Well, again, look for everyday pains. If there is something on some of your customers' minds when they wake up, find that something and solve that for them, so they have one less thing to worry about. Really that's what even Google says AND does, focus on the customer and everything else will follow.
Having said all that, use your skill as a tool! Let's take Octopart as an example - the founders' pain was they couldn't find their parts easily online. So, they put their skills (algorithms [well, technically, they were physicists, but any good physicist is a good mathematician]) to work - they built a great search that Google doesn't cater to.
Lessons:
1) They identified pain - no search for parts
2) They used their skillset - math (algorithms)
3) They are making the world a better place* (as in much more of an impact* than those playthings you mentioned).
*-very very relative
As about bio-informatics, who knows? Heck, no one really knows about any industry's future. If someone claims to know, he/she is trying to sell something - may it be an idea, prophecy, or plain bull-shiitake mushrooms :) Point is that if you have really identified your customers' pain, then they will happily send their wheel barrows full of love AND money towards your solution.
Having said all that, use your skill as a tool! Let's take Octopart as an example - the founders' pain was they couldn't find their parts easily online. So, they put their skills (algorithms [well, technically, they were physicists, but any good physicist is a good mathematician]) to work - they built a great search that Google doesn't cater to.
Lessons: 1) They identified pain - no search for parts 2) They used their skillset - math (algorithms) 3) They are making the world a better place* (as in much more of an impact* than those playthings you mentioned). *-very very relative
As about bio-informatics, who knows? Heck, no one really knows about any industry's future. If someone claims to know, he/she is trying to sell something - may it be an idea, prophecy, or plain bull-shiitake mushrooms :) Point is that if you have really identified your customers' pain, then they will happily send their wheel barrows full of love AND money towards your solution.