Back around 1994, I read in a science magazine article, that the computer chip was coming to it's end. The ability of manufacturing at photon width had reached it's limits, and the progress that we had experienced over the past 36 years in chip development would cease; hmmmmmm now 18 years later, I am hearing the same old song and dance, about the computer chip, only with a few twists; Moore's Law is going to come to an end, in less than 10 years, and that chips will be so easily produced at that time, they will be worth only pennies.
Seems that the predictions are at odds with themselves. So let's break it down a bit. Moore's Law first. What is it??
From the Wikipedia article: Moore's law is a rule of thumb in the history of computing hardware whereby the number of transistors that can be placed inexpensively on an integrated circuit doubles approximately every two years. The period often quoted as "18 months" is due to Intel executive David House, who predicted that period for a doubling in chip performance (being a combination of the effect of more transistors and their being faster).[1]
The law is named after Intel co-founder Gordon E. Moore, who described the trend in his 1965 paper.[2][3][4] The paper noted that the number of components in integrated circuits had doubled every year from the invention of the integrated circuit in 1958 until 1965 and predicted that the trend would continue "for at least ten years".[5] His prediction has proved to be uncannily accurate, in part because the law is now used in the semiconductor industry to guide long-term planning and to set targets for research and development.[6]
and I (Schnee Wolfe) would hazard a guess that Moore's Law is also responsible for the huge advances in other technologies, like energy production, cell phones, medicine, rocketry, and auto mobiles, almost anything you can name. The background noise of change is advancing at greater than the 5 year doubling that was predicted when I left school in 1968. Society is keeping up JUST, but for how long is anyone's guess. Our institutions are creaking, and our banking and governmental bodies are struggling to keep up. The leaders of today are creating laws and regulations for the present, based on the past, and as soon as they are set on paper, before being voted on, are obsolete. Technology has superseded them.
They are predicting that around 2020, the ability to double the performance of the Integrated Circuit will have hit a road block. No explanation, just a flat out statement. They, being the futurologists / scientists of today. My own thoughts on this, let's wait and see. My experience has lead me to believe that in 3 years, there will be a new "break through" that someone is working on even as I write this. Break throughs are no longer a surprise, but are the norm. The only True Technological Break Through, is when a totally NEW technology is perfected, as in say Fusion Power, or a Warp Drive. The rest is convergence and tweaking of existing technologies.
But at the same time as there is the prediction of the end of the computer chip, they are predicting that Integrated Circuits will be everywhere, as ubiquitous as electricity is today. Also that with this "everywhere, and no where" experience, there will be such convergence and exponential growth in the use of computing power, we will be able to experience the world as never before. Chips (IC units) will be the new scrap paper. A new throw away society?? Technology at the snap of our fingers, or the whisper of a word, the wink of an eye. New and wide spread energy sources, along with an era of Abundance, never before known to humanity, as a whole. Disease eradicated by the middle of the century, and an egalitarian society, for all, where humans and robots will mingle together as equals. MIT has even predicted that by the turn of the mid century, humans and robots may even be marrying or at least living common law.
We are moving from a Man Made Society to a Robot Made Society, where the last usefulness of humanity over robots and computers, will have been reached, (for now). The art of creation, imagination and ingenuity. The big question in the minds of futurologists, "Will this usher in an era of Utopian wealth and ease for all of humanity, or a Dystopia where only a few are able to take advantage, and the majority are relegated to a sub human existence.
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
Future Meds Today
During the Second World War, British Bomber Command created a squadron, which they named the Pathfinder Squadron; the British were bombing Europe at night, and they were finding that a lot of their bombs were going wide of the target; collateral damage was not really a problem back then, other than it was a waste of effort; this is a bit like some medicines today, we take a medicine, and it attacks the whole body, not just the parts that we want to affect; and the side affects, or collateral damage, can be devastating, or keep a useful medication off the market;
So what did the Pathfinders do? They flew in ahead of the main stream, at low altitude, and with pin point accuracy, would literally, "Light up the target area" with incendiary flares, which the main stream of bombers, could use to place their bomb aiming instruments on; thus increase the accuracy and effectiveness.
