Important advance: IBM nanotube chip

[Robert Maxwell]

Nope.

[RAMA]

sojourner wrote:

---

^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.

Actually, the proof we have to go on is that price-performance improves exponentially, and that is likely to occur with a 6th paradigm. Innovation is increasing, as there are more and different products than ever before coming out of infotech and people are accepting them more quickly, the "early" adopter isn't disappearing but expanding. It's not just a small range of electronics hardware out there, it's portable devices with wifi and in the cloud, digital information and associated devices, google glasses and enhanced reality. AI will seep into everyday life more and more, we had Google, then Siri, Soundhound. Innovation is going out of the corporate labs and into hands of the motivated techno-developers, and even motivated non-experts. Biotech is a good example of this (which has no become an info-tech as well).

Its funny how the non-imaginative who believe everything is going to stay the same simply think expansion and knowledge will slow or stop, this has happened before in human history (as I have pointed out before) and of course, they were completely wrong.

[RAMA]

sojourner wrote:

---

THAT, is exactly the point.

Point again. thanks.

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?

I already answered that question, but this will describe it in detail:

http://www.accelerationwatch.com/history_brief.html

http://www.accelerationwatch.com/ima...uleofPhase.gif

Happy reading! it should be quite useful to you.

[sojourner]

Nice! That article was great! At being one sided and offering projection without proof. The author doesn't even try to go into problems/concerns. Doesn't that raise the slightest red flag for you?

Nor does it remotely explain why we haven't had a singularity in the field of transportation by now. Tell me, what happened to exponential advancement in that field?

And yeah, multiquote fail. You should work on that.

[publiusr]

This does my heart some good--analog computer chips
www.spacedaily.com/reports/NASA_Technologists_Test_Game_Changing_Data_Process ing_Technology_999.html

In the field of biotech we have this to look forward to.
http://www.space.com/18693-dna-legos-build-shuttle.html

Maybe something will come from this http://bigthink.com/ideafeed/has-the...kind-of-matter

[gturner]

The Analog Devices analog FFT chip might be based on this dissertation from Virginia Tech, which was pretty interesting.

[publiusr]

It also may help with AI to assist with fuzzy thinking. Just nice to see anything Analog still around.

[Crazy Eddie]

RAMA wrote:

---

I already answered that question, but this will describe it in detail:

http://www.accelerationwatch.com/history_brief.html

http://www.accelerationwatch.com/ima...uleofPhase.gif

Happy reading! it should be quite useful to you.

That doesn't answer the question at all. Why would exponential growth in information technology lead to a singularity while exponential growth in transportation technologies didn't?

Or DID it?

I just realized that RAMA/Kurtzweil is possibly right about the singularity, that it could be just around the corner, that it could revolutionize information technology in the most annoying way possible. Like a sentient version of Facebook or something.

[gturner]

So everyone will be Max Headroom?

[Admiral Buzzkill]

The whole "such rapid change we can't predict it" business is a red herring. We have never been good at predicting the future of technology (or much else). The unexpected always happens, and the "inevitable" so rarely does.

[gturner]

Yeah, we got microwave popcorn and phones that are actually "super" computers with two-way encrypted bust-mode frequency hopping radios (that fit in our pockets!), but no flying cars or floating cities.

[Admiral Buzzkill]

RAMA wrote:

---

While I hardly pin this down to simply Kurzweil's predictions, you're completely wrong in your statement. I believe he has 85% accuracy in his 100+ predictions, however, another 5-10% actually exist but not to the extent of his predictions. That's 95% accuracy...

Nope.

This is all such baseless nonsense that I'm shocked the History Channel isn't running documentaries about the Singularity fronted by Kurzweil five or six days a week (they need one evening for "Modern Marvels" features about Cheez Whiz). He's another Nostradamus.

[Crazy Eddie]

Significantly, it appears that about 90% of the predictions Kurzweil made before the turn of the century completely failed to pass. Virtually ALL of his 1990 predictions have lapsed, and the few things he got wrong with his second round picks were either delayed or only half-realized (he accurately predicted e-Readers, but wrongly predicted that they would replace books by the end of the decade).

His 2005 predictions aren't looking much better, but I'm sensing a pattern here and I think it's safe to say Kurzweil is still extrapolating technological possibilities while totally ignoring consumer/government/industrial forces that shape their development.

