It’s a long path from a proof-of-concept to commercial reality.

In programming, it’s often way more work to test code and to make code scalable and deployable, than to actually write the code.

The MIT Media Lab did a whole themed semester on wearable computing more than 10 years ago now. When was the last person you saw who actually had technology strapped to them or embedded in their clothes or body? Academia is notorious for stopping at the prototype stage.

Will the copenhagen wheel fare any better? I hope to see it in reality, but I’m not holding my breath.

Recently, scientists announced the first synthetic life to be crafted in the lab. But it’s estimated to be at least 5-10 years before this work can be put to practical use outside of a research setting. Another exciting prototype with a long road to the real world.

The effort of making something production-ready is often underrated. If you are in the software business and this resonates with you, I can recommend a book on the topic of making software production-ready.