What the Future is Bringing Us

From IAE-Pedia

Jump to: navigation, search
Image:IAE-pedia_Header.png


Contents


[edit] Introduction

All of education is future oriented. Through informal and formal education, students are being prepared for their futures. Of course, a major goal of education is to preserve and pass on the culture, values, history, and so on from the past. Ideally, this is done in a manner that helps prepare students for their futures as members of local, regional, national, and world societies.

Special Message for Teachers. Consider establishing a "futures" time period each week, in which you engage your students in an exploration of possible futures they will live in and how the subject(s) you are teaching are helping to prepare them for these possible futures. One way to do this is to select a topic from the (growing) list given below. Engage students in a discussion of what they know about the topic. Perhaps point them to some material to read. Engage them in a discussion of how the content you are teaching fits in with preparing them for life in a world in which the forecasts may well come true.

Another approach is to encourage your students to bring in hard copy materials and Web links that contain forecasts of the future. Each week a different small team of students could assume responsibility for leading the weekly "futures" session.

[edit] A Free Book on Future of ICT in Education

The following book is available free on the Web in both PDF and Microsoft Word formats.

Moursund, D.G. (2005). Planning, Forecasting, and Inventing Your Computers-in-Education Future. Eugene, OR: Information Age Education. Retrieved 12/1/07: http://i-a-e.org/eBooks/cat_view/37-free-ebooks-by-dave-moursund.html.

Quoting from the Preface:

I strongly believe that our education system can be a lot better than it currently is. Indeed, I predict that during the next two decades we will substantially improve our educational system. In this book, I enlist your help in making this prediction come true.
The focus in this book is on two aspects of improving our educational system:
  1. Improving the quality of education that K-12 students are receiving.
  2. Improving the professional lives of teachers and other educators.
This book is mainly designed for preservice and inservice teachers and other educators. If you fall into this category, you will find that this book focuses on your possible futures of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in education. It will do this by:
  1. Helping you make and implement some ICT-related decisions that will likely prove very important to you during your professional career in education.
  2. Helping you to increase your productivity and effectiveness as you work to improve the quality of education being received by your students.

[edit] Some Forecasts

This section contains relatively recent forecasts of future technology that are important to our current and future educational systems. For the most part, the newest entries are at the top of this section.

[edit] Self Assembling Chips

Chandler, David (8/14/08). Building microchips from the bottom up. MIT News. Retrieved 8/25/08: [http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/self-assembly-0814.html. Quoting from the article:

Using a novel system based on molecules that can assemble themselves into precise patterns, MIT researchers have come up with a way of beating size limitations that would otherwise crimp improvements in data-storage media and electronic microchips.
Such self-assembling molecular systems, called block copolymers, have been known for many years, but the problem was that the regular patterns they produced were well-ordered only over very small areas. The MIT researchers found a way to combine this self-assembly with conventional lithographic chip-making technology, so that the lithographic patterns provide a set of "anchors" to hold the structure in place, while the self-assembling molecules fill in the fine detail between the anchors.
The most immediate application will be for improving the storage capacity of magnetic storage systems such as the hard disk drives used in computers, he says. For that application, the new method could be tested within the next year or two, he says. "The state of the industry in magnetic media is really ready for this," Berggren says. "They really need something right now."

[edit] Computers and Medicine

Pullar-Stecker, Tom (8/11/08). Medicine on verge of software revolution. The Dominion Post. Retrieved 8/16/0-8: http://stuff.co.nz/stuff/4651547a28.html. Quoting from the article:

Medical care is about to be revolutionised by computerised clinical decision support tools that will advise doctors and patients on diagnoses and treatments, according to a report by British research firm Datamonitor.
New Zealand Health Ministry chief clinical adviser Sandy Dawson is similarly bullish about the potential of the technology to transform healthcare.

But he says converting clinical expertise into a form that can be reliably dispensed through software is a "mammoth task" that will require a progressive effort over the next 20 years, like a Wiki.

Datamonitor says the culture of the medical profession is the biggest obstacle to uptake of the technology. "The idea that a computer could be more accurate than a physician is difficult for providers to accept, despite numerous studies which have shown that algorithms and computers do outperform most doctors on some tasks."

This article provides insight into the problems that practitioners, teachers, and their students face as new technology is developed that can solve or help to solve many of the problems in their discipline.

[edit] ACM Viewpoint Article

Lazowska, Ed (August 2008). Envisioning the future of computing research. Communications of the ACM. Quoting from this article:

It was only 10 years ago that Deep Blue—a supercomputer by any definition—defeated world chess champion Garry Kasparov. Today, thanks more to progress in software than to progress in hardware, you can download for your PC a chess engine with a rating 10% higher than any human player. Most of the "futuristic scenarios" described when Time magazine featured the computer as the "Machine of the Year" 25 years ago have been realized, including computer-controlled tailoring using laser-scanning, robots performing domestic chores, [and] embedded systems that people don't realize are computers at all."

[edit] Quantum Computer

Telegraph.co.uk (7/01/08). Will the QC kill the PC? Retrieved 7/10/08: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/07/01/scicomputer101.xml. Quoting from the article:

"A few years ago, I would have said that quantum computing would be of little use for anything practical," says Professor Anton Zeilinger, a quantum physicist at Vienna University, who is regarded as one of the godfathers of quantum computing.
"But now I am far more optimistic. It has been a huge surprise for those of us in the field. I believe that in 20 years at the most, quantum computers will be used in everyday life on people's desktops."
…
Quite how much more powerful this could make a quantum computer has still to be seen, but some scientists have estimated that even a very simple 30-qubit computer would be around 1,000 times faster than most desktop PCs.

From an education point of view, such progress in this and other approaches to building faster computers suggests that we need an educational system that prepares students to make effective use of much faster computers than are currently available. At the current time, very few precollege students are learning to make effective use of the compute power they currently have access to.

[edit] Forecasts from Intel

Clark, Don (7/1/08). As Intel nears 40, technologist offers his look into future. The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 7/3/08: http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB121487146913417845.html. Quoting from the article:

Patrick Gelsinger, a senior vice president who has served as Intel's chief technology officer, told reporters at a briefing here to expect a sharp acceleration in the number of computing engines packed on each chip. While today's personal computers have chips with the core circuitry of one to four microprocessors, Intel is laying the groundwork for the "many core" era -- products featuring tens to hundreds of electronic brains.
…
Medical images that take hours to process will become instantly available and interactive, speeding diagnoses, he said. Accurate speech recognition will replace typing input, and the basic interface software that controls the look and feel of computers will dramatically evolve to better interpret what users want. "It becomes immersive, intuitive and interactive," said Mr. Gelsinger, who is general manager of Intel's digital enterprise group.
…
A third prediction concerns an even broader vision of ubiquity for Intel chips: that computing and Internet capability will become available to every person on the planet, 24 hours a day, Mr. Gelsinger said.

