IS SOFTWARE EATING THE WORLD? Bob Emmerson looks at the revolutionary advances in information and communication technology.
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t’s been two years since my last article, so what’s happened in the meantime? Answer: a lot. Let’s start with advances in chip technology. Significant breakthroughs that boost performance and lower cost by an order of magnitude have been and continue to be realised. Computers will surpass the processing power of a single human brain by 2025 and a single computer may match the power of all human brains
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combined by 2050. However, there is an enormous gap between what technology can do and what it should do. We must look beyond profit and growth when considering technology that has the potential to alter human existence dramatically.
Advances in chip technology Chips continue to get smaller and operate faster, thereby enabling the development of amazing devices like smart phones. But their intrinsic functionality hasn’t changed: they process data at blinding speeds. Multi-functional chips are different. They are based on the heterogeneous integration of mechanical, chemical or optical functionality, which is enabling chips to function as wireless IoT platforms. These platforms are tightly linked to the application, i.e. they are not generic; instead they are created in response to a specific market need, e.g. compact, lightweight, hyperspectral cameras that are used on drones to make detailed inspections of agricultural fields. The combination of the on-going miniaturisation capability of chip technology and
embedded physical functionality is enabling the development of next-generation diagnostic devices such as compact DNA sequencers and cell sorting devices that detect tumour cells in the blood stream. In fact, the scaling capabilities enable the integration of a full laboratory on a single chip. This allows doctors to test patients in remote areas for diseases such as Ebola.
Technology versus Humanity I’ve been writing about technology for many, many years and along the way I’ve come to the conclusion that guru-type predictions tend to be pretentious and all too often they turn out to be wrong. Therefore when I bought ‘Technology vs. Humanity’, I was somewhat skeptical, but that subjective, ill-informed impression went in a matter of minutes. Had I been better informed, I would have realised that the author, Gerd Leonhard, was a highly respected futurist. This is a brilliant, 180-page book. It is beautifully written, so easy to read that I found it hard to put it down. The author emphasises
