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The Harrow Technology Report
Insight,
analysis, and commentary on the
Copyright © 2001-2005, Jeffrey R. Harrow. All rights
reserved.
Counterfeit Reality. Listen
to this Issue.
Quote of the Week.
When Worlds
Collide. Again.
A Better Ebook?
There's MUCH More I Can Do For You!
I Think, Therefore I
Do.
Talk About Mature
Technology... About "The Harrow Technology Report."
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, M-P-3 version. If you have an M-P-3 player on your system (and most do, such as Window's Media Player, RealPlayer, etc.), 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 use the right-hand mouse button on the link, and choose "Save Target As..." Also, find out how you can listen at whatever speed is most comfortable for you through the FAQ at http://www.theharrowgroup.com/help.htm . Here's where to listen to this week's issue! www.theharrowgroup.com/articles/20040607/20040607.mp3
Quote of the Week.
Incredible processing power and massive transistor count are not limited to traditional CPUs. For example, consider the latest graphics chip that has specialized processing power and a transistor count that dwarf contemporary general-purpose CPUs (which have 55-125 million transistors)! "Coupled with a massive LAN party, nVidia introduced its next-generation graphics chip, the NV6800 today. This part is a dramatic advance in real-time rendering technology, with 222 million transistors, 1.5 miles of wiring, and the capability to perform about 500 billion floating-point calculations per second. In terms of its visual capability, the device renders images that approximate the quality of “Toy Story," including realistic shadows and lighting. This technology is important, as it brings the capability for counterfeit reality one step closer to the home PC. The architecture can absorb fully the advances of Moore’s law, and during the next decade will mature to deliver highly accurate renderings of individuals – possibly indistinguishable from their real-world prototypes."
"The Counterfeit Reality Ostrich"
When Worlds Collide. Again.
I recently wrote this article for Future Brief (http://www.futurebrief.com/). This is a new site from New Global Initiatives (http://www.ngiweb.com/) that offers brief summaries and other resources to help people, especially those on The Hill who form national policy, to keep up on technological innovations -- but with an added twist. Future Brief "takes one step back and looks at the greater convergence of the accelerating changes in science and technology, with the equally rapidly accelerating changes in society and politics." (http://www.futurebrief.com/about.asp)
This isn't about asteroid threats to Earth, or about H. G. Wells' destructive machines invading from Mars (although it is poetic that his vision, in reverse, is now taking place as our robotic Rovers poke, prod, drill, and otherwise defile the Martian plains.) Instead, this is about two technological worlds that, like the Earth and Mars, have remained largely separate in their individual journeys -- until now. Here we explore how this "collision" is about to change all the rules -- again. Let's begin with a brief history of each world:
World Number One. 'The House That Moore Built' (Intel's Gordon Moore's early observation and still generally-accurate trend line that the number of transistors on a chip will double about every 18 months while the price remains stable) has increasingly, utterly, redefined how we live, work, and play for more than three decades. The semiconductor industry has become incredibly skilled at herding electrons ever-faster, through ever-smaller circuitry that remembers or executes the simple choice of "one or zero" -- but at the rate of billions of times each second. Taken en mass, these simple operations drive almost every aspect of modern business and entertainment. In the case of pacemakers and related assistive medical devices, these patterns of ones and zeros even drive our very lives! And this is good (mostly). Despite the consistent naysayers and critics who have foretold an end to the era of Moore, innovative scientists and engineers have continued to find ways past, around, or through every technological roadblock that has appeared. We have tamed and trained our electrons well, even though they do suffer from problems such as generating heat as they work, and that their circuits have the potential for information loss due to noise, and that some electrons, in some circuits, have the poor manners of "tunneling" where they should not go. Nevertheless, our machines are now very "smart" (note that I didn't say "intelligent"), in that they carry out very complex tasks under our control, and in some cases autonomously. Yet left to themselves (literally), these incredibly useful computers might never have changed so many aspects of our world -- computers might have remained in the province of corporate "glass houses" and hobbyists' garages. It took a very different kind of innovation, a "hijacking" if you will of a very different field, to help computers truly "change all the rules."
