The Internet revolution in perspective

Google, Facebook, self-driving cars, iPhones, etc. are changing our lives, organizations and society, but this is not unprecedented. Similar scientific and technical disruption occurred about 100 years ago. Guglielmo Marconi invented and commercialized electronic wireless communication at that time and, in his review of a book on the life of Marconi, Paul Kennedy writes that in the first decade of the 20th century:

Breakthroughs in science and technology occurred so often that it would be brash to claim that any one of them “changed the world” (which doesn’t stop proponents from doing so). The Wright brothers’ success in aviation in 1903 led to national air forces being created only a few years later. The automobile was becoming reliable, standardized and produced in such numbers as to change urban landscapes. Giant trans-Atlantic liners altered oceanic travel. Electric power was coming to houses and oil-fueled propulsion replacing coal-fired engines. The Dreadnought battleship (1906) made all other warships obsolete.

In his biography of Albert Einstein, Walter Isaacson writes that:

In 1915 Einstein wrested from nature his crowning glory, one of the most beautiful theories in all of science, the general theory of relativity ... His fingerprints are all over today's technologies. Photoelectric cell and lasers, nuclear power, fiber optics, space travel and even semiconductors all trace back to his theories.

This is not intended to diminish the impact of the Internet on our lives, organizations and society, but to lend perspective. The Internet is disruptive, but so were the printing press, number systems, phonetic writing, agriculture, the recognition of natural cycles, spoken language, etc. What else?

Is technological progress slowing?

We have seen exponential progress in electronic, communication and storage technology during the last 60 years. As a result, computers and networks are now used by billions of people for a great number of applications. This "information revolution" has had an impact on our individual lives, organizations and society.

No doubt, computers and the Internet are a big deal, but Alfred Normann argues that they have not changed our lives as much as earlier inventions -- that he has not seen as much technological innovation as his parents and grandparents did. As we see in his illustration, shown below, a host of important inventions occurred during the 50 years between the Civil War and World War I and many others occurred during his grandmother's life. He feels that technological progress measured in terms of impact on our lives has slowed, not accelerated.

Ray kurzweil would disagree with Normann. He argues that accelerating improvement in information technology facilitates an accelerating accumulation of knowledge, which is leading rapidly toward an understanding of our own biology and intelligence. Kurzweil foresees radical medical breakthroughs, leading to the possibility of immortality, and machines that surpass human intelligence and continue to improve without us.

How does the impact of the Internet on individuals, organizations and society compare to the impact of inventions like the automobile, radio, television, antibiotics, electric lights, telephones, and nuclear weapons?

Will today's exploding knowledge of genetics and biology lead to a longer life for you and your children? Can you think of examples of things computers do today that would have been considered "intelligent" 50 years ago?

New storage technologies replace old ones

In our discussion of progress in storage technology, we saw that large improvements occur when new methods of storing bits -- of differentiating ones from zeros -- are invented. Early computers used punched cards in which a one was recorded by punching a hole in a particular position on the card:

We no longer use holes in cards, but have moved to microscopic magnetized spots or pits on the surface of a rotating disk for storage. These are now being replaced by flash memory for some applications.

Researchers are always looking for new ways to differentiate between ones and zeros, and this article mentions several technologies that may take over for flash drives one day.

Do you remember computers with punched card, magnetic tape, or floppy disk storage? Does your mp3 player use a rotating disk or a flash drive for storage? Large flash drives are becoming available -- will your next laptop have a hard disk or a flash drive? What advantages would a flash drive have in a laptop? What disadvantages?

Miniature projectors

We discuss technology progress, which, when significant, can lead to completely new applications.

A year ago, we noted some newly developed technology for miniature projectors. 3M has now announced a projector using that technology. The list price is $359, the display resolution is 640 by 480, and it is reportedly bright enough to project an 11 inch image in a lit room. This projector is a stand-alone device designed to connect to a laptop or PDA.

Other companies are working on similar products. If that leads to continued technology improvement -- lower cost, smaller size, higher resolution and brighter displays -- we may see projectors bundled into phones and PDAs.

What technology barrier may keep that from happening?

Storage progress -- every movie ever made on an iPod

We discuss the progress in electronic, communication and storage technology that underlies advances in network-based applications. Robot designer Rodney Brooks uses the Apple iPod to illustrate improving storage capacity. If the current exponential rate of growth continues, an iPod will be capable of holding every movie ever made by 2020. (That includes all the bad movies -- he figures all the worthwhile movies will fit by 2016).

Brooks made the point in a talk outlining his work on robotics. You can hear an excerpt on the growth of iPod storage here, listen to the entire talk here, or watch videos of a robot in Brooks' lab interacting with humans here.

How old will you be when your iPod has the capacity to hold every movie ever made? What other applications might it be used for? Will it be useful to you in your work and career?

PRAM -- future memory and electronic storage technology

Our class notes cover progress in electronic, storage and communication technology. Russell Kay has written a short introduction to an emerging technology, phase change random access memory (PRAM). PRAM records ones and zeros by changing the electrical resistance of a microscopic spot. High resistance = 0, low resistance = 1. Intel expects to ship product in 2008, and PRAM may one day replace flash storage and RAM memory.

Fiber is the future

In the long run, most of us will have fiber to our homes and other fixed locations. The cost of installing fiber is generally estimated at about $1,000 per home or building. You can see why it is so costly in this description of a Verizon fiber installation. (Incidentally, it is at the home of spreadsheet co-inventor Dan Bricklin).

While retrofitting old construction is expensive, the cost of installing fiber in a new housing tract or other new construction is relatively low and the maintenance cost is less than that for copper infrastructure.

The OECD reports that, as of June 2006, over 37% of broadband connections in the Czech Republic used fiber, 26% used fiber in Japan and 7% in the United States. (Of course the US and Japan have many more broadband connections than the Czech Republic). Many feel the deployment of communication infrastructure will impact the quality of life and economy in a nation.

While installing fiber is a daunting task in the United States, critics argue that the telephone and cable companies are slowing progress in order to maximize profit and minimize investment. Critics like Bruce Kushnick argue that US phone companies have already been given over $200 billion ($2,000 per household) in rate increases and tax breaks in return for commitments to install fiber which they reneged on. Kushnick recently stated his case in a PBS documentary on The Net at Risk.

Ray Kurzweil, accelerating change

Last night, we discussed inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil and his predictions of continued accelerating change and its implications for the future of humanity.

This class note describes progress in computing, communication and storage technology.