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The Harrow Technology Report
Insight,
analysis, and commentary on the
Copyright © 2001-2005, Jeffrey R. Harrow. All rights
reserved.
Reliability, HAN-Style.
Listen to this Issue.
Quote of the Week.
CPU Update.
Storage Update.
Big Brother Update.
"Reliability" With New Meaning.
Did The Ancients Have It Right? Listen to this Issue.Do you prefer to let your ears do the work of keeping you in-touch with, and thinking about where technology is taking us? If so, "The Harrow Technology Report" is also available in an audio-on-demand, Web-based, MP3 version. If you have an MP3 player on your system (and most do, such as Window's Media Player, RealPlayer, etc.), clicking on the link below will either stream the file to you, or, depending on how your system is configured, it might download the file before playing it. Alternatively, if you specifically want to download the file, simply right-click on the link, and choose "Save Target As..." Also, to learn how you can listen at whatever speed is most comfortable to you, check out the FAQ at http://www.theharrowgroup.com/help.htm . So, if you wish, just click on the following link to listen to this issue! http://www.theharrowgroup.com/articles/20021104/20021104.mp3 .
Quote of the Week.
"All of a sudden, starting 10 or 15 years ago, every electronics device had a clock. I see position awareness [GPS] going down that same path. It's just a question of how long it takes." "The chip could be built into[cell phones, into] PDAs and laptop computers to aid in reading maps, and it could be used in walkie-talkies to provide an extra margin of safety for outdoor activities such as skiing."
Tim McCarthy That statement was made in September, but just two months later Garmin has ALREADY introduced two, 2-way handheld radios with built-in GPS/mapping capabilities! (Models Rino 110 and Rino 120 - http://www.garmin.com/products/rino120/ and http://www.garmin.com/pressroom/outdoor/010802.html). One added benefit of this integrated device is its "Peer-to-Peer Positioning" feature which can send your GPS position automatically to whomever you're talking to; their "Rino" will then guide them directly to your position (http://www.garmin.com/products/rino/positionReport.html)! They list for $194 and $268 respectively. Although I have yet to try these out, I can imagine many applications where these capabilities could easily become a 'must have...'
CPU Update.
If you're into the latest and greatest and fastest PC for this 2002 holiday season, you'll probably end up with a 3 gigahertz speed demon that will crunch spreadsheets with aplomb, work with multimedia files rapidly, power-up your CAD work, and feed your extreme gaming addiction. Certainly not bad at all. But what if we look out to, say, about 2010?
Yesterday. First, let's look backwards to 1993 when the 3.21 million transistor Pentium was first introduced; it ran at 66 megahertz, or .066 gigahertz. (See http://www.pcmech.com/show/processors/35/1/ for an interesting history of Intel and AMD CPUs.)
Today. Today, the fastest Pentium contains about 55
million transistors and runs at around 2.8 gigahertz
(or 2,800 megahertz! -
http://www.intel.com/pressroom/
And it's not stopping there: Intel plans to release its 3.06 GHz version of the Pentium on Nov. 14 of this month (http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,106415,tk,dn102802X,00.asp). So shortly after you read this, we'll have gone from 66 megahertz to 3,060 megahertz in but nine years...!
2010. Now, looking about the same interval forward, the
Oct. 23 PCWorld.com (http://www.pcworld.com/news/
The Catch, And The OPPORTUNITY. Of course there IS one catch. With the exception of true power users (scientists, graphic artists, video editors, etc. -- and of course gamers), how many of us NEED the 'latest and greatest' new CPUs? Up until just a few years ago, the answer was ALL (or most) of us, because the commonly-used software (even word processors) kept innovating so that they constantly bumped up against the best hardware's limitations. More recently though, Moore's Law has extended hardware capabilities MUCH faster than most software developers have implemented "must have" new features that demand the capabilities of the newest hardware. I suspect that it's going to take that next "Killer App" -- something that not only consumes compute power but is SO useful to the masses (us!), that we'll once-again drool over the latest CPU announcements and stand in long lines to buy the latest and greatest hardware. I don't think that the Killer App will be simply new features added-in to existing programs; it will likely have to be something completely new that provides an enormous advance in entertainment, or provides those who can afford to use it with such a tremendous competitive advantage that the cost of upgrading to new hardware is dwarfed.
Your Ideas? Today's existing Killer Apps (from a typical user's perspective) probably number about four: Email; Word Processing; Spreadsheets/databases; and the Web browser. But what will the next one be -- the one that will rekindle the high-tech buying spree? If you have an idea, send me a note that includes at least a prototype "name" for this Killer App, plus a short summary paragraph that gets the point across. I'll publish a selection of these in a future issue to help spur the software development community. (Who knows what company might take the hint? In fact, were I a hardware or chip manufacturer, I'd be salivating to invest in hurrying that next Killer App along in hopes of kick-starting the PC market!) This could be interesting.
