One of the reasons I prefer the term innovation over invention is that inventors are usually seen as technical experts who rely on raw materials and focus on a specific discipline. That’s not necessarily true, but a common perception.

Innovators, on the other hand, are scroungers, restlessly seeking ways around a problem by any available means. They recombine the world.

Link: Of MRIs and iPods (MIT Technology Review article by Karen Epper Hoffman)

"It’s not an issue of what technology you use," Ratib says, "but what you do with it."…

Dr. Osman Ratib had a problem. As a radiologist, he dealt with mountains of digital images which needed to be tracked, stored, and shared on a regular basis — but he didn’t have a good way to easily transport everything he needed.  …

Ratib and his programming partner Dr. Antoine Rosset set about developing a software application that uses the iPod and other off-the-shelf Macintosh equipment to manipulate, manage, and move medical imaging data between departments and workstations.

Now some 6,000 medical professionals around the globe are using the tool, which Ratib and Rosset distribute for free from their web site.