Moore's Law and Ubiquitous Computing

The amount of computing power in a single iPhone is greater than the amount of computing power in the supercomputer that controlled the Apollo 11 mission to the moon. It is also greater than the total amount of computing power used by all the militaries of all the nations in World War II. It is no exaggeration to say that a single iPhone dropped into 1940 could have dramatically altered the outcome of the war.

The co-founder of Intel, Gordon Moore, made a stunningly accurate prediction in 1965. He noted that the number of transistors per integrated circuit had been doubling every year, and expected that trend to continue for at least ten more years. Moore’s Law, as it is now known, is still going strong 45 years later. This exponential acceleration of computer hardware has proven so consistent that we have grown to expect it. Moore’s Law has continued unhindered through booms and busts, war and peace. Approximately every 12-18 months, the amount of computing power that a person can buy for any given amount of money doubles. This has been accomplished by making transistors smaller and smaller, to fit more of them on a single integrated circuit. Just as Gordon Moore predicted way back in 1965, we can safely expect this trend to continue for yet another ten years.

But after about 2019, we will hit a wall. This is because by that time, our transistors will be so small that they will be just a few molecules across, and quantum effects will make it impossible to effectively shrink them any further. Fortunately, computer engineers have already found a way to keep our computing power accelerating beyond that. At the present time, most computer chips are flat, but there is no reason they have to be. After we can’t cram any more transistors onto an integrated circuit, we will still be able to expand our computer chips outward into the third dimension. However, this will introduce another problem. Three-dimensional chips will produce far more heat than flat chips do. If computer engineers cram too many tiny transistors on top of one another, they could fry the computer chips. Although there are some clever solutions in the works to address this problem, there are many skeptics, including Gordon Moore himself. While we can expect the raw power of computer chips to continue to increase beyond 2019 as they expand outward, it remains to be seen if we will still be able to double the power every 12-18 months in accordance with Moore’s Law.

With our computing power doubling every 12-18 months for at least the next decade, we can expect the computers of 2020 to be 100 to 1,000 times more powerful than equally-priced computers today, just as today’s computers are about 1,000 times more powerful than computers of ten years ago. This will profoundly transform the world. A thousandfold increase in computing power means far more than search engines that run a thousand times faster. It opens up a wide array of new applications that no one would have even attempted before.

The Information Age can be roughly divided into three epochs: mainframe computing, personal computing, and ubiquitous computing. The era of mainframe computing lasted from roughly 1946 to 1977. This era was dominated by enormous computers staffed by many people. The era of personal computing was the second epoch, lasting from roughly 1977 until the present. In this era, individuals were finally able to afford their own computers. We are now entering the third epoch: the era of ubiquitous computing. In this epoch, there will be many computers for each person. In addition to our PCs, many of us already have smartphones, portable music players, and e-readers. Computers will soon be woven into the fabric of our world so much that we will rarely even notice them. Virtually every machine, every wall, and every article of clothing will contain computers.

Although this constant connectedness will certainly have a negative impact on our privacy, it also has many benefits. Computers that constantly monitor our health will be able to automatically alert 911 whenever we are having an emergency, possibly before we are even aware of it ourselves. Ubiquitous computing will finally enable driverless cars, which offer the potential of saving thousands of lives per year, reducing traffic and pollution, and reducing the need to personally own a car. If we would like to have a change of scenery, we will be able to have interactive displays on our walls that could cycle through a preselected assortment of posters to display. It will enable truly smart homes, in which all appliances are connected to one another and to the internet, and can alert you when it is time to repair or replace them. Just as we have come to expect any building we enter to have electricity and plumbing, we will soon expect any building we enter to have internet access and to be connected to the outside world via computers woven unnoticeably into the walls, ceilings, and floorboards.

The exponential growth of computer hardware associated with Moore’s Law has been the single most important driving force in technology for the last half-century, and it still has at least another decade to go. As computers continue to become more and more powerful, things that seemed virtually impossible just a decade ago are beginning to look mundane. It begs the question: What seems virtually impossible today that will look mundane in 2020?

PREDICTIONS:

By 2015 – Effective smartphone applications exist which can turn lights on and off, and start or stop home appliances.

By 2016 - Personal health monitors, which are ingested or worn, can automatically call 911 whenever a person's vital signs indicate an emergency.

By 2017 – The average American carries at least ten computing devices on (or inside) his or her person.

By 2018 – Smart walls are becoming popular, which can display any image the user wants at any given moment, or can cycle through a series of posters.