In terms of education, the third prediction is particularly interesting. What constitutes a good education for a future in which almost everybody has good 24/7 access to the Internet (including the Web) as as aid to communication, storing information, processing information, and retrieving information? Rem,ember, students will have this access (if schools allow it).

[edit] A Laptop in Your Pocket

Machlis, Sharon (6/25/08). Coming soon: A laptop in your pocket. Computerworld. Retrieved 6/30/08: http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9103538. Quoting from the article that projects very rapid increase in the memory size and speed of cell telephones:

I wouldn't need a laptop if I had that kind of performance," said Cockcroft, formerly a distinguished engineer at Sun Microsystems Inc. who now works for Netflix Inc. and is a member of the Homebrew Mobile Club, which designs open-source mobile phones.
Instead, Cockcroft envisions an always-on device that can connect wirelessly (and seamlessly) to your car while you're driving, to a desktop monitor and keyboard when you're working, and to other devices such as a projection system at meetings or a 3-D portable display, no matter where you are.

[edit] Energy Use of Computers

The economist Print Edition (6/19/08). Computing sustainability: How computers can help to cut carbon emissions. Retrieved 8/27/08:

Quoting from the article:

When it comes to emissions, Information and Communication Technology is on a par with aviation. In 2007, according to the report, the world's electronic gear (including PCs, their peripherals, telecoms networks and devices, and the warehouses of corporate machines known as data centres) produced 830m tonnes of CO2—about 2% of total emissions from human activity. Even with technology that uses energy more sparingly, this is expected to grow to 1.4 billion tonnes by 2020. Although PCs, mobile phones and networks will account for most (56%) of this, emissions from data centres will grow the fastest.
…
Yet these numbers look much less frightening if, in the words of the study, ICT's “enabling effect” is taken into account. The study calculates that ICT could help to reduce emissions in other industries by 7.8 billion tonnes by 2020, or five times ICT's own footprint.

[edit] Artificial Intelligence

Gaskin, James E. (6/23/08). Whatever happened to artificial intelligence? The grand promise of intelligent machines underestimated the complexity of reproducing human cognition. Network World. Retrieved 6/24/08: http://www.networkworld.com/research/2008/062308-artificial-intelligence.html.

The article begins with some early forecasts of what people expected would come from work in AI. Quoting from the article:

In 1965, artificial intelligence innovator Herbert Simon said that "machines will be capable, within 20 years, of doing any work a man can do."
Two years later, MIT researcher Marvin Minsky predicted, "Within a generation ... the problem of creating 'artificial intelligence' will substantially be solved."

The article then goes on to give an analysis of the situation and a number of examples of success in AI. This is a quite active area of research and development. For example, quoting form the article:

Eric Horvitz, manager of the Adaptive Systems group at Microsoft, says "about a quarter of all Microsoft research is focused on AI efforts." Microsoft Research includes close to 1,000 Ph.D level researchers spread across eight campuses around the world, and a completely open research and publication environment. "It's a think tank, but not a captive one. We have an open publication model."
…
Artificial intelligence is not only still around, but in more places than ever. Rather than calling the tools artificial intelligence, manufacturers just call technologies developed by artificial intelligence research "tools." Just remember that the next time you perform a Web search, write an address on an envelope the Post Office sorts automatically, or ask Microsoft Word for a grammar check, artificial intelligence does the heavy lifting.

In terms of the future of education, think about what it will mean as voice input gets better and better, as search engines attune themselves better to the person doing the searching, as grammar checkers continue to improve, and so on.

[edit] FASTER Super Computers

Thibodeau, Patrick (6/9/08). All Hail RoadRunner's Petaflop Record -- Now, What About the Exaflop? Computerworld. Retrieved 6/13/08: http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9095279.

Quoting from the article:

Now that IBM has broken supercomputing's petaflop barrier with its Roadrunner system, capable of more than one thousand trillion (one quadrillion) sustained floating-point operations per second, attention among supercomputer developers turns next to a new performance goal: an exascale system.
An exaflop is a million trillion calculations per second, or a quintillion, and is a thousand times faster than a petaflop. It is the next obvious headline-making goal for the developers of the world's fastest supercomputers.
IBM announced this weekend that it had broken the petaflop barrier with a system at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, dubbed the Roadrunner. This system cost $100 million.
To get some sense of what's next in line in terms of compute performance, you need to turn back the clock 11 years to the development of Sandia National Laboratories' ASCI Red supercomputer. That system, which was as heralded in its day as the Roadrunner is now, was the first computer to break the teraflop barrier -- one trillion calculations per second. That system cost $55 million. Today, there are blade systems priced in the low six figures that are capable of speeds close to ASCI Red.

[edit] $100 Laptop Forecast

Talbot, David (5/21/08). $100 laptop gets redesigned: The new machine will have dual touch screens--and cheaper hardware.. Technology Review. Retrieved 5/22/08: http://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/20804/. Quoting from the article:

Tossing aside its iconic green-and-white laptop with its distinctive antennas, One Laptop per Child (OLPC) is pursuing a smaller 2.0 version, scheduled for release in 2010, in which dual touch screens will replace the keypad. The new version will have lower power consumption and a $75 price--a figure that OLPC claims is achievable despite the fact that the current model, the XO, sells for nearly double the sum mentioned in its "$100 laptop" moniker.
ith its hinged dual display, the new version could be used as a book, as a laptop with a touch-screen keypad, or as one continuous display when folded flat. "The display is going to get better and better, and it's key to the next generation," Nicholas Negroponte, founder of OLPC, said yesterday at a launch event at the MIT Media Lab.