Maybe he needs a cynicism modifier? Accordingly, in the 2020s

• The decade in which Genetic research begins to experiment with advanced human gene therapy. By the 2030's, the FDA will begin to approve first round trials of gene therapy techniques meant to treat congenital birth defects such as spina bifida and Down Syndrome. Other techniques to treat acquired conditions -- allergies and asthsma, for example -- also begin to be researched as scientists search for ways to activate or deactivate genes involved in those conditions. The first clinical trials will begin to return meaningful results by 2035 or later, with "activation/deactivation" therapies showing results somewhat later.
• Computers continue to become smaller and increasingly available in everyday life. Various products begin to emerge with "high tech makeovers" as everything from lawnmowers to coffee mugs begin to appear for sale enhanced with programmable/digital/whatever computers that add new (sometimes unwanted) features to what used to be a perfectly useable device. Much to the ire of old people everywhere, it becomes slightly more difficult to find a vacuum cleaner that can still be operated with a simple on-off switch (newer models begin to have bag capacity sensors, dirt sensors, room-mapping software that can tell you if you missed a spot, etc). OTOH, conventional "touch and go" appliances continue to be available as a low-end market whose prices begin to fall precipitously.
• More and more appliances, toys and devices will be equipped with wifi and/or bluetooth interfaces with small apps designed to interface with services over the internet (for example: GI-Joe action figures with a Wi-Fi chip that can be used in tandem with some kind of minigame on the iPad). While many of these services will be innovative and groundbreaking, most of them will be kind of annoying and consumers will forget they exist once the novelty wears off. Which brings us to...
• High-quality broadband Internet access will become necessary almost everywhere, for almost everything, which will really piss off everyone who doesn't have access to it (the 40-something factory worker in Normal Illinois quietly grinds his teeth as his coffee mug informs him for the 47th time that it is unable to connect with the Nestle ChugSmart(TM) web service; having finally had enough, he takes his mug and blissfully zaps it in the microwave). Also, the increased importance of broadband internet and increased reliance in web based services for even the most mundane facets of life emboldens an already dickish telecom monpoly to introduce "Hyperband 5G connectivity!" which on closer inspection is just a re-branded 4G network at three times the price. Their only serious competitor counters with "The SubWave Quantum Network" which is actually just a re-branded 3G network at two and a half times the price.
• Eyeglasses that produce 3D images for the wearer will be sold with 3D TVs, which everyone thinks is a really great idea. The relative lack of movies worth watching in 3D -- partly owed to the fact that highly expensive and visually spectacular scifi/fantasy blockbusters only comprise about 3% of all available DVD titles -- causes the bottom to fall out of the market once the novelty wears off.
• The built-in computers in the 3D glasses become slightly more powerful as TV manufacturers try to save 3D by adding new features. While it won't save 3D-TV, some engineers eventually find a way to parlay this into wearable interface systems which, ten to fifteen years down the road, become popular in high-priced sunglasses and some prescription eyeglasses; the interfaces will be able connect with smartphones, computers, MP3 players and even cars. The startups that first come up with this idea will mostly go bankrupt or will get absorbed into larger companies; one of those acquisitions will launch a bastardized version as a national brand which will eventually gain more widespread use.
• Virtual assistants like Siri become more and more versatile as progressive upgrades increase their speech recognition even in noisy conditions and they become better able to predict the nature of user requests. Foreign language versions of those assistants also become more feasible.
• Smarter virtual assistants allow users to become more comfortable using voice interface to compose and receive text messages. Simulated/custom voices (assigned to specific people, often meant to be humorous or mean-spirited) may also be employed so that Siri (or Siri-like apps) can read back text messages in funny voices (sort of like those weird teddy bear/superhero argument videos). This, too, becomes a complete and utter nuisance to old people everywhere as they begin to receive cryptic and incomprehensible messages from their teenaged children in bizzare computer-generated voices. The backlash becomes so strong that it inspires at least one major motion picture.
• Ultra-thin transparent LCD screens become available as window treatments and aggressively marketed by an unholy alliance of advertisers and realtors, both as a safety feature and as a convenient timesaver as a person can look out their bedroom window and have that window display the daily weather report, news articles, fark headlines or rss feeds. The initial expense of the smart windows -- and the fact that very few people actually NEED to replace their old windows except once every couple of decades -- means this feature appears most often in newer buildings, offices and hotels. IOW, exactly the kinds of places where advertisers are unlikely to be sued for violation of privacy. Within five years, the advertisers begin a gradual escalation of targeted advertising that becomes increasingly invasive and tasteless to the point that some people impotently complain that their "windows" are so cluttered with popups that they can't even tell what time of day it is.

[gturner]

* Eyeglasses that produce 3D images for the wearer

Aren't all eyeglasses supposed to do that? ^_^

A few years ago I was discussing speakers with Jim Thiel at Thiel Audio and he argued that speakers were better than headphones because speakers provide a natural 3-D effect as you turn your head. I said it would be interesting to reproduce the effect with a set of headphones that include a gyro to detect your head movements and adjust the audio signal to the headphones (phase, delay, amplitude, and perhaps frequency spectrum) to mimic what you'd hear if you were listening to speakers, or sitting at a concert.

The other day I was talking to his daughter and realized that you don't need a gyro or any new circuitry if you're listening in front of a PC with a webcam, because the webcam can track your face and calculate head position, and the audio would be adjusted with a plug-in in the music player. Someone is probably already doing it, at least with respect to enhancing the virtual world of 3-D goggles.