Storage Update.
It's still just in the labs, but thanks to a pointer from reader Dana Hoggatt, we can gaze two years into Philips Electronics' intended future, which may include 3-centimeter (1.2-inches) diameter disks whose drives' blue lasers can read and write 4 gigabytes of data from/to those tiny double-sided disks. According to NewScientist.com (http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992930), that's enough to "...store five, two-hour movies, squirrel away 25,000 digital photos, or hoard 48 hours of MP3 music." (Assumedly using advanced video compression schemes such as DivX (MPEG-4) - see http://www.divx.com/support/newbies.php). Not bad, considering the many things such as cell phones and PDAs and more that could accommodate the tiny drives that will eat these tiny disks. Sounds (or looks) good to me!
But There's More! Of course, a "mere" 4 gigabytes could be
chickenfeed compared to new research being done by
Gary McClelland and others at IBM's Almaden research
center (http://www.trnmag.com/Stories/2002/101602/ According to the researchers, they believe it's possible to, "make patterns as dense as 500 gigabits/square inch... This type of technique could eventually push disk drive density as high as 2,000 gigabits, or 2 terabits per square inch... Meanwhile, existing non-patterned media is likely to top out at 200 gigabits per square inch."
And More! Seagate, however, is working towards magnetic media that "automatically build a pattern from the ground up," which "could eventually lead to storage densities as high as 50 terabits/square inch." And those expectations, of course, are just from THIS week... Don't Blink!
Big Brother Update.
1984 may be well behind us, but the threat of an Orwellian technological Big Brother, and of some seriously invasive advertising, is not just around the corner -- it's here now! For example consider a test already taking place in two Safeway grocery stores in California: Each shopping cart comes with its own bar code scanner and a color touch screen. Although not required, once you swipe your "loyalty card" so that you can get the various discounts (some non-trivial), your cart knows who you are. And more importantly, it knows your detailed shopping history (at that store or, assumedly, at any other Safeway). You may not like this "Active Cart" idea, although if it prevents you from having to rescan everything when you checkout it may be a seductive time saver. But there is one other issue -- the cart that knows WHO you are, also knows WHERE you are in the store. So, for example, as you approach the steak area of the meat counter, that nice color screen might display an ad offering you a discount on the type of steak you normally buy. Or perhaps it might try to "up-sell" you to the next higher cut or grade of meat. And of course it can do this throughout the store, since it has a complete history of what you've bought in the past! Oh - and since the database behind all of this knows WHEN you bought each item in the past, it can also discern that based on your buying habits, or on "averages" of how often people run out of that product, that YOU'RE probably running out of it about now. So it can "remind" you to pick up some more, perhaps enticing you to do so by crafting a discount or other incentive right on the spot. Could this evolve so that the cart notices that you have passed by the location of this 'must have' product, so it offers you a better incentive to go back and buy it (which would also get you to pass other products that might catch your eye)? Let's not go there... What an opportunity this opens for those statisticians/programmers who can perform the best data mining on all this data, and for the psychologists who determine the most effective ways to best, er, milk the grocery store customers... A bit scary perhaps, but once you've flashed your "loyalty card" to this high tech cart, or even when you check out at a more technologically-challenged store and flash your "loyalty card," or even if you just pay by credit or debit card(!), the store is ALREADY tracking what you buy, and when. This cart may be just a logical (and perhaps helpful) extension of the status quo, even while it blatantly struts the encroaching lack of personal privacy. Come to think of it, wasn't it a similar "bargain" that got Faust into trouble...?
The Stores' Side. The stores, on the other hand, hope to benefit from better-predicting what inventory they should carry. Plus, they hope that, discounts and all, they'll be able to improve the shopping experience so that it entices you into spending more. As IDC analyst Chris Boone puts it in the Oct. 28 News.com (http://news.com.com/2100-1017-963526.html), "If you typically spend $80, they want you to spend $100."
Further Improving The "User Experience." Speaking of improving the "user experience" at the store, I suggest that such a high-tech cart could be even more seductive if it's willing to lead me to a specific item at my request -- I'd hate to add up the time I've lost on 'search and recover' missions for a small can of cranberry sauce, an odd spice such as Herbs de Provence (I finally found out what goes into this blend, thanks to Google - http://www.cyber-kitchen.com/ubbs/archive/MIXES/Herbs_De_Provence_Spice_Mix.html , etc.) Come to think of it, how about letting me Email my current grocery list to the store before I leave home (or beam it into the cart from my PDA), and have it lay out the most time-efficient path for me to take through the store, indicating exactly where I should stop to pickup each item! ("Stop here and pick up your shopping list's "Death by Chocolate" cake on the left, second shelf up from the bottom.") That WOULD, I suspect, entice many people towards the choice of giving up some privacy for the dual benefits of money AND time saved.