[edit] Integrating Nanowire Devices Directly onto Silicon

Rutter, Michael (3/8/08). Scientists demonstrate method for integrating nanowire devices directly onto silicon. Retrieved 5/9/08: http://www.seas.harvard.edu/newsandevents/pressreleases/050808_Nano.html. Quoting from the article:

Applied scientists at Harvard University in collaboration with researchers from the German universities of Jena, Gottingen, and Bremen, have developed a new technique for fabricating nanowire photonic and electronic integrated circuits that may one day be suitable for high-volume commercial production.
…
While semiconductor nanowires---rods with an approximate diameter of one-thousandth the width of a human hair---can easily synthesized in large quantities using inexpensive chemical methods, reliable and controlled strategies for assembling them into functional circuits have posed a major challenge. By incorporating spin-on glass technology, used in Silicon integrated circuits manufacturing, and photolithography, transferring a circuit pattern onto a substrate with light, the team demonstrated a reproducible, high-volume, and low-cost fabrication method for integrating nanowire devices directly onto silicon.
…
"Such an advance could lead to the development of a completely new class of integrated circuits, such as large arrays of ultra-small nanoscale lasers that could be designed as high-density optical interconnects or be used for on-chip chemical sensing," said Ronning.

[edit] Forecast About Online Eduction in 2019

Trotter, Andrew (5/5/08). Online Education Cast as ‘Disruptive Innovation.’ Education Week. Retrieved 5/6/08: http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2008/05/07/36disrupt_ep.h27.html?levelId=1000&tmp=974929249&rale2=KQE5d7nM%2FXAYPsVRXwnFWYRqIIX2bhy1%2BKNA5buLAWHDN91Ub8rRtoxalec%2BmuQ2Xbz0cBDahX92%0AUEL6asgoqiVuWIedZOGDw6z8sUISHkBLZ5i0bpFRMEoy0evAPwtCnl6t7YmGv%2BdjJVY3kL1ti6w4%0AWdpxNZXwKv8o5rTZEIVvlfm3bjOtbZHFVg9GJwni6WUyKkf57f1IURWuqXks6VdtnMhkrENK1nkF%0AnIxDzKuo7XZ6XX3t1IVx9zQ8zkbluq%2FYEhd1uWiRyCP5rtNQlNUR5NpugIBfLeu7EyXv0UTViUpw%0ACnTvzsCxkTOgquviV22cyGSsQ0pvLHJPPrPqFNQcS%2FFv9rsgGn2sS9p9C2ViPADH6%2BFquOoRm%2F%2F5%0ACeGAUtB%2Bo4zXcfAlQboZGLjgN3CSHMVrdetkxwsE1KSUbNBg4fQt9e2TNwHNAxJeddpYRaQO0ydV%0Ak2r4Xr26AicuSrXX6tmRcM%2FlOwcCzIMsmdP1zOmMoeLuSIlhlvHJiuFlfH0cjKZCHoBGXIuT1q2f%0AiZ5ere2Jhr%2FnQvX6W9y6GsmSvmwwoMnpn%2FuZUXHwIEP4nl6t7YmGv%2BeQRnzDfKpnD85Pr88sOWfy%0AR%2FUcPgfxZXkBQ15iP5XE9PFCZXM%2FsUiwAS%2BI6TR3ZLyYEv3QnULbB%2BZ1pWEhmI9cS7w7eUsA0EyJ%0ArSLZ37THENEVHrr0sV6AfB7gWIsx6ZlxgxwjHRwor6DsnHTE74SFNulQdKdj472mAE5GC82ob1g%2B%0AkCV6dXqHh3V1sl%2BNFkt8SPY5khM4Yad%2BDdiHV7Cba2imPjvyDP4CsavBAtPTXNI45yMxO9Fbmhrg%0AAbum5No9ppOagX9af%2BNoMT0deGmVRHbFfxG210g%3D

This article discusses new book by Clayton Christen and Michael Horn. Christensen is known for his two previous books, The Innovator's Dilemma (1997) and The Innovator's Solution (2003). Quoting from the article:

Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns predicts that the growth in computer-based delivery of education will accelerate swiftly until, by 2019, half of all high school classes will be taught over the Internet.

[edit] Robots

Gaudin, Sharon (4/10/08). Has a Robot Revolution Started, or Is It Still 20 Years Off? Computerworld. Retrieved 4/17/08: http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9076358.

Quoting from the article:

Much like the then-fledgling PC industry in the late 1970s, the robotics industry is on the cusp of a revolution, contends the head of Microsoft Corp.'s robotics group.
Today's giant, budget-bending robots that are run by specialists in factories and on assembly floors are evolving into smaller, less-expensive and cuter machines that clean our carpets, entertain us and may someday take care of us as we grow old. The move is akin to the shift from the mainframe world of the 1970s to the personal computers that invaded our offices and homes over the past 20 to 25 years.
"The transition is starting," said Tandy Trower, general manager of Microsoft's 3-year-old robotics group. "It's like we're back in 1977 -- four years before the IBM PC came out. We were seeing very primitive but very useful machines that were foreshadowing what was to come. In many ways, they were like toys compared to what we have today. It's the same with robots now."

[edit] A Billion Times More Cost Effective

Kurzweil, Ray (4/13/08). Making the World A Billion Times Better. washingtonpost.com. Retrieved 4/17/08: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/11/AR2008041103326.html.

Quoting from the article:

MIT was so advanced in 1965 (the year I entered as a freshman) that it actually had a computer. Housed in its own building, it cost $11 million (in today's dollars) and was shared by all students and faculty. Four decades later, the computer in your cellphone is a million times smaller, a million times less expensive and a thousand times more powerful. That's a billion-fold increase in the amount of computation you can buy per dollar.
Yet as powerful as information technology is today, we will make another billion-fold increase in capability (for the same cost) over the next 25 years. That's because information technology builds on itself -- we are continually using the latest tools to create the next so they grow in capability at an exponential rate. This doesn't just mean snazzier cellphones. It means that change will rock every aspect of our world. The exponential growth in computing speed will unlock a solution to global warming, unmask the secret to longer life and solve myriad other worldly conundrums.

Ray Kurzweil is a world class futurist and computational thinker.


[edit] Hi-Tech Memory

BBC News (4/10/08). IBM races to make hi-tech memory. Retrieved 10/11/08: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7341031.stm.

This article discusses a new type of computer storage that might eventually replace both disk memory and flash memory. Quoting from the article:

If the expected data densities of the technology are realised, it could mean gadgets that have about 100 times more memory on board than is possible today. It would mean that a portable MP3 player could hold up to 500,000 songs.
Researchers for the computer giant are working on a technology known as racetrack memory which uses tiny magnetic boundaries to store data.
But the IBM team say racetrack memory is still seven to eight years away from commercial use.

