[gaurav_v]

I work in a 'top' neuroscience lab in which we study the nature of neural computations theoretically and experimentally, the kind of thing that you may consider Super Duper Really Serious attempts To Innovate.

The things being dismissed in this thread as 'toys' and 'old stuff made prettier' make our work easier.

Scientists communicate on twitter and via blogs; the open-access movement is picking up steam this way. It's much easier to decide to move across the world to work with a particular experimentalist if your mom knows how to use Skype and you can talk to your grandma from the hospital on her iPad.

Innovation happens in the world, not in a bubble. Making things easier to use and more appealing to the mainstream is real, extremely valuable progress.

Not to mention that all of the mathematics we use was developed by mathematicians purely as new, purposeless shiny toys. :)