At Minatec, Ideas Lab (nteractive Devices for Emerging Applications and Services), coordinated by Michael Ida, is the result of thinking by the various bodies backing Minatec and the National Centre for Technology Research in Grenoble (CNRTG) which specializes in micro and nanotechnology and smart devices. Research carried out at the laboratory will serve as the basis for new projects and steer R&D work by local firms. It will bring together partners from very different horizons - industry, research, trade, education and the arts. Major international firms, already operating in Grenoble, will rub shoulders with scientists from university research labs, engineering school graduates and academics. This pluridisciplinary organization, the first of its kind in Europe, will pool input from designers and artists, experts from the humanities, in particular sociologists and anthropologists, specialists in fields such as software, microelectronics and microsystems, not to mention telecommunications operators, industry and the future users of smart devices. In many cases the right combination of product and service has yet to be found for tomorrow's applications. Research will focus, for instance, on how best to combine new devices - peripherals, portable computers, phones and battery-powered sensors - with innovative services, such as electronic trading, automated navigation, communicating clothing, 3D graphics, virtual clones or measurement of physiological parameters.