[edit] Growing Carbon Dioxide Levels

NSF (4/2/08). Emission Reduction Assumptions for Carbon Dioxide Overly Optimistic, Study Says. National Science Foundation.retrieved 4/6/08: http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=111348&govDel=USNSF_51.

There is substantial and convincing evidence of increasing levels of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. This, in turn, is closely linked to global warming. These are huge problems. Decreasing the problems requires joint efforts of billions of people.

This, in turn, requires an informal and formal education system that helps people understand the problems, what they personally can be doing, what their governments can be doing and what other groups can be doing to help solve the problems.

Nowadays, accurately forecasting the results of the growing carbon dioxide problem and efforts to solve the problem are highly dependent on computer modeling and other aspects of Computation Thinking. We need an informed citizenry that understands use of computer modeling if representing, understanding and helping to solve large scale problems.

[edit] Human Computer Interface: Forecasts for 2020

Harper, Rodden, Rogers, and Sellen(ed.) (2008). Being Human: Human Computer Interaction in the Year 2020. Microsoft. Retrieved 4/2/08: http://research.microsoft.com/hci2020/download.html. Quoting from the report:

By 2020 the terms 'interface' and 'user' will be obsolete as computers merge ever closer with humans.
…


By bringing together some of the world’s leading thinkers on this topic, the hope was that their discussions, debates and scholarly commentaries would help define how HCI can deliver this ‘human face’ of computing. This report is the result of that forum.
It is not a record of the papers presented or discussions held, but a distillation, an attempt to capture the spirit of what concerned and excited the participants, looking ahead to 2020. It describes how the world around us has changed and continues to change, and how the design of computers is helping to create a new socio-digital landscape. It explains how the field of HCI can contribute to making this landscape one that reflects the values we hold as well as provide opportunities for the expression of diversity in those values. Being human is not simply a label; it is about a set of aspirations. Recognising those aspirations and striving to realise them can make the world we live in one to celebrate rather than fear.

[edit] Amish Education and More High-Tech Education

Cringely, Robert X. (3/28/08). Amish Paradise: There is no one correct response to the generational change that's coming thanks to Moore's Law. Retrieved 3/29/08: http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2008/pulpit_20080328_004611.html.

This is a follow-on of the Cringlely article listed a little further down on this page. Cringely is a high-tech person, participating fully in a high-tech world. In this article he uses the Amish people living in Ohio to help us better understand some deeply important ideas. Quopting the first three paragraphs of his article:

Last week's column on education clearly struck a vein. Whenever reader comments go over 200 I know I've hit upon something that probably deserves a book, that is assuming people actually read books. Well of course they do, as the Harry Potter series proves over and over. But Harry Potter isn't just a book, it is an immersive virtual reality that kids relate to as an even better video game, if a low tech one. And that leads us to this week's follow-on to last week's teaser: so what do we DO about our kids, our schools, and a seemingly inexorable generation change that still isn't clearly good OR bad, just different?
I grew up in the time warp that was Wayne County, Ohio, in the 1950s. Back then at least the majority of the population of Wayne County was Amish, which is to say they didn't go to public school (or school at all after age 14), didn't drive cars or use electricity except to keep the dairy milk cool, didn't vote, bought as little as possible, sold as much as possible, and barely paid taxes. Wayne County was NOT the middle of nowhere, however, since Rubbermaid was headquartered there as was the Wooster Brush Company (world's largest maker of paint brushes), and Smucker's jams and jellies were just across the Holmes County line where there, too, the Amish were the silent majority.
Very little has changed since I was a kid. As my friend Henry from down the road in Mansfield, Ohio, points out, the Amish have been on this same "new" educational path forever. Their ability to produce nearly 100 percent productive citizens (and very nice furniture) for about fifty bucks per student per year is especially galling to those government schools that spend $16K and turn out a lot of slackers.

Note that Robert Cringely is a pen name being used by a technology journalist Mark Stephens.

[edit] Laptops of the Future

Nadel, Brian (3/26/08). Hello, gorgeous! Meet the laptop you'll use in 2015. Computerworld. Retrieved 3/28/08: http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9070158&intsrc=hm_ts_head.

Quoting from the article:

"Between now and 2015, we expect to see a series of big changes that will redefine what a notebook is and what it looks like," said Mike Trainor, Intel Corp.'s evangelist for mobile products.
With crystal ball in hand, we talked to designers, engineers and marketers about how notebooks are likely to change over the next seven years.


[edit] Technology War Will Change Education

Cringely, Robert X. (3/21/08). War of the Worlds: The Human Side of Moore's Law. Retrieved 3/23/08: http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2008/pulpit_20080321_004574.html.

Quoting from the article:

The real power of Moore's Law lies in what the lady at the bank called "the miracle of compound interest," which has allowed personal computers to increase in performance a million fold over the past 30 years. There's a similar, if slower, effect that governs the rate at which individuals are empowered by the technology they use. Called Cringely's Nth Law of Computing (because I have forgotten for the moment what law I am up to, whether it is five or six), it says that waves of technological innovation take approximately 30 years - one human generation - to be completely absorbed by our culture. That's 30 years to become an overnight sensation, 30 years to finally settle into the form most useful to society, 30 years to change the game.

This short article is well worth reading by all who are interested in the future of education. Our schools are encountering a massive change agent. Being the conserving and conservative establishments that they are, they have been very slow to adjust to the rapidly increasing capabilities of Information and Communication Technology.

[edit] News from MIT

Orion, Egan (3/13/08). MIT names its top 10 emerging technologies for 2008: Research that's likely to pay off. Retrieved 3/15/08: http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/03/13/mit-names-top-emerging.

Quoting from the article:

THE ACADEMIC BRAHMINS at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have announced their selections for the top 10 emerging technologies of 2008.
The new technologies chosen by MIT's boffins this year are in disciplines ranging from physics, chemistry and biology to medicine, psychology and sociology, but several of them bear directly upon computer science and information technology -- and all of them use IT in their research and development.

[edit] Web 3.0

WATERS, Richard (3/4/08). World-wise web? Financial Times. Retrieved 4/5/08: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/4fba0434-e98c-11dc-8365-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1.

This article looks at possible futures of the Web. It focuses specifically on increasing linguistic "intelligence" of the Web. Web 3.0 will have a much better ability to "read" the content of websites, extract meaning, and link this meaning to that stored in other Websites.

