| > The regulatory costs of developing new instruments and intertia of manufacturers doesnt help. I work on (mostly non-critical) medical devices and I would like to remind that regulatory is there for a purpose. If anything the 737 Max fiasco should remind people what can happen when regulatory is considered a cost that need to be cut in a field where there can be some hazards, and where some people in the chain do not have the best interest of the public in mind. And yes, in the medical industry too, there can be some people who care more about optimizing profits than about patients. Maybe there are some undue regulatory rules, but hopefully there are not the majority. In the case of what I work on, regulatory does not prevent us from using state of the art CPUs and GPUs, so yes R&D may need somehow longer cycles from consumer electronics to get a return of investment, but let's be honest it is not too much scandalous to get some features a few years after you get similar things in consumer electronics, especially in cases where there are diminishing returns of improving X or Y. And yes it is easier to build things when you don't have to care about e.g. ability to disinfect materials, you can cope with more bugs, etc. |