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Strolling through the research labs as HP Labs turns 50 (photo gallery)
HP Labs is housed in one of the original buildings of Hewlett-Packard in Palo Alto, California. Not far from the original garage where Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard started HP in 1939, the labs are the home of many innovations over the years, from the inkjet printer to the light-emitting diode to the first programmable scientific desktop calculator.
The company celebrated that heritage yesterday as it invited the press for a day of briefings and a tour of the labs. We attended the event, which was hosted by HP Labs chief Shane Wall and headlined by HP CEO Dion Weisler. Wall said that HP Labs is focused on trends that will affect humanity for the next 30 years, and it is doing fundamental research in technologies such as 3D transformation, the Internet of All Things, microfluidics, and hypermobility.
HP executives talked about reinventing cities as the world moves toward 41 megacities (over 10 million people) by 2030. They talked about a second industrial revolution that will be enabled by personalized 3D printing, and they talked about diversity’s role in innovation.
We went for a walk through labs that included HP’s immersive experiences projects, the Indigo printing presses, security, emerging computing, and 3D printing.
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Here’s a photo gallery of our day at HP Labs.
A big printed mural at HP Labs.
50 years of inventions at HP Labs, from the inkjet to the programmable scientific calculator.
A huge touchscreen at HP Labs.
Bill Hewlett’s desk at HP Labs.
A painting in Bill Hewlett’s office.
The wall of Bill Hewlett’s office.
A flag awarded to Bill Hewlett for his work as deputy secretary of defense.
Dave Packard and Bill Hewlett with their first product at HP: the oscillator used in Disney’s Fantasia.
Left to right: Paul Noglows of ForbesLive; Chandrakant Patel of HP; Adam Khan of Akhan Semiconductor; and Sid Espinosa of Microsoft.
HP’s Skylake-based PC doubles as a conference call phone.
New HP laptops and desktops.
HP’s entertainment monitor.
Curved monitor for PC gaming.
One of HP’s big printers.
A touchscreen table at HP.
HP’s inkjet lineup.
The HP Omen gaming machine.
3D printed objects at HP Labs.
This HP 3D printer can print out 60 percent of its own parts.
Shane Wall is director of HP Labs and chief technology officer at HP.
Dion Weisler, CEO of HP, at the 50th anniversary celebration of HP Labs.
HP’s microfluidics can print droplets for biological tests.
You can fling laptop screen images to this table.
The home of the future.
Your mirror will be able to talk to you one day.
High-quality prints from HP’s Indigo printers.
HP’s Indigo printers.
HP Indigo printer.
HP’s security researchers show how a street signal could survive a hacking attack.
This medical test machine can print droplets into vials.
HP female leaders (left to right): Tracy Keogh, chief human resources officer; board members Stacy Brown-Philpot and Aida Alvarez; with Fortune’s Leena Rao.
HP’s immersive experience lab.
HP’s share tables let you share a surface with someone in another location.
The lab notebook where the inkjet printer idea was recorded.
HP’s share table is for remote collaboration.
This Jetty project connects relatives via a box that shows what the weather is like in the other’s home.
HP’s immersive experience lab.
A tour of HP Labs.
The green space behind HP Labs.
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