Quoting from the article:

The basic building block for this new technology movement is something known as the "semantic web". This has become one of the most controversial, and misused, terms in the internet industry, conjuring up as it does a vague promise that meaning will somehow become part of the medium.
Yet to suggest that computers will be able to determine meaning raises a thorny question: whether meaning itself has an independent existence or is something that arises only in the mind of the person perceiving it. Terms such as "meaning" and "understanding" are so closely linked to human intelligence that it is hard to conceive of their corollaries in a computer-mediated world.

[edit] Ray Kurzweil

Sinclair, Brendan (2/23/0-8). Kurzweil: 'Exponential' change ahead for games, people. CNET News.com. Retrieved 2/29/08: http://www.news.com/Kurzweil-Exponential-change-ahead-for-games%2C-people/2100-1043_3-6231644.html?tag=item Quoting from the article:

As chips are progressively able to perform more calculations for less money, and in a package that's continually shrinking, Kurzweil told the GDC audience to look for the price-to-performance ratio of computers to improve a billionfold in the next 25 years. The devices will eventually become small enough, Kurzweil said, that scientists can create fake blood cell-size computers to perform the same functions of natural blood cells.
…
Kurzweil also believes that nanotechnology will solve the world's energy crisis within two decades. Solar panels are hard to manufacture, heavy, inefficient, and expensive, but Kurzweil said the advent of nanoengineered solar panels will change that.
Within five years, he believes that those high-tech solar panels will become less expensive per watt of energy produced than oil, taking away the financial incentive for people to burn through nonrenewable natural resources. Within 20 years, they will have largely replaced fossil fuels as the primary source of the world's energy.

These are very optimistic and encouraging forecasts. They picture a world that is making good progress in solving major problems of sustainability.

[edit] Super Super Computers

Sandia National Laboratory 2/21/08). One million trillion ‘flops’ per second targeted by new Institute for Advanced Architectures. Retrieved 2/26/08: http://www.sandia.gov/news/resources/releases/2008/exaflop.html. Quoting from the article:

An exaflop is a thousand times faster than a petaflop, itself a thousand times faster than a teraflop. Teraflop computers —the first was developed 10 years ago at Sandia — currently are the state of the art. They do trillions of calculations a second. Exaflop computers would perform a million trillion calculations per second.
…

“An exascale computer is essential to perform more accurate simulations that, in turn, support solutions for emerging science and engineering challenges in national defense, energy assurance, advanced materials, climate, and medicine,” says James Peery, director of computation, computers and math.

There are two educationally related ideas here. First, computer simulations are a very important way to attack a wide range of very important problems. Second, more powerful computers and better programming are steadily increasing the breadth and depth of problems that are being attacked through use of computer simulation. Such simulations are part of Computational Thinking.

[edit] Howard Rheingold: Way-new Collaboration

This is one of the 19-minute TED talks that provide excellent insights into where the world is headed. This specific video explores a future in which cooperation emerges as a major change agent in the world.

[edit] One Laptop Per Child

National Science Foundation (2/8/08). Leading Engineers and Scientists Identify Advances that Could Improve Quality of Life Around the World. Retrieved 2/21/08: http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=111158&govDel=USNSF_51.

This is a future-oriented report by a group of very smart engineers from throughout the world. They developed 14 "Grand Challenges" for engineering in the 21st century. These are might be classified as falling some place between a wish list and a set of forecasts. See the third of the three paragraphs quoted below. A video is available at http://www.engineeringchallenges.org/.

The panel, some of the most accomplished engineers and scientists of their generation, was established in 2006 and met several times to discuss and develop the list of challenges. Through an interactive Web site, the effort received worldwide input from prominent engineers and scientists, as well as from the general public, over a one-year period. The panel's conclusions were reviewed by more than 50 subject-matter experts.
The final choices fall into four themes that are essential for humanity to flourish -- sustainability, health, reducing vulnerability and joy of living. The committee did not attempt to include every important challenge, nor did it endorse particular approaches to meeting those selected. Rather than focusing on predictions or gee-whiz gadgets, the goal was to identify what needs to be done to help people and the planet thrive.
"We chose engineering challenges that we feel can, through creativity and commitment, be realistically met, most of them early in this century," said committee chair and former U.S. Secretary of Defense William J. Perry." Some can be, and should be, achieved as soon as possible."

Madgrigal, Alex (2/17/08). Negroponte: OLPC Machine Will Be $50 in 2011, Electronics Are "Obese." Wired Science. Retrieved 2/20/08: http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/02/negroponte-olpc.html. Quoting from the article:

Nicholas Negroponte, co-founder of both the MIT Media Lab and the non-profit One Laptop Per Child, delivered the last keynote speech of the American Academy for the Advancement of Sciences annual meeting tonight.
The talk focused on the groundbreaking work of the OLPC, which has managed to deliver thousands of $187 laptops to children in the developing world. Negroponte ran through a list of the organization's accomplishments, noting that they had half a million machines in their pipeline and that production had reached 110,000 units per month.
"The target has been $100… And we'll get there before the end of 2009," Negroponte said. "(The price) will get down to $50 in 2011."

The educational implications of this forecast are mind boggling. Think in terms of the idea that these machines are networked so they can communicate with each other and the Internet. Think in terms of more and more people developing educational materials that are made available free on the Web. Think of more and more resource materials such as books and periodicals being made available free on the Web. Think in terms of increasing amounts of computer-assisted learning materials and distance learning materials being made available free on the Web.

Finally, suppose that a typical machine has a life expectancy of three years (it could well be more). Then, in essence, it is going to be possible to make a major contribution to the educational of children throughout the world for an annual cost of under $20 per child per year!!!!!

[edit] Nano Robots

Lucas, Ward (2/13/08).Researchers looking at tiny robots for big changes.9News.com. Retrieved 2/17/08: http://www.9news.com/news/local/article.aspx?storyid=86378.Quoting from the article:

Dr. Rahmat Shoureshi, dean of the School of Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Denver, predicts a future where molecule-sized robots do everything from curing cancer to warning of imminent bridge collapses. He says the most immediate thing that will impact people is the development of radical new ways to cure disease.
"It's not that far from reality," Shoureshi said. "These tiny machines are already in the works here at DU and at other universities, not only in the U.S., but globally. It's going to take a while to get FDA approval, but in terms of the technology readiness we will have those machines ready in five years. When you look at the level of advances of technology that we see in university and government labs, then you realize it's close."