Bring the age of medication to the 21st century, and combine new technology, with the philosophy of the Path Finder Squadron, and a whole new arena of drugs comes into existence; take a pill that has properties that identify the area or cells that are to be attacked. Light up the cells for further attack, via other medications, nano-tech machines, or even computer guided laser surgery; all for pin point accuracy.
For now this is being researched for Cancer Treatment, but it may be that we expand this to treat other diseases;
One added advantage of this, is that it isn't necessary to be able to "see" the target cells, it is just enough to know that they are there. For instance, technology is going to be able to identify a tumor almost immediately it has begun forming. At this time, we are able to identify tumors or growths, in cancer cells only after they have begun to affect the body, in the near future, we will be able to detect them very early; making early treatment all the more important and effective. Instead of attacking 30,000 cancer cells replicating every 2 weeks, we will be able to detect 200 spread out in the body, replicating every 4 months; and dealing with them without needing to identify where; the technology or the medications will find them. Doctors will only have to be sure that they have detected their presence in the body, via say, blood, saliva, urine, perspiration or expelled breath.
The machines for detecting minute changes in the human body are already coming into existence. I have mentioned in other blogs, the Star-Trek Tricorder, XPrize; but there are other developments happening in the realm of detection, that have preceded this XPrize, and have nothing to do with it, that may be here before the Tricorder. We are on the verge, of having CT, and MIR scanners in the doctor's office, that will be hooked up to the examination bed, which will in the future become a diagnostic bed, with multiple instrumentation to examine the body laying upon it.
In the last century there was a movie, where a team of medical professionals were shrunk and injected into a human body. 13 years ago, Nano-Technology produced the first parts of a nano-engine; today we are working on manufacturing small Nano bots for injection into the human blood stream, for various treatments and identifications of malfunctioning organs. Instead of an Angio-plasty, and Stents, a patient may be injected with Nano-bots with the ability to clean the arteries of the body of plaque on an out patient basis; when done the bots will just be expelled or absorbed by the body.
In a study of rats, with damaged heart muscles, from heart attacks, their stem cells were injected into their heart muscles, with the idea to test what the effect would be. Hoping the damaged muscles would be repaired. Well, the damaged area was repaired, but also, the stem cells went on to regenerate other parts of the heart's muscle. The question now is, what would be the effect on the whole body, if stems cells were injected that could affect a healing of say, torn ligaments, or arthritic knees. Then too, where would they stop working? Medicine is only just beginning to "play" with stem cells, now that the constraint of not being able to use the patient's own cells, has been removed.
100 years ago, most people could not afford an accurate thermometer, and 20 years ago, having a blood pressure monitor was low tech, and the blood test kit for blood sugar, was low tech strips that only gave an approximation; today we have thermometers, blood sugar monitors, and blood pressure monitors that are high tech, with LED read outs immediately; but for the most part they are invasive to use. A woman in the US, has developed at one of the Universities the technology to test blood sugar using the patient's own saliva; no more sticking a body part for blood. But wait, others have been developing other tech that works on the saliva, the expelled breath, and the bodies own skin temperature and perspiration. It will only take a convergence of technology to bring these together and produce a machine in our homes that will be as ubiquitous as the thermometer has been for the past 50 years, and in another 30 years will be a common as the wrist watch was, part of our everyday attire. Plugging us in to a whole new order of medical detection and diagnosis.
Sci-Fi tries to predicted the future of society and technology, but more and more, I see society and technology outstripping Sci-Fi; Jules Verne, predicted the Nuclear Submarine and The Rocket to the Moon; but even his predictions happened almost 100 years later. In the 60s Sci-Fi predicted our world, but it only has taken 30-50 years for some of the more outlandish ideas to become fact. And in 20 years anything we predict today will be on the drawing board somewhere in the world.
Welcome to the future, have your boarding pass ready!!
So what did the Pathfinders do? They flew in ahead of the main stream, at low altitude, and with pin point accuracy, would literally, "Light up the target area" with incendiary flares, which the main stream of bombers, could use to place their bomb aiming instruments on; thus increase the accuracy and effectiveness.
