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Five Ideas That Will Reinvent Computing
Posted by
CowboyNeal
on Fri Jun 29, 2007 04:18 AM
from the on-the-far-horizon dept.
from the on-the-far-horizon dept.
prostoalex writes "PC Magazine looks at 5 ideas that will reinvent computing. IMAX-quality movies at home with new projectors, a mid-air mouse that requires no flat surface, a home quantum computer, a router-based peer-to-peer system, and a man-made brain all made the list."
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Writing a list (Score:5, Funny)
Surely you just need a bloke with a pen and a piece of paper to make a list.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I'd write it but I'm too busy building 22m by 16m screen in my basement.
Re:Writing a list (Score:4, Insightful)
A: The multiple projector thing is neat, but who is going to buy 12 projecters to have a higher resolution image? The image quality that can be gotten from a single projector basically maxes out the display quality of the average white wall.
B: Mid-air mice have been around for years as presentation tools and novelties. My company has one that you can use on a tabletop or in the air, as you see fit. The main failing is the nature of the device itself: nobody wants to hold their mouse up in the air for any length of time. It's just not comfortable.
C: Quantum computing is so far away as to be a joke. We don't even have what could be described as Quantum Calculating. When Bell Labs says things are 20 years out, you know it's not going to be ready for a long, long time.
D: Router P2P is neat, but could it be described as revolutionary? As described here, it's basically larger-scale caching, with untrusted sources. Even if it worked, it just speeds up the network a few percent.
E: A man made brain? That's a revolutionary idea! With our deep understanding of the human psyche and physiological complexities, we could whip this problem in no more than 20 years. Why haven't we been working on this since the 60's?
Parent
Re:Writing a list (Score:5, Insightful)
A: The multiple projector thing is neat, but who is going to buy 12 projecters to have a higher resolution image? The image quality that can be gotten from a single projector basically maxes out the display quality of the average white wall.
Someone with $12,000 to waste. There are plenty, I'm sure. So long as this is idiot-proof and projector prices drop, I can see this one really taking off. I've seen many a screen where the projected image is made too large and comes out all pixilated. They'd be better suited by four smaller resolution projectors melded into a single screen of 2x2 images. We'll see.
B: Mid-air mice have been around for years as presentation tools and novelties. My company has one that you can use on a tabletop or in the air, as you see fit. The main failing is the nature of the device itself: nobody wants to hold their mouse up in the air for any length of time. It's just not comfortable.
I think this is a little different, though. It's not something you hold up and wave your hand around with. Imagine holding one of those stretchy, squishy balls in your hand. You basically drag that fabric with your thumb over the optical sensor. It'd almost be like holding a little trackball or trackpoint, I guess. I think this would be more comfortable, though. Revolutionary? No really, imo... but a neat idea nontheless.
---John Holmes...
Parent
Printable article link (Score:5, Informative)
Idea #6 would be: online articles without numerous page impressions.
My Idea... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:My Idea... (Score:5, Funny)
Well, add on that list: The closed time loop computer. By sending information to the past, it allows to infinitely speed up software: The result of one step is just sent to the past for preparation of the next step. Since also the final result gets sent into the past, you get your result immediatly. Indeed, you can get your result before you even asked the question!
Parent
Article Summary (Score:5, Informative)
IMAX at Home
=============
You thought LAN parties were fun? Get ready for the projector party. At HP Labs, Nelson Chang and Niranjan Damera-Venkata have spent the past few years developing a technology that reinvents the notion of a home theater. With Pluribus, you can build a cineplex-quality image using a handful of ordinary, $1,000 PC projectors--in less time than it takes to pop the popcorn.
The Midair Mouse
================
Your brand-new wireless mouse? That solves only half the problem. Sure, you're untethered, free to drive your PC from afar. But you still need a flat surface. You may be camped out on the couch or curled up in bed, but you're never more than half an arm's length from an end table or a lap desk.
Soap goes one step further: It works in midair. With this new-age pointing device, now under development at Microsoft Research, you can navigate your PC using nothing but a bare hand. You can lose the end table and the lap desk. You can even lose the couch and the bed, driving your machine while walking across the room. It's a bit like the Wii remote--only more accurate and far easier to use.
Extreme Peer-to-Peer
====================
In 1543, Nicolas Copernicus forever changed the way we view the cosmos. He put the Sun at the center of things--not the Earth. Today, at the famed Palo Alto Research Center, Van Jacobson hopes to lead a similar revolution, one that forever changes the way we view PC networking. He aims to put the data at the center of things--not the server.
With a project called Content-Centric Networking, or CCN, Jacobson and his team of PARC networking gurus are turning this model on its head. They're building a networking system that revolves around the data itself, a system in which a router can actually identify that Bode Miller video and act accordingly. Under the CCN model, you don't tell the network that you're interested in connecting to a server. You tell it that you want a particular piece of data. You broadcast a request to all the machines on the network, and if one of them has what you're looking for, it responds.
