Important advance: IBM nanotube chip

[RAMA]

My Name Is Legion wrote:

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Yes, really.

It was ten or eleven years ago that a lot of us came to TrekBBS, mainly because of a new series called Enterprise.

A lot of us will still be around in another ten years, pointing out all the silly "Singularity" predictions that never came to pass and are no closer.

So far I've had my fun on the technology forum showing how the technologies are all coming to fruition, and at a quickening pace (as predicted). It's not looking too good for the linear thinkers so far.

Since 2002 I could show you all the technological changes even in day to day life, and it would be striking, yet still not as pronounced as in the next 10 years. I'm happy to say I noticed it as it was happening.

RAMA

[sojourner]

Wow, You really did just wake up one day and think "everything's suddenly so new and different!".

[publiusr]

I thought this interesting
http://nextbigfuture.com/2012/11/art...been-made.html

Now here is a question. Since this is DNA based, what is the likely hood of crafting life that feeds on radio waves instead of light? Or that communicate with radio waves with an electric eel organ and antennas?

[RAMA]

sojourner wrote:

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Wow, You really did just wake up one day and think "everything's suddenly so new and different!".

No, although I have had relevatory moments...possibly 4 or 5 of them. My biggest in general was when my accepted idea (which I tried to ignore for 10+ years) of an inevitable computational march to AI superseding man was changed to one where human-derived AI superseding machine AI seemed more possible. Now I'm only 50% certain of it. My biggest specific one was realizing the dematerialized hardware and sheer power of my smartphone one day as opposed to what I had in the 70s and 80s. It was one of those moments you could feel your synapses firing. Another related one was when I had the first physical MP3 player at my gym 2 years before the Ipod, but in 1999 it held 17-20 songs., the new smartphone did away with the player hardware and had storage for 1000s and with a comparative increase in capability in the interface software. In my everyday nomenclature, I kept thinking/saying: " this wasn't possible 3-5 years ago with the same item", and I've been following technology since I was very young. I realized the time between noticing them was compressing. Recently I noted several things that couldn't even be done a year ago.

I recall many years ago responding to a thread here where I agreed the pace of technology would continue as it was, and we wouldn't have most of the tech of Star Trek, but it was a view devoid of the proper frame of reference, one that took things at face value, the one that Dennis thinks of when he sees an 8-track player, turn into a tape player, then CD, then finally digital media. These are in fact the result of exponential growth, the rate of change took 30 years. If Dennis could compare the previous 30, where he was alive only part of the time, he'd see that 30 years had much more change than the time before. The next 10 will have more change than the last 30 that he takes for granted. Sure the next music player will be more advanced, but it also ignores the context of where it came from...infotech on a wide front.

[RAMA]

publiusr wrote:

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I thought this interesting
http://nextbigfuture.com/2012/11/art...been-made.html

Now here is a question. Since this is DNA based, what is the likely hood of crafting life that feeds on radio waves instead of light? Or that communicate with radio waves with an electric eel organ and antennas?

I think its very possible, and it's likely if there are in fact intelligent species out there, and they tend to be mechanical in nature both for computational reasons and hardiness, then they may very well love radio waves given off in the natural world. Such species can be seen in Gregory Benford's work.



RAMA

[sojourner]

RAMA wrote:

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No, although I have had relevatory moments...possibly 4 or 5 of them. My biggest in general was when my accepted idea (which I tried to ignore for 10+ years) of an inevitable computational march to AI superseding man was changed to one where human-derived AI superseding machine AI seemed more possible. Now I'm only 50% certain of it. My biggest specific one was realizing the dematerialized hardware and sheer power of my smartphone one day as opposed to what I had in the 70s and 80s. It was one of those moments you could feel your synapses firing. Another related one was when I had the first physical MP3 player at my gym 2 years before the Ipod, but in 1999 it held 17-20 songs., the new smartphone did away with the player hardware and had storage for 1000s and with a comparative increase in capability in the interface software. In my everyday nomenclature, I kept thinking/saying: " this wasn't possible 3-5 years ago with the same item", and I've been following technology since I was very young. I realized the time between noticing them was compressing. Recently I noted several things that couldn't even be done a year ago.

I recall many years ago responding to a thread here where I agreed the pace of technology would continue as it was, and we wouldn't have most of the tech of Star Trek, but it was a view devoid of the proper frame of reference, one that took things at face value, the one that Dennis thinks of when he sees an 8-track player, turn into a tape player, then CD, then finally digital media. These are in fact the result of exponential growth, the rate of change took 30 years. If Dennis could compare the previous 30, where he was alive only part of the time, he'd see that 30 years had much more change than the time before. The next 10 will have more change than the last 30 that he takes for granted. Sure the next music player will be more advanced, but it also ignores the context of where it came from...infotech on a wide front.

