A College Essay Luke 7th Janurary 2008

In a world where computer processors double in speed every 18 months, where 1997’s iMac is now slower then the a 2007 iPhone, it becomes important to take a moment and consider the changes portable and mobile technology has brought about in the world around us, and what further provocations it might have on our future.

The technology of 1969 brought Applo 11’s three crewmen to the moon and back, their computer had 74kb of memory, currently Eircom broadband can reach 200kb download speeds per second, that’s 2 NASA supercomputers (circa 1969) with room to breath! The world has gone through a digital revolution, but increasingly this new era is being sub-divided into 3 stages of development.

The first was of course the dawn of the computer; Originally limited to huge room size machines used by large companies and governments. This was known as Mainframe computing. Dozens of specially trained technicians were required to operate these computers and interpret their output. Throughout the late 70’s and 80’s a silent revolution was taking place. IBM famously remarked to Steve Wosniak Apple co-founder in 1976 ...

They were about to find out.

Companies like Apple & Microsoft brought out revolutionary operating systems, designed so that ordinary people could use them, for tasks outside accounts, banking and meteorology. Computers were now small enough to place on a desk, but still as expensive as a small car. As prices came down and technology got cheaper to manufacture, more and more homes could afford a home computer; no longer were these smaller devices the exclusive privilege of the rich. Long gone was the mentality that all computers took up vast rooms of turning tapes and printer interfaces used by the likes of IBM and NASA.

The Internet brought about the second stage of the digital revolution. Now people could connect their computers to a vast and seemingly infinite network, originally devised as a means to share knowledge amongst academics. The Internet slowly began to evolve, search engines emerged along with Amazon, eBay, blogger, youtube, and myspace - all are innovators and milestones for web development. They took advantage of the technology around them to create something that would have been impossible at any other time in history. These websites are now household names; they’ve proved so popular they’ve changed the face of the Internet. The term ‘web 2.0’ has since been coined to describe this new era of user generated content.

The important lesson to remember is that all these emerging platforms of communication, these websites of user-generated content rely on evolution of dozens of seemingly unrelated technologies. Youtube would not be possible if hard drives and servers had not grown in storage capacity exponentially, and decreased in price too. One of the first hard drives released into the consumer market was 10mb and sold for $3398, now you can buy a terabyte of storage for about 500 euro. But all that storage would be useless if internet bandwidth had not increased from traditional dial-up speeds to broadband affording casual home users the ability to upload and download large content quickly and easily. It’s this unforeseen development of separate technologies combined in unison; that brings about vast change in the digital environment.

The 3rd stage of the digital revolution shall be known as the era of ubiquitous computing1. It forecasts that in the next 10 years computers will be so plentiful, so cheap and so small – they’ll be everywhere, and virtually unseen.

New platforms to access our media and content are already emerging, coupled with the arrival of Wifi, soon to be replaced by Wimax which yields faster wireless speeds then current broadband. People now have the equivalent of a midrange personal computer in their pocket, an ultra-mobile personal computer or UMPC.

The new challenges companies face is shrinking a desktop PC into the form factor of a wallet or mobile phone. This has lead to unexpected and tantalizing developments from companies such as Apple with their one unique iPhone product. If indeed the iPod revolutionized the music industry perhaps the iPhone will do the same for communications and UMPC’s.

Old technologies like hard drives are increasingly being dropped in favor of more reliable more durable solid-state memory, which boasts no moving parts. The iPod and iPhone have already begun to do so, indeed the most reported fault with the iPod has been hard drive failure. Intel have developed new storage chips the size of a fingernail the Z-P140 PATA.2 The company states they could potentially be pushed from their current 4gb to 16gb in the next year, so when doubled up within a device large storage within a small footprint is increasingly becoming a reality.

The possibilities of UMPC’s seem limitless. For the purposes of a simple exploration, hypothetical projections of the future of UMPC’s will be encapsulated into a non-existent device – simply called ‘It’.

It is wirelessly connected to the Internet, yet It yields the same basic functions as your current computer. It combines current and emerging technologies, meeting the needs of an increasingly digital society. As society adapts to the potential of having a supercomputer by today’s standards in your pocket, it’s easy to imagine that the first level of development will be much like the most recent stage of the digital revolution; Web 2.0. After the Internet took off in ways beyond our wildest predictions, uses & applications for the technology arose far surpassing the nets original intended uses. UMPC’s most likely will follow the same pattern. The realm of science fiction will at that point become science-fact.