World Number Two. This second industry is the well-established world of telecommunications, embodied by The Phone Company of thirty years ago. Initially, computers began connecting to each other using electrons over wires within a computer room. Shortly thereafter, they broke the computer room constraints by using "modems" to convert their bits of information into audible sounds -- the only thing that the telephone network could carry -- to communicate point-to-point with other computers. As crude, as cumbersome, and as slow as those first 110 bits per second (NOT kilobits or megabits) modems were, they brought these infant computers together and taught them to "share" their "information toys." This too proved to be a "good thing," especially as the Internet taught computers to speak a common, no longer "point-to-point" tongue for sharing. Computer users recognized the incredibly-growing value of the Internet as each new computer joined-in ("Metcalf's Law" - 1, 2). Even end-users realized the benefits of bypassing the harshly-regulated and technologically limited "audio-only" constraints of the traditional telephone network; hence the growing adoption of "cable," DSL, and other "broadband" connections. Each computer began sharing more, and sharing it faster. "Bandwidth" became the watchword, and "fiber" the deliverer. These hair-thin, miles-long strands of glass could carry the same "ones and zeros" of information as our trusty electrons did over wires, but in the form of photons (tiny "particles" or "wavelets" of pure light) that don't suffer from the effects of electrons passing through miles of wire. Especially with developments like Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) which allowed many "colors" of light within a single fiber to each carry their own ultra-fast information stream, "bandwidth became free" (relatively), and innovation blossomed into the World Wide Web that rapidly became an integral part of business and society. The thing is, we ended up with two complementary but completely separate technologies: the ultra flexible and controllable world of electrons (computing), and the ultra fast, secure, ever more capable, yet very "dumb," world of photons through fiber. Computers' electron-driven information had to be turned into photons for their long and speedy trips through fibers. But the photons had to then be re-converted back into electrons at each way-station or "junction point" along the fiber network mesh, because only in their electron form could the individual packets of information be read and switched onto the correct path for the next stage of their journey! Then at each subsequent junction point the photons were again turned into electrons, routing decisions were made, and the electrons yet again turned into photons to enter the next fiber leg. Finally, at the receiving end, the photons had to once more be converted back into electrons so that the information packets could be acted upon by the receiving "electrons-only-please" computers. If this seems cumbersome and expensive, it is. All of this back and forth conversion between electrons and photons stemmed from the fact that common and inexpensive silicon chips could only deal with electrons, and not with photons. This is also the limitation that has generally prevented computers from making use of photons' desirable characteristics within their own logic circuitry, even as some people believe that our ever-smaller chips are approaching certain physical limits where electrons fear to tread. This has remained the (general) status quo until Feb. 12, 2004.
The New Order. A recent announcement and
demonstration from Intel, however, may presage
another "merging" that may prove even more
powerful, and more far-reaching, than the
previous merger of computing and telecommunications
-- because this "merger" breaks the barrier that has
been keeping electrons and photons from coexisting
and working together in the same relatively
inexpensive silicon chips.
(http://www.intel.com/pressroom/archive/ Essentially, Intel has come up with a way to create "photon switches" on standard silicon chips (rather than on esoteric and very expensive chips required previously) that work with photon ones and zeros. (Remember that it's that switching of ones and zeros (in electron form) that is at the heart of the uncountable number of transistors that enabled the computer age!) Intel's new chips can process these photons at speeds faster than a billion bits per second (one gigahertz), which is 50-times faster than was previously possible for photons on standard silicon chips. According to Intel's senior VP and Chief Technology Officer, Patrick Gelsinger, "This is a significant step toward building optical devices that move data around inside a computer at the speed of light... It is the kind of breakthrough that ripples across an industry over time enabling other new devices and applications. It could help make the Internet run faster, build much faster high-performance computers and enable high bandwidth applications like ultra-high-definition displays or vision recognition systems." Being able to rapidly encode and decode ones and zeros into photons within commodity chips; to be able to carry vast amounts of information on single optical paths within a chip; and to be able to control and "switch" those photons in the same manner as we have been doing with electrons, portend a vast new playground for circuit designers. As well as for many future generations of electro-optical, and perhaps eventually purely optical, computers. Unsurprisingly, this is just the beginning. Researchers believe they may eventually be able to scale-up the speed of on-chip photonic switching by another ten times (to 10 gigahertz per second). And that's only today's expectations. How might this affect your future computer? For just one example, imagine computer busses that shuttle data around, not at today's speeds of "mere" hundreds of megabits/second, but at gigabits/second! And that suggests enormous increases in commodity computing power that will be able to take on previously impossible challenges.
The Bottom Line. This may sound like an interesting, although primarily "technical" breakthrough. But to consider it provincially as "technical" would be similar to those folks who felt the same way about semiconductors, computers, and the global Internet. As we've seen historically in these fields and others, any time that technological advances occur on a rapid and continuing basis, which seems likely to also be the case for silicon photonics, the results can and do reshape almost every element of our lives and our businesses and our countries. Compare how you did business only twenty-three years ago when the IBM PC was delivered, whirring and beeping, into our world -- to how you do business today. And consider how our computers, plus the Internet, have globalized commerce, entertainment, communications, and far more: fortunes have been made (and lost); entire entrenched industries at the pinnacle of their decades-long successes have been marginalized; jobs and paychecks now move at the speed of light across national and geographic boundaries, and GNPs have danced to these technological tunes. It's happened before, and major technological watersheds like silicon photonics may prove to make it happen again. The greatest danger to each of us lies in ignoring what's happening; in believing that these changes won't be important to our business (or to us); and in staying our historic courses. That course leads to opening the doors of opportunity to nimble young competitors who may not yet even exist. To repurpose a couple of currently popular phrases, we should each "be technologically vigilant" in a world of exponential technological growth, because that sets our current technological & business & societal status quo at "Condition Orange." In other words, "Don't Blink!"
