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Clutch Cargo
Joined: 28 Feb 2003
Location: Sim City 2005
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 Posted: Sat Jun 17, 2006 11:45 pm Post subject: 5-Year Coma |
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If I went into a coma for 5 years, what do you predict would be the biggest changes to computing, processing, and/or memory storage when I came back to consciousness?
Five years ago I was mainly dependant on floppy disks and small hd capacity as well as slow processing speeds ( I was slightly behind the times anyway I think).
Now dvds seem a bit size-limited, but good for archiving, and my 1gig flash drive is barely adequate. I'm thinking more about the everyday stuff rather than the elite user's needs.
Any predictions? |
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Demophobe
Joined: 17 May 2004
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| Posted: Sun Jun 18, 2006 12:54 am Post subject: |
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Everything and nothing.
Tech is ten tears ahead of what we know or are permitted to know. It is doled out to the public in tiny bits so we can pay for the next great thing before we buy it.
Think about 5 years past. Nothing has really changed, but morphed or improved. No "revolutions", but alterations. Monitors perhaps.
A five year coma from today would be the same. Things would look different, but fundamentally, they would be the same. |
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huck
Joined: 19 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Sun Jun 18, 2006 4:07 am Post subject: |
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True, but if you'd been in a coma from 1994 - 1999, the popularity/omnipresence of the internet would've been a huge surprise upon awakening....
MP3 players and P2P sharing would've sounded amazing... |
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Clutch Cargo
Joined: 28 Feb 2003
Location: Sim City 2005
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| Posted: Sun Jun 18, 2006 5:00 am Post subject: |
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| yeah definitley p2p and connection speed. |
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dbee
Joined: 29 Dec 2004
Location: korea
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| Posted: Sun Jun 18, 2006 1:43 pm Post subject: |
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True, but if you'd been in a coma from 1994 - 1999, the popularity/omnipresence of the internet would've been a huge surprise upon awakening....
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... yes the internet and it's popularity would definitely have been a big surprise. Gates biograpgy in '94 ??? on the future of technology never even mentioned the Internet (although the 2nd edition had some with-hindsight editing in there).
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MP3 players and P2P sharing would've sounded amazing...
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... only from the point of view, that people could actually get away with it. The technology was there since the 60's. It wasn't exactly a technological innovation, much more of a socialogical one.
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yeah definitley p2p and connection speed.
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not really no. Would someone from 19th century London have been amazed at how far electric lighting and sanitation had spread over a five year period ? ... probably not. Could Ford have forseen where the automobile industry was heading over 100 years or so ? ... very probably he could - cars were going to get faster, lighter and cheaper. Same thing with technology today.
The only thing amazing about technological innovation is how remarkably predicatible it all is (usually). Moore's Law has pretty much kept it's beat on the drum of the 'computer age' for over 30 years now. Battery life is still pretty much what it was 30 years ago in comparison.
Internet technology really hasn't come that far from the basis of TCP/IP from over two decades ago. Yes, we are doing cooler things with it now. But nothing from a technological stand point has been ground breaking over the last 30 years IMO. |
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Demophobe
Joined: 17 May 2004
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| Posted: Sun Jun 18, 2006 6:08 pm Post subject: |
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| huck wrote: |
True, but if you'd been in a coma from 1994 - 1999, the popularity/omnipresence of the internet would've been a huge surprise upon awakening....
MP3 players and P2P sharing would've sounded amazing... |
Popularity and software aren't what the OP was talking about. MP3 was a new compression technique, not a revolution. Like .mpeg or .rm was to old, large .avi files, now to .wmv or .asf. No real surprise there. The MP3 player was inevitable. Like the cassette-playing walkman, portability has always been a hot seller.
I have been sharing over FTPs for a heck of a long time, and P2P is a kind of glorified FTP idea. Again, an evolution, not a revolution. |
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huck
Joined: 19 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Sun Jun 18, 2006 6:28 pm Post subject: |
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Hmm...you're right....so, I think we should tweak his initial question and say what do you think would be the biggest surprise for a common person (your computer knowledge is bit uncommon  )if they had woken up after a 5 year coma...you can choose the years, I guess.
I said the internet because when I try to think back to pre-1994/1995, I just think it's so amazing that we were ever able to find any information that we needed quickly...How did we do it? To learn about new books and music, we'd have to read reviews in monthly magazines...To find out new information about anything, you'd probably have to go to the library and search for it....I think if I woke up and found out that anything I needed to know was already on my computer, then I would've been stunned... |
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Demophobe
Joined: 17 May 2004
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| Posted: Sun Jun 18, 2006 7:14 pm Post subject: |
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Yes, the internet explosion would be surprising. I recall very well when the net was still OOOOOOOOoooooooo and blazing along on a 2400 bps line. Pages were much simpler then. 
Back to user hardware, I said earlier that monitors have actually been through a revolution; one that continues today. We had CRT, then LCD, TFT and now plasma. There are a couple of pretty far-out ideas that may soon come to the market as well. Its quite an exciting time for monitor tech. |
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huck
Joined: 19 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Mon Jun 19, 2006 6:30 am Post subject: |
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| There are a couple of pretty far-out ideas that may soon come to the market as well. |
Really? Like what? I have trouble imagining how they can noticeably improve the current technology...Like the newer televisions...the pictures are clearer and the colors are better, and i guess they're getting lighter (weight), but how can they improve on that besides making larger tv's cheaper.. |
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Delirium's Brother
Joined: 08 May 2006
Location: Out in that field with Rumi, waiting for you to join us!
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| Posted: Mon Jun 19, 2006 1:05 pm Post subject: |
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| electronic paper |
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Demophobe
Joined: 17 May 2004
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| Posted: Mon Jun 19, 2006 3:56 pm Post subject: |
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| Delirium's Brother wrote: |
| electronic paper |
딩동댕!
That, and a kind of 'paint'. |
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StAxX SOuL
Joined: 04 Jan 2006
Location: London
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| Posted: Wed Jun 21, 2006 3:53 am Post subject: |
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| huck wrote: |
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| There are a couple of pretty far-out ideas that may soon come to the market as well. |
Really? Like what? I have trouble imagining how they can noticeably improve the current technology...Like the newer televisions...the pictures are clearer and the colors are better, and i guess they're getting lighter (weight), but how can they improve on that besides making larger tv's cheaper.. |
LG have been developing organic television screens, they're essentially cells and paper thin. You can fold them, and do any number of things to them then put them back into their 52" mould...
Currently the biggest hold up on CPUs and HDs is how to make the heat dissipate. The heat the top end processors emit is crazy. As soon as they figure that out, then they'll be stacking chips one on top of another to boost performance [enter number here] fold... |
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