These past few weeks have been absolutely mind boggling — I went to Long Beach for the incredible TED conference, Boston for a Harvard’s Model United Nations conference, and I’m now back in Berkeley trying to absorb the incredible things I’ve learned this month. In the coming few weeks, I’ll publish the thoughts I had on the inside-scoop of the TED Conference, the fundamental flaws of the United Nations, and of course, more ideas related to innovation and entrepreneurship.

In the meanwhile, I’ve been thinking a lot about taking small, basic ideas and extending them into new applications that are difficult to foresee. Most of the incredible innovations of the past century seemed dull at conception, but now revolutionary in hindsight. Some obvious examples include the invent of the world wide web, the cell phone, the personal computer, etc… The founder of the world wide web “wrote a proposal in March 1989 for ‘a large hypertext database with typed links’, but it generated little interest.” Neither he nor his naysayers could envision the incredible extensibility of what’s now the internet. Who knew that a pitiful “database of typed links” would eventually help people communicate, find information, and perform tasks crucial to the 21st century?

But such examples exist in the world around us — fellow TEDster David Merrill presented an invention at the TED conference called Siftables, which are basically “computerized tiles you can stack and shuffle in your hands. These future-toys can do math, play music, and talk to their friends, too.” Siftables is a great example of a seemingly simple invention that is yet to discover the vast extensibility of it’s abilities. Wait until Siftables go 3D — every side of the block gets its own screen, and childrens’ imaginations can be taken to the next level. David made it seem as if his toddler-aged beta tester didn’t know how to use Siftables, because the child just wanted to stack the blocks vertically. However, I’m sure that there are hundreds of more applications that can arise from taking these Siftables and making them interact on a three-dimensional level. This just comes to show how a seemingly basic concept has the potential to grow into an incredible invention that’s difficult to foresee.

For your enjoyment, David Merrill’s live demo of Siftables at the TED 2009 Conference.