Awesomeness of Moore's Law...

[Edwin]

It was about 30 years ago that our household got a Commodore 64. At the time, it seemed like a really nifty device (still have a soft spot for it - loads of happy memories).

Mind you, how things have changed in 3 decades! My current PC has 196,608x the memory and 12,515,062x the storage of my C64 from 30 years ago... Oh, and it's at least 3,500x faster as well (though that's not an apples-to-apples comparison because modern PC instructions are individually more complex, so the multiplier should be higher)

If things continue at the same rate, my 2043 machine will have 2,304TB of memory and 2.5 Exabytes of disk space - but I guess long before that we will all have uploaded and merged with the machine mind

 

[disruptive]

Extrapolation of Moore's law could be fraught with technical issues. So far we have managed to reduce feature size in this manner, but there fundamental limits being reached in terms of feature size "transistor size". Obviously we may away from the conventional material i.e. Silicon and employ other technologies that enable one to follow a high rate of development. But exactly what is open to speculation.

An interesting read and The Singularity by Ray Kurzweil about the very acceleration and pace of change until we reach something quite profound.

 

[scooter]

Is that when we all become part of the Borg Collective?

Note the google glasses. Resistance is futile.

.

 

[aZooZa]

Carbon nanotubes, graphene, molybdenite etc. All contenders to replace the limitations of silicon...

 

[Edwin]

Carbon nanotubes, graphene, molybdenite etc. All contenders to replace the limitations of silicon...

Not to mention optical electronics, quantom computing, etc. This train isn't stopping!

Sure, it takes a while for stuff to get "from the lab" into active use, but some of the things coming down the pipe are fascinating, including twisted vortex beams that could theoretically transmit infinite amounts of data per second. Tests have already taken the concept up to 100Tb/s (yes, that's 100 terabits/second) from 2.5Tb/s in the space of 6 months. See http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/...ss-vortex-beams-carry-2-5-terabits-per-second and http://www.popsci.com/technology/ar...ms-light-send-100-terabits-second-through-air Graphene antenna also promise terabit per second wireless speeds over short distances (e.g. to download/upload data to a device) http://www.bit-tech.net/news/hardware/2013/03/05/georgia-terabit/1 and other experiments have sent 10 Tb/s for 850km http://www.monash.edu.au/news/show/improving-the-flow-of-the-fibre-freeway

In other words, there are MANY ways to get to a particular tech goal. If one door closes, another one opens...

 

[doodlebug]

Fascinating stuff, makes me think of Terminator, Demolition man and Universal soldier.

One day we will all be cyborgs and then the government will take full control of us.

That's if we don't have world war 3 and end everything!

 

[Edwin]

I've mentioned the site on here in the past, but it's so good I'll post a link again...
http://www.futuretimeline.net/

Basically, take your pick of any future year to see what's supposed to happen by then. Of course, things get vaguer and more speculative as you go forward, but even if you add a whole heap of salt the future's going to be wild.

One wildcard that I've not seen discussed very much is the fact hundreds of mega-rich billionaires have been minted as a result of the growth of the web and ecommerce at such a young age that they still have extraordinary ambitions and dreams ahead of them. Witness for example the two companies that got rapidly funded recently to begin the process of mining the asteroids. See for example the people listed as advisors and investors here http://www.planetaryresources.com/team/

Nobody expects a payoff from these sorts of grandiose ideas in the next few years, but there are plenty of folks young enough and rich enough that those kind of "cool" megaprojects can finally get off the ground without waiting around for governments to do them.

 

[jasman]

I also had a C64. I started out with a Speccie but jumped ship after a couple of years as the 64 was such an awesome machine. The other day I stumbled upon this cool YT video of a rock chick who converted her 64 into a bass guitar!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kDhpFaf4EY

 

[dashu1]

They'd managed to grow brain cells on silicon chips to create rudimentary circuits over a decade ago.

I guess that will eventually lead to the integration of electronics and people, maybe we won't need phones anymore we'll just think a telephone call to people a bit like telepathy.

Then we'll all get a virus and freeze.