Bring the age of medication to the 21st century, and combine new technology, with the philosophy of the Path Finder Squadron, and a whole new arena of drugs comes into existence; take a pill that has properties that identify the area or cells that are to be attacked. Light up the cells for further attack, via other medications, nano-tech machines, or even computer guided laser surgery; all for pin point accuracy.
For now this is being researched for Cancer Treatment, but it may be that we expand this to treat other diseases;
One added advantage of this, is that it isn't necessary to be able to "see" the target cells, it is just enough to know that they are there. For instance, technology is going to be able to identify a tumor almost immediately it has begun forming. At this time, we are able to identify tumors or growths, in cancer cells only after they have begun to affect the body, in the near future, we will be able to detect them very early; making early treatment all the more important and effective. Instead of attacking 30,000 cancer cells replicating every 2 weeks, we will be able to detect 200 spread out in the body, replicating every 4 months; and dealing with them without needing to identify where; the technology or the medications will find them. Doctors will only have to be sure that they have detected their presence in the body, via say, blood, saliva, urine, perspiration or expelled breath.
The machines for detecting minute changes in the human body are already coming into existence. I have mentioned in other blogs, the Star-Trek Tricorder, XPrize; but there are other developments happening in the realm of detection, that have preceded this XPrize, and have nothing to do with it, that may be here before the Tricorder. We are on the verge, of having CT, and MIR scanners in the doctor's office, that will be hooked up to the examination bed, which will in the future become a diagnostic bed, with multiple instrumentation to examine the body laying upon it.
In the last century there was a movie, where a team of medical professionals were shrunk and injected into a human body. 13 years ago, Nano-Technology produced the first parts of a nano-engine; today we are working on manufacturing small Nano bots for injection into the human blood stream, for various treatments and identifications of malfunctioning organs. Instead of an Angio-plasty, and Stents, a patient may be injected with Nano-bots with the ability to clean the arteries of the body of plaque on an out patient basis; when done the bots will just be expelled or absorbed by the body.
In a study of rats, with damaged heart muscles, from heart attacks, their stem cells were injected into their heart muscles, with the idea to test what the effect would be. Hoping the damaged muscles would be repaired. Well, the damaged area was repaired, but also, the stem cells went on to regenerate other parts of the heart's muscle. The question now is, what would be the effect on the whole body, if stems cells were injected that could affect a healing of say, torn ligaments, or arthritic knees. Then too, where would they stop working? Medicine is only just beginning to "play" with stem cells, now that the constraint of not being able to use the patient's own cells, has been removed.
100 years ago, most people could not afford an accurate thermometer, and 20 years ago, having a blood pressure monitor was low tech, and the blood test kit for blood sugar, was low tech strips that only gave an approximation; today we have thermometers, blood sugar monitors, and blood pressure monitors that are high tech, with LED read outs immediately; but for the most part they are invasive to use. A woman in the US, has developed at one of the Universities the technology to test blood sugar using the patient's own saliva; no more sticking a body part for blood. But wait, others have been developing other tech that works on the saliva, the expelled breath, and the bodies own skin temperature and perspiration. It will only take a convergence of technology to bring these together and produce a machine in our homes that will be as ubiquitous as the thermometer has been for the past 50 years, and in another 30 years will be a common as the wrist watch was, part of our everyday attire. Plugging us in to a whole new order of medical detection and diagnosis.
Sci-Fi tries to predicted the future of society and technology, but more and more, I see society and technology outstripping Sci-Fi; Jules Verne, predicted the Nuclear Submarine and The Rocket to the Moon; but even his predictions happened almost 100 years later. In the 60s Sci-Fi predicted our world, but it only has taken 30-50 years for some of the more outlandish ideas to become fact. And in 20 years anything we predict today will be on the drawing board somewhere in the world.
Welcome to the future, have your boarding pass ready!!
