Canon diversify into DNA testing

[Andrew Reid]

Although we're still waiting for that 4K consumer DSLR from Canon, the company has announced an investment into Spartan Bioscience, a firm developing rapid DNA testing apparatus for the masses to have their DNA analysed for potential health issues.

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[lafilm]

Classic

As for the serious side. good for Canon and all the people this will help in the future.

[leeys]

Interesting to note that both Canon and Nikon are diversifying into medical businesses. Sign of the times?

[fuzzynormal]

You gotta keep moving.  Lots of mega corps started off as different businesses.  Shell, for instance.  Who knows what Canon will be renowned for if they're still around in a century.

[Guest Ebrahim Saadawi]

I don't know why but the title gave me a good laugh, and the article. 

[leo]

There's hardly any chance Canon will make a 4k camera, what would become of c100, c300 or worse, c500.

So no, no 4k camera will come out of Canon this year or even in 2016.

[Alex T]

Canon 1D NA?

[cantsin]

Back to the topic: This move makes a lot of business sense for Canon. The Spartan Analyzer device is now sold as a product to be coupled with netbooks and inkjet printers. Canon will be able to turn this into one integrated device - and the company's printer/photocopier business already is larger and creates more revenue than its camera and lens business. On top of that, Spartan's technology will nicely complement Canon's medical imaging products.

For Canon, this is a sound strategic bet on the future - where cameras will be a saturated market moving towards niche. (Think of HiFi components - a giant, booming, high-end/high-revenue consumer market in the 1970s that collapsed as early as the 1980s when {a} cheap mobile devices like the Walkman took over and {b} consumers felt no more need to upgrade the stereos they had.) All the while, there's a rapidly aging population in most industrialized countries. Japan, btw., is the most drastic example. It will provide Japanese tech companies a competitive advantage: the need for technological innovation of the health/care industries will be more urgent there than in the rest of the world. But no matter the country, medical services and improvement of medical technology already are an explosively growing, highly profitable market. 

(I happen to work for an art school that already trains its students to seek their future in service design for the health industries rather than in the creative industries.)

Still, one can get philosophical (or melancholic) about the fact that business models no longer focus on trend products for young people, but on electronics for an ever-growing population of old people that will need robots to be taken care of. Assuming that the average EOSHD reader is a 20-to-40-something, it's safe to say that, in the future, we won't care about Canon 1Ds or 5Ds, but will depend on Canon Spartans and day care robots.

[stayawhileandlisten]

 

[...] a firm developing rapid DNA testing apparatus for the masses to have their DNA analysed for potential health issues.

The typical diseases most people have are not due to genetics but due to nutrient deficiencies. E.g. nowadays even children can have diabetes, well that's easily explained because genetics don't change that fast (one has to be a moron to believe that): it's a chromium and vanadium deficiency and is cured within a few weeks after supplementing with theses essential nutrients (and no, you still loose easily 20 or way more years of your live even if you inject insulin like most doctors would prescribe it). Cr and V are only two of so many different the body needs – Cr said to be also needed for e.g. Seratonin synthesis in the body (depression has increased in people due to Cr def. but also Lithium deficiency) -- other nutrients cure other diseases. Cr and V are not needed for plant growth and so are not supplemented in plants (most plants we eat need only up to like 8-10 different nutrients, but the mammal body needs much more) and so e.g. vegans are especially at risk. Even laboratory rodent diet has Cr in it 5001 - Laboratory Rodent Diet (woke up now? don't worry, just type "chromium diabetes" in your search engine and/or youtube and learn). Recently the EU took Cr off of the list for essential nutrients, that's more than criminal. The elite is obsessed about nutrients (they also say "the useless eaters use up all our nutrients"). Well that's all no problem, one can supplement and theses atoms don't disappear and can be reused. So theoretically it's not a problem for everyone to have enough nutrients.

This whole "this diseases is genetic" is an especially big criminal scam and there are books and free videos on youtube about this / who expose this. Kind of many people know this but most don't.

To stay on topic: it was a bad move of canon to invest in this company. But since the elite wants this genetics-lie to continue, they will push for such companies to have success.

[Wulf]

Nikon did the same. They are optical engineers. The whole photo branche started only because they weren't allowed to produce their most infamous stuff any longer ...