‘I’ll be back!’ - the Sci-fi inspiration
26 August 2008
Innovation is what drives our industry forward. It is the driver behind the ever decreasing product lifecycles and it is the catalyst for our entire industry. But who are the true innovators in modern electronics? Product designers? Software engineers? Film makers?
Film makers? Well the reason I say that is because I was looking into another story, Internet through the television that I will come back to later, which was being discussed at the Intel Developer Forum (held last week in San Francisco). Now you can’t deny that Intel is one of the world’s leading innovators and if innovation starts at the silicon then Intel’s place in history is assured. So taking a look at Intel’s annual beanfeast should at least throw up a few discussion points.
My initial interest was the Internet on TV story, but my attention was diverted by the keynote of Chief Technology Officer Justin Rattner. The thrust of his talk was on the convergence of humans and machines over the next 40 years. Rattner predicted: "There is speculation that we may be approaching an inflection point where the rate of technology advancements is accelerating at an exponential rate, and machines could even overtake humans in their ability to reason, in the not so distant future." But given that artificial intelligence is, logically, are there any areas in which machine performance can progress?
Wireless power is currently one focus for the Intel researchers, Wireless Resonant Energy Link (WREL) technology paving the way for machines with no power leads and batteries being recharged through the airways. Another area is ‘programmable matter’. Using micro-robots called ‘catoms’ it could be possible to build shape shifting materials. So that a computer, for example, could be a laptop if you wanted to sit down and use it, a PDA if you were standing up or even an earpiece if you were on the move. Apparently.
Finally, robots were likely to become more flexible. Rather than just performing a single automatic process in a factory, they would need to adapt to performing numerous different tasks and reacting to different circumstances in appropriate ways, although this probably also comes under the category of artificial intelligence and sensor technology. Robots will then find themselves equally at home in both industry and..well..at home.
So if you put all this together - a self-powered, shape-shifting machine capable of making its own decisions and what have you got? Terminator? R2-D2? Wall-e (to be a bit more up to date)? Although only Terminator could do the shape-shifting thing. But none the less it does make you wonder what will drive the evolution of the electronics industry. Will it evolve naturally depending on what the clever people at companies like Intel can do, every generation of products gradually improving on the last. Or will it use the sci-fi authors and film makers as its inspiration? Are they the true visionaries and it then comes down the latest generation of electronics engineers to make their dreams come true?
I think this probably is the case, although I still suspect that there might be a few teething problems when it comes to time travel.
As I mentioned at the beginning of this piece, my initial interest had been in the work Intel was doing on ‘internet on the TV’. As an idea this is not new, but previous translations of the idea had resulted in your TV either being a TV OR a computer. Intel’s solution, developed with Yahoo and not yet commercially available, is for the ‘Widget Channel’ to combine the TV and computer experience. Eric Kim, Intel senior vice president and general manager of the company's Digital Home Group, described the new Widget channel as: "No longer just a passive experience unless the viewer wants it that way, Intel and Yahoo! are proposing a way where the TV and Internet are as interactive, and seamless, as possible.”
This struck me as a good idea. In this age where everything needs to do everything else there is obvious synergy between the PC and the TV. But at a time when HD and digital switchover are requiring people to upgrade their TV sets, do we really need another reason to upgrade for something else? The innovation and evolution discussed above is imperative for our industry’s success, but sometimes as a consumer it would be nice if it just slowed down a bit!
One story we have been keeping an eye on is the ‘One Laptop Per Child’ project – the ambitious plan to manufacture laptops for under $100 so that they can be supplied to children in developing countries. The latest order is only for 500, but it is from the minuscule South Pacific island of Niue and covers all school age children on the island – total population is only around 1500. This was the island that introduced wireless internet to everyone within its 260kmsq area five years ago! OLPC has proved to be a ‘slower-burner’ than anticipated, but its still heading in the right direction and it is reported that the cost per unit is coming down closer to the $100 target, which should help progress.
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