Sunday, June 3, 2012
Pair of Dimes and how we view the world
When Change happens there is what is called a Paradigm
Shift. This shifting of Thought Patterns, is in the Psychological aspects of thinking: The World
View of The Individual, and collectively, Society
When Telephones were invented, the nearest form of a similar
communication method was the telegraph system. This required an operator or intermediary, to send and receive
the communications for the sender and the receiver; With Telephones the operator or intermediary was taken out
of the loop, and communications become direct between the receiver and operator, two way and with a sense of
immediacy; this was a sea change in communications over long distances (10
miles) and change how society operated;
Simplistic to us today, who are 100 years from that society. Yet a similar effect was experienced in the early 80's when cellular phones (cell phones to us) and later in 1989, when the Internet was created and e-mails and later video communications were possible, which later in 2010, Cellular Phones and the Internet Computers were combined to bring us the Star Trek Communicator Uber device, the Smart Phone, and in 2012 to combine with Tablet Computers. Thus bringing a communications immediacy and familiarity that wipes out distances of time and space, language and social/cultural barriers, to enabling the interaction of Millions of people in real time, via Twitter, and other social media. Truly creating a World Wide Web of Humanity with Connectiveness that is unrivaled in human history.
In the space of 100 years our society has been altered by these technological innovations; the "Change" has had a profound effect upon our Psychological View of the World, and it brings with it a Real Sense of Altered States of Mind. Compared to the Past Sense or States of Mind, World Views, we have moved from being infants playing in the living room or garden, to teenagers, roaming the city, and experiencing the world as young adults. We are no longer citizens of a city state, tribe or nation, but World Citizens in every sense of that word except political, and that is only a matter of time.
Simplistic to us today, who are 100 years from that society. Yet a similar effect was experienced in the early 80's when cellular phones (cell phones to us) and later in 1989, when the Internet was created and e-mails and later video communications were possible, which later in 2010, Cellular Phones and the Internet Computers were combined to bring us the Star Trek Communicator Uber device, the Smart Phone, and in 2012 to combine with Tablet Computers. Thus bringing a communications immediacy and familiarity that wipes out distances of time and space, language and social/cultural barriers, to enabling the interaction of Millions of people in real time, via Twitter, and other social media. Truly creating a World Wide Web of Humanity with Connectiveness that is unrivaled in human history.
In the space of 100 years our society has been altered by these technological innovations; the "Change" has had a profound effect upon our Psychological View of the World, and it brings with it a Real Sense of Altered States of Mind. Compared to the Past Sense or States of Mind, World Views, we have moved from being infants playing in the living room or garden, to teenagers, roaming the city, and experiencing the world as young adults. We are no longer citizens of a city state, tribe or nation, but World Citizens in every sense of that word except political, and that is only a matter of time.
When Bede wrote
his History of the English, he was projecting his own bias on an unfounded
societal unity, that didn't exist; but by inspiring one warlord, he gave
"King" Alfred, and his descendants a changed perspective of England, and an Altered
State of Mind, or World View, comparable to the changes from hunter gatherer, bronze to iron age societies. That change has lasted over 1000 years of History, and is in
some minor ways continuing.
Today, we are on
the threshold of massive Technological Change, that will alter our world views again,
and change the way society views the world, itself, and it's place in the
universe. We can only say that our lives and the societies we live in, will be changed beyond recognition. Our descendants will look back in 25-30 years and see us, in the latter part of the 20th Century, and Early 21st Century, as we look back on the 19th Century. We cannot
begin to predict the individual societal effects or collective effects this might have on social order. From my perspective of history, it will be comparable to the change from Feudal Serf to Free Man, from persons viewing the world through the lens of Religious Dogma to the Renaissance Man who begins seeing the World through the eyes of Scientific Discovery.
Paradigm Shifts,
and Overview Effects are two sides of the same coin, and only more specifically, are coming at us
continuously now. A day does not go by that something new is not trumpeted from
the media that we carry with us as easily as we used to carry a handkerchief,
50 - 60 years ago. Opportunities for massed produced “improved” technology is constantly
accelerating, and changing. Various developments that began 8, 3 and 1 year
ago, are coming to a newsstand (computer or tablet screen), tech store (on the High Street / Main Street)
in your city and cyber space, near you yesterday.