[edit] Moore's Law

Shah,Agam (2/13/08). NSF preparing for the demise of Moore's Law. InfoWorld. retrieved 2/17/08: http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/02/13/NSF-preparing-for-the-demise-of-Moores-Law_1.html.

Quoting from the article:

In anticipation of Moore's Law becoming irrelevant in the next 10 to 20 years, the National Science Foundation (NSF) wants funding for research that could lead to a replacement for current silicon technology.
The NSF last week requested $20 million from the U.S. government for fiscal 2009 to start the "Science and Engineering Beyond Moore's Law" effort, which would fund academic research on technologies, including carbon nanotubes, quantum computing, and massively multicore computers, that could improve and replace current transistor technology.
Moore's Law states that the number of transistors that can be placed on silicon, and its attendant computational capability, doubles every 18 months.

Fildes, Jonathon (11/13/07). Getting more from Moore's Law. BBC News. Retrieved 11/16/07: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7080772.stm. Quoting from the article:

Even Gordon Moore, the founder of Intel and the man that gave his name to the law that dictates the industry's progression, admits that it can only go on for a few more years. "Moore's Law should continue for at least another decade," he recently told the BBC News website. "That's about as far as I can see."
…
Professor Williams and his team are currently making prototype hybrid circuits—built of memristors and transistors—in a fabrication plant in North America "We want to keep the functional equivalent of Moore's Law going for many decades into the future," said Professor Williams.

Comment:

Today's microcomputers are roughly equivalent to the multi million dollar super computers of 20 years ago. A continuation of a Moore's Law rate of computer technology progress means that this statement will continue to hold true for a number of years to come. Students need an education that prepares them to live, work, play, and be responsible adult citizens in such a future.

[edit] Telephones That Translate Languages

Feb 07, 2008. Cell phones tackle reading, language barriers. New applications translate speech and read documents in real time. From eSchool News staff and wire service reports. Retrieved 2/7/08: http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/top-news/?i=52228;_hbguid=95c64d10-fea6-43b5-9aa8-fb5c99472112

Quoting from the article:

New technologies that enable cell phones to translate speech on the fly and read documents for the visually impaired could have important implications for both educators and students.
Late last year, NEC Corp. announced the development of an automatic Japanese-to-English speech translation tool for mobile phones sold in Japan. The software is aimed at Japanese travelers abroad, but versions for other languages could one day prove useful for educators and administrators in schools with large populations of English-language learners.

[edit] U.S. Internet Traffic

Swanson, Bret and Gilder, George (1/29/08).The impact of video and rich media on the internet – a ‘zettabyte’ by 2015? Technology and Democracy Project. Retrieved 2/5/08:http://www.discovery.org/a/4428.

This 24 page report estimates that Internet traffic in the U.S. will substantially during the enxt few years.

Quoting from the article:

The U.S. Internet of 2015 will be at least 50 times larger than it was in 2006. Internet growth at these levels will require a dramatic expansion of bandwidth, storage, and traffic management capabilities in core, edge, metro, and access networks. A recent Nemertes Research study estimates that these changes will entail a total new investment of some $137 billion in the worldwide Internet infrastructure by 2010. In the U.S., currently lagging Asia, the total new network investments will exceed $100 billion by 2012.
…
Today, the third phase is likewise being driven by a combination of advances in physical connectivity and software innovation. Today’s residential cable modems now average more than 5 megabits per second, or 100 times faster than the 56-kilobit modems that mostly reigned at the outset of phase two. Many cable MSOs now offer 10- or even 15-megabit services. Meanwhile, the nation’s telecom companies are building a new generation of fiber-optic networks to neighborhoods and homes that will reach tens of millions of consumers in the next few years. These networks will offer an additional factor of 20 capacity increase initially and are massively scalable for the future. On the software side, user-friendly self-publishing applications have given rise to millions of blogs and myriad social networking communities. Media players and Flash applications enable the easy creation and dissemination of rich visual content.

This estimate indicates that people will be making both more use of the Internet and heavier use. Storing, using, and retrieving video is a heavy use of Internet resources.


[edit] Petascale Computers

Tay, Liz )11/29/07). Petascale computers: the next supercomputing wave. iTnews. Retrieved 12/1/07: http://www.itnews.com.au/Feature/4081,petascale-computers-the-next-supercomputing-wave.aspx.

Quoting various paragraphs from the article:

The author of the world's first published collection on petascale techniques, David A. Bader, discusses petascale, exascale and the future of computing.
Now, academics have turned their attention to petascale computers that are said to be capable of performing one quadrillion – that's one million billion – operations per second. Running at nearly ten times the speed of today's fastest supercomputers, petascale computing is expected to open the doors to solving global challenges such as environmental sustainability, disease prevention, and disaster recovery.
In addition to theory and experiment, computation is often cited as the third pillar as a means for scientific discovery.
Computational science enables us to investigate phenomena where economics or constraints preclude experimentation, evaluate complex models and manage massive data volumes, model processes across interdisciplinary boundaries, and transform business and engineering practices.

This article forecasts faster and faster computers. It emphasizes the steadily increasing importance of such computers in doing science. Thus, it helps to lay foundations for making changes to our science education programs so that they better reflect computational science and computational thinking.

[edit] The World in 2030

Hammond, Ray (November 2007). The World in 2030. Retrieved 12/1/07: http://www.plasticseurope.org/Content/Default.asp?PageID=1318.

This is a published (not free) book. However, an extensive (1.6 MB) summary and some accompanying video is available free on the Website listed above. In addition, there is a short article available at http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2204325/futurologist-predicts-life-2030.

Quoting from the executive summary:

The speed of technological development is accelerating exponentially and, for this reason, by the year �2030 it will seem as if a whole century’s worth of progress has taken place in the first three decades of the 21st century.
Most of the world’s futurists, futurologists and computer scientists agree that at some point between 2030 and 2040 a milestone in technological development will be reached that will cause a rupture, a complete disjoint, in human evolution. Around this time we will build the first computer that is the intellectual equal of a human. Because of the accelerating, exponential nature of technological development (fueled entirely by faster and richer information flows) it follows that a short time after that we will be assisted by our super-intelligent computers to build a machine twice as clever as the most capable human. Shortly after will appear a machine four times as clever as a human, then ight times as clever, then sixteen times as clever, and so on.
This projected point in future human history is called ‘The Singularity’ by futurists and futurologists because once super-intelligent machines begin to take over the task of technological development it is expected that progress will be so rapid, and will take such unforeseeable directions, that it is pointless to speculate about life beyond a twenty-five year timeline.

