And when the troupe finally perfects a new routine, Sun Wenjing says, it's usually a bittersweet moment.

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Henry Ford perfects the assembly line, and then puts a generation to work in the factories of Detroit.

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But you just know that, as soon as CourseSmart perfects the software and launches it into widespread use, American business and industry are going to glom onto it and adapt it to the workplace.

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Unless someone perfects telepathy, no one will.

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Once Weinberger perfects his any-language chip, other developers could piggyback on it to program the devices for an even better consumer feature--the ability not only to adapt to any wireless format, but also to pick the network that is less jammed with other callers, avoiding dropped calls.

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