Back before of the
20th Century, it was easy for our politicians and religious leaders
to keep us in little boxes. We happily marched off to wars and died in droves,
Cannon Fodder for the Elites. But with the availability of Mass Media (first in
the form of telephone and radio), or perhaps better said, Mass Communication Devices, Information
has become the leveler of society. We now have access to information libraries
and up to date news, that two decades ago were the prerogatives of Heads of States. The only way they have of keeping us in their boxes, is to appeal to our
prejudices and fears; keeping us ignorant is actually a benefit to them.
However it is a
paradox that while ignorant, we are less useful to society as a whole to bring
about progress. So a population that is ignorant, and ill educated, is unequipped for the future. They are like an animal that looses out to a more advanced species. They are going to stagnate and descend in the social order of nations, on the planet. The only
other alternative, is for heavy repressive measures to keep the bulk of society
under control, via the use of force. That didn't work within Europe in the Middle Ages, when the Church and the Elites tried to keep Science under control, and therefore society in status quo, when the printing press was changing the world. So too, we are seeing that too is not able
to keep societies in check (Arab Spring, Syria and Libya) now that we have the WWW/Computers/Smart Phones and Social Media.
Societies as a
whole, whether in the West, Middle East, Africa and Asia, are beginning to wake
up to new Paradigm Shifts, and seeing the World differently, than the previous
generations. They are not going to willing return to the past, anymore than the English of Alfred's generation would go back to the social chaos of waring tribes.
What will be their future is a question many want to answer, but as in the past 50 years, only very hazy field of views are available. Like the effect of the Birth Control Pill on young women, and their choices, so too the creation of Robotic Artificial Intelligence, combined with new and better materials and technologies to enclose them, to mimic humans, will have a profound effect on humanity. No prediction seems too outlandish, from the first Space Traveler to Mars to Marriage between humans and robots, is promulgated in the media. That is just one change that is happening. What we do know, is that we will get a few things right in a general way, but in a specific way, we will be unable to predict the way that the individual will mold the future. No one would have predicted how computers would change society, back 50 years ago. Star Trek got some things right, in 1968, but only in general. The Communicator of Captain Kirk and later Captain Picard, are a far cry from the communicator of today, and more importantly, how we use them to communicate, and interact over vast distances.
In less than a generation, we will have a device, that will either fit near our ear, or embedded, that will connect us to a WWW cloud, with all the information of Mankind, and able to communicate with anyone on the planet in real time. Science Fiction you say, well, look at your Smart Phone, and it's capabilities, and extrapolate the capabilities of computers into it, in the form of a Blue Tooth ear and glasses, set in 5 to 10 years. Then take the information, that we have someone who can move an object connected to her nervous system, with her mind, and research into electro synaptic telepathy, with an X prize competition, the next step is only to move that into the real world within our brains.
As I have said before, The Future is here, have your boarding passes ready!!
What will be their future is a question many want to answer, but as in the past 50 years, only very hazy field of views are available. Like the effect of the Birth Control Pill on young women, and their choices, so too the creation of Robotic Artificial Intelligence, combined with new and better materials and technologies to enclose them, to mimic humans, will have a profound effect on humanity. No prediction seems too outlandish, from the first Space Traveler to Mars to Marriage between humans and robots, is promulgated in the media. That is just one change that is happening. What we do know, is that we will get a few things right in a general way, but in a specific way, we will be unable to predict the way that the individual will mold the future. No one would have predicted how computers would change society, back 50 years ago. Star Trek got some things right, in 1968, but only in general. The Communicator of Captain Kirk and later Captain Picard, are a far cry from the communicator of today, and more importantly, how we use them to communicate, and interact over vast distances.
In less than a generation, we will have a device, that will either fit near our ear, or embedded, that will connect us to a WWW cloud, with all the information of Mankind, and able to communicate with anyone on the planet in real time. Science Fiction you say, well, look at your Smart Phone, and it's capabilities, and extrapolate the capabilities of computers into it, in the form of a Blue Tooth ear and glasses, set in 5 to 10 years. Then take the information, that we have someone who can move an object connected to her nervous system, with her mind, and research into electro synaptic telepathy, with an X prize competition, the next step is only to move that into the real world within our brains.
As I have said before, The Future is here, have your boarding passes ready!!
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