A Better Ebook?
Several years ago the electronic book (often generically called an Ebook) was trying to find a market. Several of the books were actually quite good, such as the Rocket Ebook, which was ergonomic, easy to read, and only suffered from limited battery life due to its backlit LCD screen (http://www.rocket-ebook.com/Products/Tour/index.html). The general market, however, didn't seem ready for these single-purpose devices (http://www.gemstar-ebook.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/eBookstore.woa/wa/). Nevertheless, even though Sony has just announced that it will no longer sell its PalmOS-based Clie PDA in the US, it's definitely not out of the handheld market. The March 26, 2004 BBC (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3568505.stm) describes how Sony, Philips and E-Ink have begun offering a new-technology Ebook, called "Librié," initially in Japan for $375.
Unlike previous Ebooks, this 1/2-inch thick Librié with its 6-inch diagonal screen does not use power-hungry LCD technology, but uses a specialized display from E-Ink. It's composed of thousands of tiny colored beads, some black (negatively charged) and some white (positively charged), in an opaque solution (170 pixels per inch, or newspaper-like quality). When a given spot on the screen is charged in one direction, the black charged beads are pulled to the back side of the display, hiding them beneath the surface of the liquid, while the white beads move to the display surface - that pixel then appears white. When a given spot is charged in the other direction, the beads in that spot reverse, letting the black beads surface and pulling the white beads to the bottom - that pixel then appears black. Since each pixel contains at least two sets of electrodes, charging one positive and the other negative will pull both white and black beads to the surface, making that pixel gray (for pictures). The screen is viewable from any angle, and what's particularly significant is that the screen retains its image "forever" without using ANY battery power; it only requires power to CHANGE the image, leading to an expected life of 10,000 pages before having to replace the four AAA batteries! The device sports a QWERTY keyboard to allow users to annotate the material, which gets into the Librié via a Memory Stick or through its USB 2.0 port. (Assumedly you can then export the annotated content for other purposes.) Certainly the thinness and battery life of this device opens up new opportunities. Even if the idea still doesn't catch on for consumers, I can imagine many business uses, such as allowing a technician to carry the entire set of manufacturing manuals and related documentation with her while she's climbing around on an airplane, or fixing a washing machine in your laundry room. It will be interesting to see if the intervening years, and this contemporary technology, will interest people in converting their reading material from atoms to bits.
Begin Self-Serving Advertisement There's MUCH More I Can Do For You!
You may not realize it, but there's much more to The Harrow Group than just "The Harrow Technology Report." For almost twenty years, as I've been sharing my research on the ever-faster-moving and converging technologies that are changing how we work, live, and play, I've also been working directly with businesses and organizations, large and small, to help them understand and address how these changes may affect them, their customers, and their customers' businesses, through a series of:
·
Presentations -
Highly engaging, interactive, multimedia,
constantly-updated presentations and keynote
speeches to individual businesses, internal groups,
and trade organizations, helping participants to
viscerally understand and appreciate how technology
has brought us to where we are today, and where it's
likely to lead us tomorrow.
·
Workshops
- Beginning with the presentation described above
(to give all participants a common understanding and
insight), the workshop further engages attendees to
explore how this march of technology might affect
their individual businesses and organizations, and
their specific needs.
·
One-On-One Consulting
-
Individualized consulting services, available via
phone or in-person, to help you explore the topics
and trends discussed in The Harrow Technology
Report, and related issues. Please continue at http://www.theharrowgroup.com/consulting2.htm for additional information. Then, contact me at Jeff@TheHarrowGroup.com with any additional questions, to discuss fees, and to schedule a consulting event. I look forward to working with you! End Self-Serving Advertisement
I Think, Therefore I Do.
I originally wrote this article for the April, 2004 issue of Control Magazine (http://www.controlmag.com), and I'm pleased to be able to share it with you now.