This forecast of a singularity is talked about by many futurists. Ray Kurzweil is one such futurist, and has written a book on the topic. Our current educational system is giving very little thought on how to educate people for a life in which computers become smarter and smarter, and perhaps eventually are smarter than people.

[edit] Faster Chips Are Leaving Programmers in Their Dust

Markoff, John (12/17/07). Faster Chips Are Leaving Programmers in Their Dust. Retrieved 12/17/07: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/17/technology/17chip.html?_r=1&oref=slogin.

Here are two predictive quotations from the article:

The challenges have not dented the enthusiasm for the potential of the new parallel chips at Microsoft, where executives are betting that the arrival of manycore chips — processors with more than eight cores, possible as soon as 2010 — will transform the world of personal computing.


To accelerate its parallel computing efforts, Microsoft has hired some of the best minds in the field and has set up teams to explore approaches to rewriting the company’s software.
If it succeeds, the effort could begin to change consumer computing in roughly three years. The most aggressive of the Microsoft planners believe that the new software, designed to take advantage of microprocessors now being refined by companies like Intel and Advanced Micro Devices, could bring as much as a hundredfold computing speed-up in solving some problems.

[edit] 3-D Printers

Guth, Robert A. (12/12/07). How 3-D Printing Figures to Turn Web Worlds Real. The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 12/18/07: http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB119742129566522283-JN3ovlHqlrKtudZWU8ol62lpBDw_20081211.html?mod=rss_free

Quoting from the article:

The 3-D technology combines computer software and specialized "printers," which are copier-size machines that sculpt objects using a tool akin to a set of high-tech glue guns. Following a 3-D design on a computer, the gun nozzles squirt layers of material that harden into a porcelain-like object.
For 20 years, 3-D printers have primarily been used in labs and research groups at auto makers, aerospace companies and other design-intensive businesses. But during the next 12 months, 3-D printing will move closer to the mainstream, thanks to some entrepreneurs and consumer-focused companies like FigurePrints that are building businesses around the machines.

There is a very educational 5-minute video on 3-D printing included with the article. The forecasts are for continuing decrease in price and eventually large numbers of people having easy access to such printers. In terms of education, this will add another area in which students can actually do somethin and see the results.

[edit] Supercomputer on a Chip

IDG News Service (12/19/07). IBM thinks green with supercomputer-on-a-chip. itWorldCanada. Retrieved 12/19/07: http://www.itworldcanada.com/Pages/Docbase/ViewArticle.aspx?id=idgml-f2f9cd91-3c15-4860&Portal=6a487ccd-235d-418e-a956-22a6f29a03ca&sub=1502494

Quoting from the Website:

Supercomputers may soon be the same size as a laptop if IBM brings to market a recent research project in which pulses of light replace electricity to make data transfer between processor cores on a chip up to one-hundred times faster.
…
The improved data bandwidth and power efficiency of silicon nanophotonics will bring massive computing power to desks, Green said. "We'll be able to have hundreds or thousands of cores on a chip," Green said. Users will be able to render virtual worlds in real-time and have a better gaming experience, he said.

[edit] Increased Disk Storage

UC Riverside (12/20/07). The Library of Congress in Your Wrist Watch? UC Riverside research on nanolasers promise an explosion of memory capacity. Retrieved 1/2/08: http://www.newsroom.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/display.cgi?id=1739. Quoting from the article:

As reported in the latest issue of Technology Review, Khizroev is leading a team exploring lasers so tiny that they point to a future where a 10-terabit hard drive is only one-inch square.
That is 50 times the data density of today’s magnetic storage technology, a technology that has nearly reached its limit for continued miniaturization.
Khizroev said there are a number of challenges for getting the tiny disk drives to the market, including lubricating tiny parts and integrating the nanolaser with a recording head. Still, he insisted, the 10-terabit hard drive will be a near-term innovation, appearing in as little as two years.

Ten terabits is 1.25 terabytes, or roughly equivalent of 1.25 million books. While the Library of Congress is much larger than this, the combination of steady increases in disk storage and with improvements in connectivity suggest a significant change in education. Education needs to help store information in one's brain, help a person become facile at retrieving information, and help a person become facile at solving problems and accomplishing tasks using the stored information, brain power, and computer power. This is called computational thinking.

1.25 million books is a lot of data to store and manipulate. However, it is a small amount compared to the data sets in some ongoing projects. Quoting from a 12/10/07 Government Newsletter article The archiving tsunami:

Mike Wash, chief information officer at the Government Printing Office, expects GPO to have more than a petabyte of content available in five or 10 years. But to properly manage that data, the agency has to achieve a few critical transitions.

A petabyte is approximately equal to a billion books. With a recording density of 1.25 terabytes per square inch, this much storage would require 800 square inches of disk surface area. Of course, this would not consist of a single circular disk. However, the area of a circle that in a yard in diameter, is over a thousand square inches.

[edit] The Futurist Magazine Predictions

The Futurist. Top 10 Forecasts for 2008 and Beyond. Retrieved 1/12/08: http://www.wfs.org/Nov-Dec%20Files/TOPTEN.htm. Here is an example from the list:

10. More decisions will be made by nonhuman entities. Electronically enabled teams in networks, robots with artificial intelligence, and other noncarbon life-forms will make financial, health, educational, and even political decisions for us. Reason: Technologies are increasing the complexity of our lives and human workers' competency is not keeping pace well enough to avoid disasters due to human error. --Arnold Brown, "'Not with a Bang': Civilization's Accelerating Challenge," Sep-Oct 2007, p. 38

[edit] IBM Predictions

PCWorld (n.d.). BM Dishes Five Predictions for Future. retrieved 1/12/08: http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,140818/article.html. Here is an example of one of the IBM 5-year forecasts:

The company's crystal ball also revealed that the long-simmering trend toward "smart energy" devices will proliferate wildly. "Dishwashers, air conditioners, house lights, and more will be connected directly to a 'smart' electric grid, making it possible to turn them on and off using your cell phone or any Web browser," a company statement asserts.