By 2022 – Silicon computer chips are no longer flat. They are now three-dimensional because it is impossible to shrink transistors any further.

Augmented Reality Will Change How We See The World

Augmented reality is the technology of superimposing virtual images over top of one’s view of the real world. One of the earliest examples is the yellow first down line in televised American football games, which has existed since 1998. The technology typically works by recognizing a certain object in the real world, which triggers a computer to impose a virtual image into the viewer’s line of vision. In the case of the first down line, it operates through a television screen, but any type of screen will do. Augmented reality applications already exist for computers, smartphones, special-design glasses, and airplane windshields.

General Electric has a very cool interactive demonstration of augmented reality with which you can experiment on your computer. In this demonstration, an ordinary computer webcam scans the room. GE’s program detects a certain symbol (on a printed piece of paper), and displays a virtual image over top of it. You can hold the paper from almost any angle. If you move the paper or change the angle, the virtual image will follow your movements so that it constantly appears that the virtual image is on top of the symbol.

But although this is certainly a cool trick, does augmented reality have any useful applications beyond keeping us mildly amused? Any good augmented reality application has at least two components: 1) Recognizing a real-world object to "trigger" the application to do something, and 2) Superimposing a virtual image into the user's line of sight. Imagine you are walking the streets of an unfamiliar city looking for a place to eat lunch. As you walk by restaurants with your augmented reality glasses on, you see the restaurants’ average Yelp rating (and the most recent reviews) hovering just above the buildings. Based on this data, you select the restaurant you want to eat at. This would certainly be more convenient than looking up each restaurant individually as you walked by.

Augmented reality software could be installed in the windshields of automobiles (as it already is in airplanes) to dramatically improve safety, according to General Motors. The technology could scan the car's surroundings for possible hazards. Any object deemed dangerous, such as a deer on the side of the road, could flash on the windshield to draw the driver’s attention to it. In conditions of poor visibility, an augmented reality windshield could help point out the edges of the road, the lines on the road, and any important road signs.

BMW has another example for how augmented reality might work in automobiles in the near future. Suppose that you wanted to repair something in your car, but knew very little about how to go about it. Rather than take it to a mechanic, you could put on your augmented reality glasses, and get step-by-step instructions for how to repair it yourself. The software in your glasses would recognize the parts of your car as you looked at them, and create a detailed illustration showing you exactly what you needed to do in real-time.

The tutorial applications of augmented reality are endless. In addition to repairing a car, augmented reality could help teach people how to perform a wide variety of tasks, from processes as simple as cooking to those as complex as open-heart surgery. Eventually, even augmented reality glasses will become obsolete, as computing power becomes cheap enough to fit inside regular eyeglasses or contact lenses to project virtual images directly onto the user’s eye.

Futurist Ray Kurzweil envisions a future in which contact lenses come with several different viewing modes, depending on what the user wants to see at any given moment. There would be a “normal mode,” which simply displays the real world as we currently observe it. There would be an “augmented mode,” in which the user’s augmented reality applications superimpose virtual images over top of the user’s regular view of the world. Finally, there would be a “blocking mode,” in which the real world was not displayed at all, allowing the user to become fully visually immersed in a website, book, movie, or computer game.

Some of the earliest applications of augmented reality are already being rolled out on the iPhone and Android. This technology seems poised to explode into mainstream use over the next 10-15 years, and will quite literally change how we see the world.

PREDICTIONS:

By 2013 – Useful augmented reality applications exist on PCs and/or tablets to allow shoppers to virtually try on clothing before purchasing it online.

By 2017 – At least one-third of all smartphone and/or tablet users have an augmented reality application to project virtual images over the real world, as seen through their screen.

By 2021 – Augmented reality is routinely used to train people how to perform process-based tasks such as cooking, dentistry, surgery, furniture assembly, factory work, and/or auto repair.

By 2023 – At least half of all new, non-driverless automobiles in the US have augmented reality technology in the windshield for safety and/or navigational purposes.

By 2028 – Augmented reality contact lenses exist which can place virtual overlays of the world directly onto the wearer’s eye, or block out the real world altogether if the wearer desires.

Genome sequencing? There's an app for that.

Richard Dawkins talking about the Genomic Revolution.

I think we'll look back on 2010-2011 as the tipping point for the Genomic Revolution, just as we look back on 1993-1994 as the tipping point for the World Wide Web...and the Genomic Revolution will be every bit as transformational as the World Wide Web, if not moreso.