Important advance: IBM nanotube chip

Discussion in 'Science and Technology' started by RAMA, Nov 1, 2012.

  1. RAMA

    RAMA Admiral Admiral

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    A predicted tech that will continue to accelerate Moore's law, IBM has placed and tested 10,000 nanotubes on one chip. The fragility of such material has been a problem, and it's important to test it to make sure a minimal number of tubes are damaged for them to work.

    http://www.nature.com/nnano/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/nnano.2012.189.html

    http://www.kurzweilai.net/carbon-nanotubes-to-replace-silicon-ibm

    Other breakthroughs abound:

    http://www.kurzweilai.net/strengthening-fragile-forests-of-carbon-nanotubes
     
  2. sojourner

    sojourner Admiral In Memoriam

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    Yep, science marches on, like it always has.
     
  3. Admiral Buzzkill

    Admiral Buzzkill Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    They'll figure out a new gadget to play music back on, for sure.

    And still no one has any idea how to download a "mind" into a machine. None.
     
  4. gturner

    gturner Admiral

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    No, this is a great leap backwards. One of the greatest advances we made was going to solid-state electronics, but nano-tubes aren't solid, they're hollow. They're also tubes.

    So now when your iPhone gets flaky, a service technician at the Apple store will shake it around and say, "Well, don't really know. I reckon one of the tubes burnt out."

    (In the future we'll also talk like cowboys on Firefly.)
     
  5. gturner

    gturner Admiral

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    Perhaps we should ask the underpants gnomes.
     
  6. Admiral Buzzkill

    Admiral Buzzkill Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    What's their leader's name, Kurz-something? :lol:
     
  7. RAMA

    RAMA Admiral Admiral

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    Yes, exponentially.
     
  8. RAMA

    RAMA Admiral Admiral

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    Which is of course, not to say that there are many technologies and research heading in that direction. Yes, it doesn't exist in 2012 if that's what you mean, but again, you are tedious.

    Edit: I absolutely loooove this quote from Dennis and I'll be posting it at SIngularity discussions on other forums/discussions I have. It absolutely defines the unthinking acceptance of linear perception most of us have. Different-but-the-same...yeah we'll have better music players....classic.

    RAMA
     
    Last edited: Nov 12, 2012
  9. sojourner

    sojourner Admiral In Memoriam

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    Tediously right.
     
  10. RAMA

    RAMA Admiral Admiral

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    Considering the advances touch every aspect of human existence and endeavors, I don't think we talk about it nearly enough.:) Of course that is changing.

    Frankly, talking about flying cars and the different-but-the-same mentality often in evidence is really the tedious part. The implications I'm talking about are much more far reaching and important.

    RAMA
     
  11. sojourner

    sojourner Admiral In Memoriam

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    And much more fictional.
     
  12. RAMA

    RAMA Admiral Admiral

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    Considering the facts we have now to make such speculations, not really.

    RAMA
     
  13. Admiral Buzzkill

    Admiral Buzzkill Fleet Admiral Admiral

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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. :lol:
     
  14. Robert Maxwell

    Robert Maxwell memelord Premium Member

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    Let us all remember that Ray Kurzweil's predictions are frequently far off the mark, especially when he extrapolates more than a handful of years into the future. He is occasionally right, but wrong much more often. Given how poorly he and his followers have managed to speculate even 10 years into the future, one wonders how their claims stretching 50 or 100 years into the future could have even the slightest shred of credibility.

    Technology will certainly advance, as it always does, but not rigidly adhere to the rate and direction Singularitans promote.
     
  15. RAMA

    RAMA Admiral Admiral

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    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....no one else comes close.

    Yes, he has actually defended his predictions directly to several crtics publically and quite frankly he came out on top. Even his critics admit he has high accuracy though.

    The thread of info technologies is so intertwined no no one propoenet of the Singularity can claim to being what spurs it on.
     
  16. RAMA

    RAMA Admiral Admiral

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    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
     
  17. sojourner

    sojourner Admiral In Memoriam

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

    publiusr Admiral Admiral

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  19. RAMA

    RAMA Admiral Admiral

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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.
     
  20. RAMA

    RAMA Admiral Admiral

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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