of Waterloo, Ontario. His books include Introduction to the Theory of Matroids and Graph Theory. He died in 2002.

Cool! Did not know that, thanks!

And, Fortran (FORTRAN 90) can still be found in many business and scientific applications. Nothing does what it does.

Yep, even if they disappear in the next few years, the legacy it built should go on contributing.

Yep, even if they disappear in the next few years, the legacy it built should go on contributing.

Can't see it happening though. They have a good product, just the perception of it doesn't match it's attributes.

But yea, the number of people that they've laid off and have started new ventures will ensure Waterloo remains a big player for a long time. It's where I should have gone after getting my degree, but that would mean living in Ontario!

My first programming was done in FORTRAN. I remember the text book: Fortan WATFOR and WATFIV (for the Waterloo 4 and 5 compilers)

BTW, Tutte was awarded the Order of Canada for his work but the British were somewhat remiss in not awarding him an MBE. I guess that he left too early for too long.

http://www.cse-cst.gc.ca/tutte/index-eng.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._T._Tutte

Not bad for a Hoser. But the Brits are very sheepish about handing out Knighthoods to us colonials.

In the US, Grace Hopper started English readable computer languages, that would become COBOL got a ship named after her. Not bad for a geek.

COBOL was not very loosely based on FORTRAN ... and BASIC is also part of that family (from Dartmouth, NH I believe).

Yep, even if they disappear in the next few years, the legacy it built should go on contributing.

Can't see it happening though. They have a good product, just the perception of it doesn't match it's attributes.

But yea, the number of people that they've laid off and have started new ventures will ensure Waterloo remains a big player for a long time. It's where I should have gone after getting my degree, but that would mean living in Ontario!

My eleven year old, tech savvy son has declared to me that he wants to go to Waterloo. It's the toughest science program in the country to get in to, I've been told.

Stephen Hawking has an associate fellowship at the U of Waterloo. I expect it would be a tough entry exam!

Best of luck to him!