Neither the California engineers nor the uncertain promise of semiconductors (then a rather exotic item) inspired Rock's colleagues, but he thought the eight seemed like smart people with a good idea.

FORBES: Arthur Rock

It showed dancers in modern clothes rather than the exotic or historical costumes that audiences had come to expect.

ECONOMIST: Dance

Silicon photonics made with inexpensive silicon rather than expensive and exotic optical materials provides a distinct cost advantage over older optical technologies in addition to providing greater speed, reliability and scalability benefits.

ENGADGET: Facebook's Open Compute Project splits up monolithic servers with help from Intel, more

This will use a hydrocarbon fuel (think exotic petrol) rather than hydrogen.

ECONOMIST: Hypersonic aviation

Last fall they launched Go Soup, a new line of exotic-flavored soups packaged in pouches rather than cans to target the millennial generation.

FORBES: The Campbell Soup Turnaround Is Heating Up. Will It Sizzle Or Fizzle Out?

It is hard now to believe that in 1902 a tiger was shot under the billiard table (that the big cat emerged from a circus rather than virgin rain-forest, and was shot by a school headmaster, makes the story no less exotic).

ECONOMIST: Pukkah hotels