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THE FUTURE OF TECHNOLOGY
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Close your eyes and think of information technology. You might picture your pc crashing yet again, and recall that your teenager was supposed to fix it. That leads you to the 12-year-old hacker who broke into a bank’s computer system the other day, which brings to mind the whizz-kids in a garage inventing the next big thing that will turn them into the youngest billionaires ever.
In it, youth seems to spring eternal. But think again: the real star of the high-tech industry is in fact a grey-haired septuagenarian. Back in 1965, Gordon Moore, co-founder of Intel, the world’s biggest chipmaker, came up with probably the most famous prediction in it: that the number of transistors which could be put on a single computer chip would double every 18 months. (What Mr Moore actually predicted was that the figure would double every year, later correcting his forecast to every two years, the average of which has come to be stated as his “law”.)
This forecast, which implies a similar increase in processing power and reduction in price, has proved broadly accurate: between 1971 and 2001, transistor density has doubled every 1.96 years (see Chart 1.1). Yet this pace of development is not dictated by any law of physics. Instead, it has turned out to be the industry’s natural rhythm, and has become a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts. it firms and their customers wanted the prediction to come true and were willing to put up the money to make it happen.
Tom Standag - Personal Name
1st Edtion
1 86197 971 1
NONE
THE FUTURE OF TECHNOLOGY
Information Technology
English
Profile Books Ltd
2005
Britian
1-369
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