^And yet, you could apply the same exact growth observation to personal transportation 100 years ago. By your logic we should have had personal teleporters around 1960.

Still working on that multiqoute function I see.

[publiusr]

RAMA wrote:

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I think its very possible, and it's likely if there are in fact intelligent species out there, and they tend to be mechanical in nature both for computational reasons and hardiness, then they may very well love radio waves given off in the natural world. Such species can be seen in Gregory Benford's work.

RAMA

More along that line
http://cosmoquest.org/forum/showthre...-living-matter

http://up-ship.com/blog/?p=12804

[RAMA]

sojourner wrote:

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^And yet, you could apply the same exact growth observation to personal transportation 100 years ago. By your logic we should have had personal teleporters around 1960.

Still working on that multiqoute function I see.

You and I both know those aren't a Singulairty, they's a different designation for them, and they certainly don't have the capability of creating such rapid change we can't predict it..that hasn't happened yet. As you know, the present technologies are built on the older ones, so the growth had to happen first to reach the point we're at now.

[sojourner]

RAMA wrote:

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You and I both know those aren't a Singularity,

THAT, is exactly the point.

they's a different designation for them, and they certainly don't have the capability of creating such rapid change we can't predict it.

Point again. thanks.

As you know, the present technologies are built on the older ones, so the growth had to happen first to reach the point we're at now.

This has to be the most oblivious statement I have seen from you yet. Can you explain why transportation technology, with it's rapid development last century, did not lead to a transportation singularity? What happened to exponential growth? Explain why for info-tech, but not for transportation?

[AlDaja]

Nice, this opens the door for storage devices able to hold vast amounts of information. 20-years from now this technology will be seen as the grandfather of nano-processors.

[Deks]

sojourner wrote:

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This has to be the most oblivious statement I have seen from you yet. Can you explain why transportation technology, with it's rapid development last century, did not lead to a transportation singularity? What happened to exponential growth? Explain why for info-tech, but not for transportation?

Simple answer: money/cost.

From a resource/technological point of view, the world could have been connected by early 1980's with mag-lev trains (for transcontinental and city to city trips with vacuumed versions reaching 6500 km/h - and for inter-city trips with standard mag-lev trains reaching 450km/h).
More than enough resources and technology to do it had construction began in 1974 (using robotic automation and mechanization in general wherever possible).

The monetary system however is effectively keeping us in the past for as long as possible (unless new technology is deemed 'cost efficient' and profitable).

Mag-lev based technology would be 100x more energy efficient, and requires minimal (if any) maintenance.

But, even in the monetary system, without using the best of what technology has to offer from the get go, it WILL reach a stage where 'new' (actually 'old') technology is becoming cheaper at a faster pace, therefore, changes will be coming at an accelerated level.

Oh and, carbon nanotubes were patented for usage in electronics along with methods of production and implementation in 1992 (same thing was done with synthetic diamonds in 1996).
The only reason we are seeing progress in this area only NOW, is because inefficient and outdated materials like silicon (along with means of production) are unable to cope with large die shrinks anymore (taking into consideration that heat is increasingly becoming an issue when you begin stuffing more and more transistors onto a smaller manuf. process (this is why Ivy Bridge is experiencing heat problems and overclocks worse than Sandy Bridge -among other things).

Early prototype hybrid computer chips using carbon nanotubes could have been produced in 1993 and improve on it from there (at least by 1996 a mass market version could have been put out) - but Capitalism prefers giving you 'cheap' and 'cost efficient' first and foremost (with long term profits in mind - which is why every 24 months you see 'new' cpu's, even though they are just a rehash of what came before based on inefficient materials) instead of 'the best of what a given material is capable of and technologically possible with highest efficiency in mind from the get go'.

But as I said, even under this socio-economic system, technological automation is implemented at a relatively decent pace (well, relative to the $$$ cost) along with new technology, leading to that much faster changes.

[sojourner]

^And in the end, info tech will run into the same issues, money/cost will slow down innovation. Especially in terms of actual product as opposed to research.

[publiusr]

What I would really like to see is a truly binary operating system. Perhaps a savant who can think in binary could write a code so tight, it either works or there is a piece of hardware program.

But it would make solving for Fermat look easy.

[Robert Maxwell]

publiusr wrote:

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What I would really like to see is a truly binary operating system. Perhaps a savant who can think in binary could write a code so tight, it either works or there is a piece of hardware program.

But it would make solving for Fermat look easy.

There is no good reason to do this.

[publiusr]

I would think that programs written thusly would be more hack resistant.