【单选题】

Last November, engineers in the healthcare division of GE、unveiled something called the "Light- Speed VCT", a scanner that can create a startlingly good three-dimensional image of a beating heart. This spring Staples, anAmerican office-supplies retailer, will stock its shelves with a gadget called a "wordlock", a padlock that uses words instead of numbers. The connection In each case, the firm’s customers have played a big part in designing the product.

How does innovation happen The familiar story involves scientist in academic institutes and R&D、labs.But lately, corporate practice has begun to challenge this old-fashioned notion. Open-source software development is already well-known. Less so is the fact thatBell, anAmerican bicycle-helmet maker, has collected hundreds of ideas for new products from its customers, and is putting several of them into production. Not only is the customer king: now he is market-research head, R&D、chief and product-development manager, too.
This is not all new. Researchers have demonstrated the importance of past user contributions to the evolution of everything from sporting equipment to construction materials and scientific instruments.But the rise of online communities, together with the development of powerful and easy-to-use design tools, seems to be boosting the phenomenon, as well as bringing it to the attention of a wider audience, saysEric Von Hippel of MIT. "User innovation has always been around," he says. "The difference is that people can no longer deny that it is happening."
Harnessing customer innovation requires different methods, says Mr. Von Hippel. Instead of taking the temperature of a representative sample of customers, firms must identify the few special customers who innovate. GE’s healthcare division calls them "luminaries". They tend to be well-published doctors and research scientists from leading medical institutions, says GE, which brings up to 25 luminaries together at regular medical advisory board sessions to discuss the evolution of GE’s technology. GE’s products then emerge from collaboration with these groups.
At the heart of most thinking about innovation is the belief that people expect to be paid for their creative work: hence the need to protect and reward the creation of intellectual property. One really exciting thing about user-led innovation is that customers seem willing to donate their creativity freely, says Mr. Von Hippel. This may be because it is their only practical option: patents are costly to get and often provide only weak protection. Some people may value the enhanced reputation and network effects of freely revealing their work more than any money they could make by patenting it.Either way, some firms are starting to believe that there really is such a thing as a free lunch.
The word "luminaries"( Line 3, Paragraph 4) most probably refers to people who
A、are eminent in a specific fielD、
B．are known to have invented new products.
C．lead the research teams of the corporations.
D．purchase the companies new products consistently.