Other Technological "Big Brother" Examples... There are, of course, numerous technology examples, especially since 9/11, that may yet bring a smile to George Orwell's stilled lips. For example, there are the obvious, such as the growing number of surveillance cameras as exemplified in Great Britain, where (with just a bit of exaggeration) there's probably not a place where you can walk outside in London and not appear on at least several screens. And then there are the less than obvious, such as Applied Digital Solutions' grain-of-rice sized implantable human ID chip. For $200 plus some additional fees, this chip will respond to a scanner held near the body with a radio signal that identifies the specific code number of that chip (which then yields the person's name and other information when cross-referenced with a database.) Now, these things may get more popular since, brought to our attention by reader Allen Weinberg in the Oct. 25 Wired News (http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,55999,00.html), the FDA has just ruled that VeriChip's tiny ID chip is NOT "a medical device when used for 'security, financial and personal identification/safety applications.'" (On the other hand, do we really want to have things implanted within us that haven't gone through the most rigorous of safety and quality checks?) VeriChip's campaign will surely suggest many good reasons to "Get Chipped," such as: using the chip as your entry ticket into restricted areas such as office building elevators, etc; that way, stealing your "token" (a card, etc.) will still not grant access to an unauthorized thief (we will NOT go into details of possible ways around this, such as the thief first retrieving the chip from within a person and then simply putting it their pocket...) Another use, if and once implantable IDs becomes "acceptable," could be using these chips as a required token to give you access to your accounts at an ATM machine, allowing you to make card-less withdrawals, or to make card-less credit card purchase, etc. If things go down this path, you likely wouldn't be REQUIRED by law to get chipped, but if you don't, you'll lose access to many of society's common services. Or, consider the viewpoint of Marc Rotenberg of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, who suggests that, "(ID chips) are a form of electronic leashes, a form of digital control. What happens if an employer makes ["Getting Chipped"] a condition of employment...? It could easily become a condition of release for parolees or a requirement for welfare." Getting chipped is also seen as "The Mark of the Beast," by some.
Both The Good, And The Bad. People have many other concerns about this or similar "tracking" and "authentication" technologies: for example, do you REALLY want one (or many) stores to know your lifestyle and habits? What if multiple chains decide to SHARE their data amongst themselves, broadening and deepening their picture of You? (Safeway currently indicates that their policy is not to share such data, but could such "policy" change in the future?) Suppose that the credit card companies joined the fray -- there isn't much this group would not know about you. And if we combine this with the idea of "Getting Chipped," could it turn into a form of compulsory identification that could make the threatening World War II phrase "Your papers?" benign by comparison? I'm not suggesting that such uses of technology are inherently "bad"; the picture I see is very much a two-sided coin: there are undeniable benefits to some of these scenarios, and there are just as undeniably many negative concerns. Yet these technologies' introduction could be subtle, showing up as "feature creep" to things we have already become comfortable with (such as "loyalty cards" following credit cards, and carrying the U.S. de facto national identification card, a driver's license)... Our not paying attention to these society-altering applications of technology might one day result in a "surprise" view of our society that we might never have intentionally chosen to build, or to live in. The point is that it's up to each of us, individually and through our own governments, to be aware of both the good and bad potentials of new technologies and innovations, and especially their combinations. We have to continuously look forward and thoughtfully explore all of the possible resulting scenarios, and then allow only the implementations that we can, quite literally, live with! DO Blink, on this one...
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I'd like to understand your interest in The Harrow Technology Report, how you make use of it, and the value you feel it provides to you, your career, and to your company. Please send your comments to me at Jeff@TheHarrowGroup.com . I look forward to hearing from you! And, if you know of other folks who might find value in "The Harrow Technology Report," I'd appreciate your letting them know that they can subscribe at http://www.theharrowgroup.com/signup.asp . Jeff Harrow "Reliability" With New Meaning.