The Man-Made Brain
==================
It could be the most ambitious computer science project of all time. At IBM's Almaden Research Center, just south of South Francisco, Dharmendra Modha and his team are chasing the holy grail of artificial intelligence. They aren't looking for ways of mimicking the human brain, they're looking to build one--neuron by neuron, synapse by synapse.
"We're trying to take the entire range of qualitative neuroscientific data and integrate it into a single unified computing platform," says Modha. "The idea is to re-create the 'wetware' brain using hardware and software."
Their first goal is to build a "massively parallel cortical simulator" that re-creates the brain of a mouse, an organ 3,500 times less complex than a human brain (if you count each individual neuron and synapse). But even this is an undertaking of epic proportions. A mouse brain houses over 16 million neurons, with more than 128 billion synapses running between them. Even a partial simulation stretches the boundaries of modern hardware. No, we don't mean desktop hardware. We're talkin' supercomputers.
So far, the team has been able to fashion a kind of digital mouse brain that needs about 6 seconds to simulate 1 second of real thinking time.
Re:Article Summary (Score:5, Insightful)
If you need to access your computer and can't bear to get your butt off the couch, you've got bigger problems than not having a flat surface handy.
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
So....like multicast?
Re:Article Summary (Score:5, Funny)
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I guess that's why he never said:
You could have read the whole paragraph instead, you know.
Mid-air mouse... (Score:5, Insightful)
Take your mouse. Hold it the air for five minutes. For extra effect, wave it about. Now imagine doing this eight hours a day. And being accurate.
Tired arm much? Using a 2D mouse is about accuracy and long-term usage. OK, the mouse isn't perfect, but hanging it in space significantly deteriorates both these properties.
The Wii controller is a whole different ball of wax - it's for using for a couple of hours at most, and you don't try clicking on unfolding menus with it.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Mid-air mouse... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Mid-air mouse... (Score:5, Informative)
Do you even know how the Soap pointing device works? Hint: you don't wave it around in mid air. It's essentially the guts of an optical mouse put into a smooth, clear container and stuck into a sock. The optical sensor tracks the grain of the enclosing sock, and you manipulate it by squeezing the sock gently, causing the "mouse" inside to rotate - much as if you were squeezing a bar of soap (hence the name)
Unlike a lot of stuff coming out of Microsoft, I regard this little invention to be actually rather creative and worthwhile. If anything, it will definitely be a boon to people who need to use a pointing device during presentations (much better than the trackball solution we have today)
Parent
Re:Mid-air mouse... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Cool looking; doubt it will be practical for 8hrs (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Mid-air mouse... Will it re-invent computing? (Score:3, Insightful)
True speech input with language understanding might bring about a majo
Re:Mid-air mouse... (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Mid-air mouse is somewhat of a misnomer...you don't have to hold it in mid air. In fact, it does not require arm motion of any sort.
http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=243159&cid= 19687103 [slashdot.org]
Also, I think touch screens kind of suck because you're finger is blocking the view of your hand. >.<
Re:Mid-air mouse... (Score:4, Funny)
Reminds me of this hilarious comic [ok-cancel.com] from OK/Cancel.
If you're into usability and design, OK/Cancel is a great web comic to check out.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I've seen mouses like that. And I've heard good things about trackballs for gaming, though that was compared to joysticks, so I'm not sure how they stack up against regular mouses.
There can be only one? (Score:5, Funny)
FTFA :
What if I don't want my graphics cards fighting it out to see who survives? Will it take only 2 minutes if they join forces instead of trying to kill each other?
Re:There can be only one? (Score:4, Funny)
You're right. It's cruel, especially if one of them decides to fight on the sli.
Parent
"Re-invent modern computing"? (Score:5, Interesting)
Most of these ideas look more like cool gadgets or specific applications to me.
Computing is everywhere now. I think a "re-invention" of it should probably be something that applies to the huge numbers of people who use computing as part of their everyday lives.
I was much more interested in these [bbc.co.uk] comments, which involve trying to fundamentally change the way in which we use our technology.
Peter
.. anyone remeber the flying car (Score:5, Insightful)
The present is never the future you thought it would be.
Everybody predicted talking computers able to predict the future, but nobody predicted YouTube or predictive texting.
Predictions, pipe dreams and crystal spheres (Score:5, Insightful)
Any prediction past 5 years in the future of IT is a pipe dream. Accept that. Think back, say, 10 years. You know, when the Internet was the next hot thing and broadband was the dream. When we sucked our data through 56k modems. When the first FTP servers sharing music appeared. When Napster came to fame. What was the prediction? That Napster is so hot it smokes and that it will soar. That on the internet we'll all make a ton of money with ads on our pages. That in 10 years (i.e. today) the corner store is gone and we'll do all our business on the net. We'll all be having fiber to our homes and watch our movies online, hell, all our data will be online, since loading it from the HD is just as fast as accessing it on the 'net.
Well, some of it came, but compared to the explosions predicted it was at best a greasefire. Yes, you can shop on the net, and Amazon surely dealt a serious blow to book stores, but otherwise, the economy didn't suddenly go full force online. Music sharing is a topic for lawyers rather than technicians, and Napster kinda-sorta folded (yeah, it still exists, somewhere, somehow, but nobody cares anymore). Fiber is a dream for most people, and while the net speed went up, it's a far cry from what was predicted. Services that store data online are currently starting to get started, but they're far from being a HD replacement, at best, they're offsite backups (and even as such they suck, due to space limitations).