[edit] Wall Street Journal Predictions

(1/28/08). Thinking About Tomorrow. The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 1/29/08: http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB120119369144313747-YIywHFZmhYwbeCw_KU_tuFAkbQQ_20080227.html?mod=tff_main_tff_top

The site includes a short video based on interviews of "ordinary" people. Not one directly mentioned the word education.

Quoting from the article:

Most of these changes will spring from a couple of rapidly improving technologies. Mobile devices will get smaller and more powerful, and will connect to the Internet through high-speed links. The result: People will be able to do anything on a hand-held that they can now do on a desktop computer.
In fact, they'll be able to do even more, as mobile gadgets increasingly come equipped with global-positioning-system gear that can track your every move. As you drive around, for instance, you might get reviews of nearby restaurants automatically delivered to a screen in your car -- maybe even projected onto the windshield.

[edit] Better Batteries

Computerworld (12/20/07). Researchers: Nanowires could boost battery life 10X Retrieved 1/12/08: http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=mobile_and_wireless&articleId=9053820&taxonomyId=15&intsrc=kc_top

Quoting from the article:

Researchers at Stanford University are using silicon nanowires that allow lithium-ion batteries to hold 10 times the charge they could before.
That means a laptop that now holds a four-hour charge could last for 40 hours using the new battery, according to Yi Cui, assistant professor of materials science and engineering at Stanford. "This is really a revolutionary result," said Cui, who has worked on the nanotech project for more than a year. "We're talking about a 10-times improvement. It's a big jump."

[edit] Reader Contributions Are Welcome

Readers are encouraged to contribute to this Web Page.

[edit] References

Anderson, Chris (6/23/08). The End of Theory: The Data Deluge Makes the Scientific Method Obsolete. Wired Magazine. Retrieved 8/21/08: http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/magazine/16-07/pb_theory. Quoting from the article:

"All models are wrong, but some are useful."
So proclaimed statistician George Box 30 years ago, and he was right. But what choice did we have? Only models, from cosmological equations to theories of human behavior, seemed to be able to consistently, if imperfectly, explain the world around us. Until now. Today companies like Google, which have grown up in an era of massively abundant data, don't have to settle for wrong models. Indeed, they don't have to settle for models at all.
Sixty years ago, digital computers made information readable. Twenty years ago, the Internet made it reachable. Ten years ago, the first search engine crawlers made it a single database. Now Google and like-minded companies are sifting through the most measured age in history, treating this massive corpus as a laboratory of the human condition. They are the children of the Petabyte Age.

Anthes, Gary (8/11/08). The new face of R&D: IBM, HP and Microsoft all talk about 'open innovation.' Is it a feel-good catchphrase or the R&D strategy of the future? Retrieved 8/23/08: Computerworld. http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=software&articleId=322517&taxonomyId=18&intsrc=kc_feat. Quoting from the article:

Is R&D going down the tubes in the U.S.?
Pundits have taken to bemoaning a retreat by U.S. industry from basic research. And indeed, it's easy to find research labs whose glory days have come and gone -- Bell Labs comes to mind. But consider this: IBM, Microsoft Corp. and Hewlett-Packard Co. collectively spend $17 billion annually on research and development.
That's right: $17 billion.
While much of that is for product development, hundreds of millions flow into areas like computational biology and nanotechnology, which may take years to bear fruit, if they ever do.

Apple (n.d.). Here are some videos giving some insight as to where Apple is headed.


EFRI (n.d.). Emerging Frontiers in Research and Innovation. Quoting from this NSF Website:

The Office of Emerging Frontiers in Research and Innovation (EFRI) has been established as a result of strategic planning and reorganization of NSF Engineering Directorate (ENG). Motivated by the vision of ENG to be the global leader in advancing the frontiers of fundamental engineering research, EFRI serves a critical role in helping ENG focus on important emerging areas in a timely manner. Each year, EFRI will recommend, prioritize, and fund interdisciplinary initiatives at the emerging frontier of engineering research and education. These investments represent transformative opportunities, potentially leading to: new research areas for NSF, ENG, and other agencies; new industries or capabilities that result in a leadership position for the country; and/or significant progress on a recognized national need or grand challenge.
The programs that EFRI funds are selected because of their possible importance in the future of engineering-oriented technology. Two new topic areas were announced on April 19, 2008:
  1. Cognitive Optimization and Prediction through Reverse Engineering
  2. Resilient and Sustainable Infrastructures
NSF Press Release (9/4/08). Climate Computer Modeling Heats Up. Retrieved 9/5/08: http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=112166&govDel=USNSF_51. Quoting from the article:
New "petascale" computer models depicting detailed climate dynamics, and building the foundation for the next generation of complex climate models, are in the offing.
Researchers at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science (RSMAS), the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colo., the Center for Ocean-Land-Atmospheric Studies (COLA) in Calverton, Md., and the University of California at Berkeley are using a $1.4 million award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to generate the new models.
The development of powerful supercomputers capable of analyzing decades of data in the blink of an eye marks a technological milestone, say the scientists, capable of bringing comprehensive changes to science, medicine, engineering, and businesses worldwide.
Petascale computers can make 1,000,000,000,000,000 calculations per second, a staggeringly high rate even when compared to supercomputers.

Vinge, Vernor (1993). The Coming Technological Singularity: How to Survive in the Post-Human Era. retrieved 8/28/08: http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/faculty/vinge/misc/singularity.html. Quoting the article:

Abstract: Within thirty years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly after, the human era will be ended. Is such progress avoidable? If not to be avoided, can events be guided so that we may survive? These questions are investigated. Some possible answers (and some further dangers) are presented.
What is the Singularity? The acceleration of technological progress has been the central feature of this century. I argue in this paper that we are on the edge of change comparable to the rise of human life on Earth. The precise cause of this change is the imminent creation by technology of entities with greater than human intelligence. There are several means by which science may achieve this breakthrough (and this is another reason for having confidence that the event will occur):
  • The development of computers that are "awake" and superhumanly intelligent. (To date, most controversy in the area of AI relates to whether we can create human equivalence in a machine. But if the answer is "yes, we can", then there is little doubt that beings more intelligent can be constructed shortly thereafter.
  • Large computer networks (and their associated users) may "wake up" as a superhumanly intelligent entity.
  • Computer/human interfaces may become so intimate that users may reasonably be considered superhumanly intelligent.
  • Biological science may find ways to improve upon the natural human intellect.
Retrieved from "http://iae-pedia.org/What_the_Future_is_Bringing_Us"
Personal tools