Software crashes -- they've been a fact of life. But in the future, might software crashes END a life? Reader Evert Berndt looks forward into how the issues of software reliability and interoperability will become even MORE significant as we move towards devices implanted within US: "If you couple [an
"Active Tooth"] audio implant [see
http://www.theharrowgroup.com/articles/ Wouldn't you like to "remember" everyone you ever met [and instantly be able to] recall what you discussed? ... But, who will provide the software to drive these devices? Do you want your pacemaker running on Windows? What new challenges of interoperability will we face? I can see it now -- version 2.4 of my tooth implant is incompatible with version 1.7 of my improved hearing sensors, and together they may cause my pacemaker to crash... Perhaps this is the "natural selection" process of post-human evolution." That kind of "natural selection" would sure weed out poor software rather quickly. Of course if successful, this idea of implantable "aids" would likely follow the established trend of our wanting MORE such aids, similar to how we may have started with a PDA, then added a cell phone, then a pocket MP3 player, etc; now we need a Batman utility belt to keep them all attached. Which could lead to: "I can imagine how the Borg might have gotten started this way, a wearable gadget here and there ... and then somewhere things went horribly wrong. Maybe a descendant of Bill Gates got involved; that would explain the chilling Borg motto, 'Resistance is futile.' One thing led to another and suddenly, you have a race of pale, arrogant cyborgs who have a hard time respecting your personal space."
(From "Star Trek, I'm
Working On That, A Trek from Science Fiction to
Science Fact," by William Shatner (Capt. Kirk) &
Chip Walter.
Science Fiction? Not at all! Because it's already begun. That same book (on pages 173-174) describes a number of additional implantable devices that are ALREADY in use today to counter the symptoms of some debilitating diseases: "Parkinson's disease is caused when levels of a neurotransmitter called dopamine drop below normal levels. Among other things, dopamine inhibits chemical activity in two specific regions of the brain. When levels are low, chemical activity in these regions get out of hand, which in turn causes those who are afflicted to grow immobile; their facial muscles and bodies become rigid. Ultimately total paralysis sets in... However, some patients have now been permanently implanted with an electrode that can inhibit the brain's overreactions, and when they are, the paralysis disappears entirely!! ... If deactivated, all of the symptoms instantly return. Similar implants have been used to treat the tremors of diseases like cerebral palsy and multiple sclerosis. Cochlear implants ... have made it possible for thousands of people to join the world of the hearing. ... The intermarriage of machine and human is what has made it possible for the great physicist Stephen Hawking to communicate many of the groundbreaking insights he has brought to theoretical physics; ... [Without these "machines" that help Hawking to interact with the world beyond his brain,] the loss to science and to civilization would have been incalculable and tragic."
Back On Track. Since sophisticated implantable devices are already a reality, and since the FDA has already set a precedent that not ALL implantable devices are subject to strict government controls, it seems likely that we're going to see the development of ever-more complex implanted devices that may eventually even help us towards the cultural goals of eternal youth, beauty, and health. But -- will they be reliable? Today, dedicated devices like pacemakers and the like ARE quite reliable precisely because they are programmed to do a very specific task, in a defined environment, with a very high degree of reliability. By comparison to making an entire general purpose operating system reliable, that's a (relative) snap. But if or when we end up needing pPnP (Personal Plug & Play) for the growing number of implants (medical and "enhancement"), will the "entire system" (which is what you and I will most care about) be reliable enough? Remember, it's the "weakest link" in such a train that helps define the overall system's reliability, and we really wouldn't want to be calling each implant's vendor, only to be told that "the problem's not with OUR device..." Evert's and Captain Kirk's points are well worth noting. Since we seem to be moving towards the possibility (likelihood?) of a range of multi-vendor implanted devices working together in ways that were never pre-defined (Borg-like), a "crash" could do a lot more than just waste time and data... The reliability of a HAN (Human Area Network)
will NOT be optional! Did The Ancients Have It Right?
Finally, we may be forced to accept that, at least when it comes to authenticating things. You might recall our discussion on how artist Pro
Hart is now signing his pictures with a bit of his
DNA (http://www.theharrowgroup.com/articles/ "Maybe those requiring contracts signed in blood were ahead of their time? I can see gold "thumb-pricks" becoming popular; de rigueur at contract signings where each party plants a bloody thumbprint on the documents." Ah, a new "fashion accoutrement! And perhaps an
"unintended consequence" of this bloodletting would
be to reduce those "signing parties," where hordes
of lawyers pass scads of documents around a huge
table for a constant stream of signatures... Which brings reader Rod McDonald to point out that it may ALREADY be time to "get fancy," when it comes to DNA-signing: "I guess the answer to that is to have unique and registered MIXES of DNA from various people, using a different MIX [to sign] each work." Assumedly, replicating the exact mixture of many peoples' DNA would be far more difficult. Each new innovation certainly does come with fascinating new challenges...
About "The Harrow Technology Report"
"The Harrow Technology Report" explores the innovations and trends of many contemporary and emerging technologies, and then draws some less than obvious connections between them, to help us each survive and prosper in the Knowledge Age. "The Harrow Technology Report" is brought to you by Jeffrey R. Harrow, Principal of The Harrow Group. http://www.TheHarrowGroup.com . Where To Find "The Harrow Technology Report:"
Copyright (c) 2001-2005, Jeffrey R. Harrow. All
rights reserved.
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