Technical issues actually went to the background, replaced by legal problems and privacy concerns. Nobody predicted that, IIRC.
So doing a prediction up to 2020 is kinda pipe dreaming. You have no idea what obstacles will come in our way, you can't even imagine what kind of problem we will have to deal in 2015 already. For all I know, it could happen that Google gets bought out by some megalomanic and insanely rich guy who then starts to milk it for private data. Can it happen? For sure. Will it happen? Who knows.
All I know is that predicting the IT future is a business best left to fortune tellers. At least they don't have to fear for their credibility when their predictions are so way off that it's not even funny anymore.
Re:Predictions, pipe dreams and crystal spheres (Score:4, Interesting)
Most of the middle-class in any western country *can* affort to spend $12K for any damn thing they please. If it's worth it is another matter entirely. For 99% of the population that's gonna be a no.
Tech tends to fall like a lead-stone in price over time though, can you remember when a simple DVD-player was $3000 ? It's not that many years ago. You know, one of those sucky ones with no network, no divX, no mp3, no jpg, no video-cd compatibility and 10-second lag for layer-changing....
We used to have a $3000 0.8Mpix digital camera at work. Concluding that digital cameras will never appeal to the mass-market based on that would've been the wrong conclusion though....
Parent
Yeah, good list.... (Score:4, Funny)
Man-made brain, hmm (Score:5, Funny)
Anyway, who needs an electronic brain? Now I can at least yell "idiot" to MS Word when it joins sections or splits pages without it getting offended. Can you imagine Clippy looking angry and saying in this cute cartoon like blob "Now I'm not going to erase your document, you asked for it".
Re:Man-made brain, hmm (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
The mid-air mouse has already been invented (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
multicast? (Score:3, Interesting)
What I THOUGHT they were talking about when I read "router-based peer-to-peer system" was ISPs and backbone services finally implementing multicast. Give any p2p software author a network where multicast actually works and you'll definitely see a revolution.
Mid air mouse. (Score:5, Informative)
Quick... someone send a memo to Microsoft to let them know someone did this years ago. Nip over to your local computer shop and pick up a Gyration Ultra GT [extremetech.com]. Only problem is that your arms feel knackered after about 5 minutes of use. Pointless.
D.
Missed the real potential breakthroughs (Score:5, Interesting)
Look at today's PC. Where is the bottleneck in 95% of all cases? The hard drive.
So, what could be the next killer feature? Non-volatile RAM (PRAM, FRAM, MRAM..). The immediate advantage is speed of course. But there is something much bigger.
Most of the time, loading a file is no longer necessary! Much of the boot time of today's OSes comes from loading stuff into RAM. This can be omitted with P/F/MRAM, reducing booting to device initialization. Also, suspend-to-disk comes for free.
Every single OS is based on the fact that there is a slow, but persistent memory (hard drive) and a fast, volatile one (RAM). They'd need a complete overhaul to fully exploit the new paradigm. Hell, almost all programs too. "Loading file to memory" is not necessary anymore, because the file already IS in memory! Thus, some sort of direct access is needed (unless the file is fragmented).
Re:Missed the real potential breakthroughs (Score:4, Insightful)
Not true. Microsoft Windows Mobile 2003 and earlier were designed to be used with battery-backed DRAM as the primary/sole mass storage, probably true for lots of other embedded systems too. WM2003 therefore wouldn't need any changes at all to take advantage of these technologies, and it probably would take much to transfer any relevant features to desktop windows either.
Parent
Stupid article (Score:4, Interesting)
How can you put quantum and organic computing on the same list as a hack to join up a bunch of projectors to make a larger screen and a fricking "beanbag" mouse that you wave about?
IMAX at home? (Score:4, Insightful)
I've only got a 37" TV and I decided not to replace it with a 50" Plasma because I just didn't have room for a bigger one. There's no way I could possibly put an IMAX-class screen in my house, even if it only meant keeping 1 wall clear to project on.
People go to the theatre for the experience and to get out of the house, and you just can't do that at home.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Microsoft "Soap" Mouse Hardly Innovative (Score:4, Informative)
There is also a video on YouTube (search for soap mouse" on how to make and use one. It's basically just a mouse in a sock.
And PC Magazine... what can I say? I haven't been there in a while and was amazed at all the crap on their web pages. One little block of text and the rest of the page is nothing but ad links. Very sad.
12 off-the-shelf projectors, (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Reinvent the wheel? (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Tired of the Hype (Score:5, Funny)
The article is clear and utter BS. Poopoo de Toro.
This is akin to "Flying Cars Will Reinvent the Commute", "Water as Fuel Will End the Energy Crisis", "Slapping Wheels on Your Grandmother's Butt Will Make Her a Wagon".
Parent
Re:Tired of the Hype (Score:5, Funny)
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