One sci fi staple through the years has been that of a man-machine "thought interface." With this in place, people could interface with their machines and information networks without, literally, lifting a finger to slowly translate thoughts into key presses or joystick movements, and they could receive information far faster than through reading. And wouldn't that be nice -- I'm a fairly fast typist (thanks to my mother insisting that I take a typing course back in tenth grade!), yet I think far faster than my fingers can keep up. I know that my brain can take in information much faster than I can read (consider the vast amount of visual information you can glean from a fraction-of-a-second glimpse of an information-rich scene). Not to mention the "eye-to-brain-to-limb" physical response time issues that plague fighter pilots, race car drivers, and even you and I in emergency situations -- our actions often lag far behind our mental instructions. Speeding up the I/O (Input/Output) interface would give any of us a "competitive advantage." Yet today our "technological gadgets" haven't been much help in this area. But that's no longer a problem for two monkeys in Dr. Miguel Nicolelis' Duke University laboratory! According to an ABCNews "Sci/Tech"
article (http://abcnews.go.com/sections/scitech/ Perhaps most interesting is that after a while, the monkeys realized that they no longer had to move their arms at all! They let their arms hang quietly at their sides as they continued to play the video game! The potential for this (once mature) technology, to help people who are paralyzed due to nerve damage, is dramatic and obvious, and in my mind almost guarantees that this and/or similar research will continue and flourish. But there's more generalized potential to this line of research, as Steve Pitcher begins: "They're talking about helping the physically disabled… but heck… they're also talking about playing computer games. Forget the joystick! Just plug yourself in! I almost can't imagine this stuff NOT becoming the norm at some point… likely within our lifetimes. I've always viewed our current human interface technologies (keyboard, monitor, mouse) to be … adequate. But no more than that. This stuff holds the promise for MUCH IMPROVED user interfaces. But still, more than a little scary."
I agree with Steve on both the good and the bad potentials of this line of development -- and that it will almost surely happen, and that it will surely spread beyond its medical uses -- and far beyond video games for monkeys and kids. There's too much potential "competitive advantage" in being able to dramatically minimize the "hand-eye" coordination time for fighter pilots, gunners, and even commanders in the military genre. Plus for surgeons, and for others practicing fine motor skills, or simply for those performing information-driven tasks (imagine a stock trader who could trade far faster than the others around her).
[Update: This research is about to begin on
humans: Cyberkinetics Inc. has received FDA
approval to implant chips, conceptually similar to
the monkeys' chips, into five paralyzed human
volunteers, hoping to be able to replicate the
monkeys' success. Eventually, they hope to be able
to allow severely communications-challenged people
to "brain-type" at up to 30 words per minute! See
the April 13, 2004 New York Times article "With
Tiny Brain Implants, Just Thinking May Make It So"
at
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/13/ Eventually, perhaps, such "direct I/O" technology will be used by businesspeople to let them sift through and deal with data relevant to their jobs far-faster than their 'unconnected' competitors. Over time, it will be the 'connected' who get the promotions, which will lend additional legitimacy to the practice of "plugging-in," which will encourage other competitive individuals to "have to" do so as well -- the end result of this cycle could, eventually, make "plugging-in" a realistic competitive necessity -- and the norm. Don't think so? How many business people do you know who now use wirelessly connected notebooks to grab data and facts right in the midst of a business meeting, while their unconnected brethren have only their notes to rely upon? That's now the norm, even though when I first began bringing a new-fangled notebook into meetings, the mere act of my typing in the meeting often earned me an evil eye (but I kept typing...). (Oh, and to Steve's point that "gamers" would flock to such an interface, and probably early-on, I must agree. Throughout the computer age it has been "games" that have consistently pushed the frontiers of computing (graphics displays, color, sophisticated sound, many new I/O devices (tens or hundreds of "joysticks" and other specialized interface devices), and more...) This same "necessity-spiral" around adopting new technology has already happened many times -- think of the advent of electricity, the telephone, and more recently the cell phone. All were once rare, expensive, and looked down upon -- until they each became a competitive necessity. And I anticipate that it will happen again, once humans can "plug in" to better control their environment. (At least once the direct human-machine interface becomes NON-INVASIVE, unlike these monkeys' physical electrode arrays or the even worse illustration from The Matrix." It's just never safe to say 'never,' or to assume that we'll always do things the way we do today...
Talk About Mature Technology...
Finally, GPS (Global Positioning System) is a truly wonderful technology, allowing any specialized receiver with a good view of the sky to determine exactly where it is in 3D space relative to the Earth. It enables everything from cruise missiles to commercial and private aircraft, your car, and even your pocket to locate you, display your location on a detailed map, and find the best way from here to there. But you'd never expect to find a GPS receiver plus a cell phone in a can of soda! Until now. Because, as described in the May 12 Space.com (http://www.space.com/astronotes/astronotes.html) and brought to our attention by reader Elliot Wheelere, about 100 Coca Cola cans will sport this high tech gadgetry this summer, leading a Coke team to find you and award prizes (even a new car).
Kind of a neat promotion, and a dramatic example of how inexpensive, and tiny, such high technology has become. (I have no affiliation with Coke other than as an occasional drinker.) Wouldn't you like to come across THIS Coke can on a hot day! Although if you're thirsty, you'll certainly hope that it contains Coke as well as the active components...
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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