The Future of Wireless is faster then a Farari on crack

As bandwidth at home and on wireless gets faster and faster, soon transferring huge files what ever the media type will be as fast and easy as sending a text message. Accessing remote date be it on a future HD equivalent of youtube or your home PC (which will be essentially be a server to your portables and house hold appliances) – will be easier and simpler then ever before. No longer will you be limited by the physical storage of your portable device or by slow up and down speeds of the Internet. Your device will allow you to call home at the touch of a button. Providing you with anything and everything you have saved at home, be it a movie, a photo album, an email or a mountain of data for a project. The music industry is slowly removing DRM copy protection from its online stores, 3 of the 4 major labels have already done so3, anylists speculate that Movie Studios will transfer more of their back catalogues online for download – they too will remove copy protection in an attempt to boost sales. This bodes well for a future of easily purchased content for portable devices; the iPhone already offers 1 click downloads from the iTunes store. Once the bandwidth surpasses file sizes by a sufficient amount, and free wireless becomes as plentiful and free as radio, expect to see streaming as a viable alternative to carrying around your files on your portable.

Some speculate that It will truly end the need for physical money; people will be able to wirelessly pay for anything anywhere at anytime, be it a restaurant, a bill, parking your car, shopping online or in a department store. Governments might even put pressure on manufacturers to utilize It as foolproof identification – like a passport, visa or age card. At that point It would grant you access to your office, your car or your home, indeed anywhere you have pre-determined and approved access. It could even provide secondary layers of security such as voice, fingerprint, retinal or password recondition. It could be the only thing you need take with you in the morning, you won’t even need your keys. 4

What about power? Currently devices yield up to 5 or 6 hours of battery life on heavy usage (internet browsing, listening or watching media content) but more power efficient processors, LED screens and the absence of Hard drives and moving parts will increase this. Exciting and revolutionary new developments with transistor-based batteries are already at the prototype stage. These batteries forgo the traditional cell based charge for a radically more efficient transistor & circuit based powering system. Essentially as soon as you plug in – the device charges 100%. When coupled with the promises of Wi-Tricity, which focuses energy through radio waves much like Wi-fi, we can expect the possibility of Wireless charging hotspots in the near future.

Imagine, you’re driving to work; It sits on your dashboard navigating you through the traffic via GPS all whilst playing your favorite music. A call comes through, It mutes the music and connects you, midway through your conversation It beeps, you realize you forgot to charge It since you got back from the country, but not to worry, by fluke your drive through a wi-tricity hotspot and It instantly charges to full capacity – you’ll have GPS navigating you to where you’re going to the tune of Mozart for the foreseeable future!

But extrapolate further ahead, much like how hands free phone kits are becoming increasingly accepted – and practically unnoticeable – the future of peripherals for It by today’s standards will look like something out of Startreck. Augmented reality is a new term – and an actuality. Created to encompass a new way of blending reality with the virtual world of the net, be that device a Head’s up display in your car, or a smaller translucent gadget you wear – like a futuristic big brother of a hands free kit or even just projected onto a regular pair of glances. Augmented reality would truly combine all of these separate technologies into a interface seamlessly blended with reality.

Products in shops could be explored, examined and compared online in a simple pull up feature right on your glances. Engineers could see below streets, into airplane and building superstructures, their It would project and overlay real-time 3D pipes, wires, schematics and blue prints on request; allowing for more efficient and cost effective construction work. Now think of the same technology being applied to medicine & surgery.

The Future of ultra mobile personal computers is an exciting one, but how will people adapt to an urban environment where the only people not online 24-7 are the homeless? A constantly charged multipurpose supercomputer that serves as the only thing you need take with you won’t afford many people with the opportunity to just ‘Switch off’ – but maybe that’s a good thing?

Devices like this will allow more of us to work from home, or just work on the move, computers like this may bring about a decrease in office development. They may bring mass education and new economic possibilities to the developing world like a successor to the one laptop per child initiative, but one things for sure, It will change all our lives forever.

Bibliography

UMPC resource website
http://umpc.com/

Video exploring future of UMPC’s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_FS2TiK3AI

Catalogue of Tomorrow Edited by Andrew Zolli 2003 edition
IS Book number 0-7897-2810-9

TED.com - Presentations on Ideas worth spreading
They have a youtube channel at TEDtalksDirector