Tooter Turtle would always ask to be something he wasn’t, and the growth of the computer world is just like Tooter's world: always something we can’t have.
In the wayback machine some 10 years ago, we all said our 20 GB hard drives were enough storage to last forever. We saw the processors finally hit 1 Ghz in 2000 and then 64 Bit in 2002, which was a huge step forward. The operating systems were Windows 2000 for many, and the new XP which was released late in 2001.
The amazing thing is while these events in the early 2000s were a turning point, nothing really has happened in the industry other than incremental steps. Bigger drives, faster processors and new OS (Operating Systems) have arrived, but they are not the killer systems we have been waiting for. Sure, we can run things faster on our Windows and Macs, but are they that much better than 10 years ago? I have been waiting for the Dick Tracy watch that does everything, or the Star Trek communicator on the lapel, or how about that Tricorder filled with everything.
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The issue is we haven’t had a quantum leap yet in the computer industry, which means it is just around the corner. Some in the industry think it already arrived with the smartphone, and some with the new tablets in use already. These gadgets are just the same stuff, just smaller. Not real leaps forward in technology now, are they?
So I sit in the office dreaming of the real next technology breakthrough, thinking, “What are those geeks at MIT, Stanford, Intel, AMD and others working on?” And then it occurs to me: the next real breakthrough will more likely come from a smaller group. These smaller groups of pioneers think way outside the box. I have heard of simple processors, but thousands of them working together like ants do, which I think is the next real direction of computer science.
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Yes, it sounds like fiction, but H.G. Wells thought that way, along with many others. You see, dreaming the dream of future sometimes brings the next big leap forward. Infect your children like Tooter wished, because being something he wasn’t can and often does create the next Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and little Billy or Suzys of the future!
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