Computers are getting faster, smaller in size, and bigger in capacity. So what is next?
http://www.popsci.com/corey-binns/article/2008-09/how-your-laptop-will-just-keep-getting-faster
Popular Science has been a favorite of mine since I was a kid. They have a lot of stuff online these days and I admit to spending too many hours scanning photo galleries... although I still do most of my article reading in the good old printed magazine.
I saw a really amazing article today about 3 technological advances that should be having effects soon:
- Memsistor -- they join resistors, capacitors, and inductors as elements of a circuit. Basically, they are resistors that can change resistance and remember the last resistance when the power is off... poof! "Instant on" computers! It can pack 100 gigs in a square centimeter, are faster than flash and very energy efficient.
- Graphene -- Graphite is made of layers (yea, like ogres) and each of those layers is a single layer of honeycomb carbon atoms called Graphene. It is very conductive, is 100 times more efficient than silicon, and has been used to create the smallest transistor so far... 1 atom thick and 10 atoms wide. Yikes!
- Electron spin injection -- only electrons with selected spin (up or down) make it through a gate. If they go through you get a 1 if they scatter you get a 0. Basically, each electron can be a bit. Using this idea, semiconductor lasers can send information between computer elements 1000 times faster and more efficiently... bye bye wires.
Ain't sci-tech fun??? OK, I want 4 gigs of RAM, a 400 gig drive, and a teraHertz clock... on my wrist... now! Why not throw in brain wave control and in-air projected display (both seen this year in simple demo form).
I'm looking forward to it.
ReplyDeleteBut the question I have is... what will we do with it? The philosopher in me always has to ask that. Our laptops today are 1000 times faster than the average desktop was 20 years ago... and yet... the real quantifiable benefit of such is essentially better graphics, perhaps safer cars and faster internet.
What else has changed about the human condition in 20 years that has changed because of faster computer speed?
In anycase I still want brain wave control computers on my wrist though... also it should talk to me and let me talk to it instead of typing :-)
Cool stuff. Moore's Law has a good chance of hanging on for a long time.
ReplyDeleteIt reminds me of a story I heard. In the 60s, there was a panel of scientist that presented a study to congress that warned that by the year 2000, computers would be so efficient, that humans would have very little work to do. Hmm, didn't happen did it? It went the way of the Dodo and the paperless office.
I don't need that computer, I just want a DELL Mini 9 with Ubuntu:
http://www.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/laptop-inspiron-9?cs=19&s=dhs&ref=homepg