The future of computer technology.

[pro2a]

My dad and I were having a discussion about this recently and he says that eventually within the next 10 years or so, desktop computers as we know them will phase out and what will replace them will be smaller more powerful boxes about the size of a cereal box. He says there will be no hard drive, or a very small one and everything will be stored online (much like a cloud) on secure servers which you will pay a minimal fee for per month. He said we are already seeing this with Google Cloud and various online games. Most of your data is stored online and all you will need is a good bit of memory and a powerful processor to run applications online.

My argument was that I don't think we will ever go 100% online because of security and outages. What if the internet was down because of a storm, does that mean I can't have access to my data until my internet is back? I said we will need to store data locally still, even personal files. I doubt that will ever go away. What about gaming rigs? Most of us have powerful towers which I don't foresee getting replaced by a cereal box anytime soon. If I can turn my tower into that in 10 years, I'd be surprised. I about have a hernia now trying to pick it up.

He also mentioned quantum computing which I am not too familiar with. I can see things like holographic interfaces which can react to your touch using various sensors. I'm not too sure we will ever make a computer which will surpass the processing power of a human brain. I mean now, my cat has more processing power then the tower I have. A human brain according to a quick Google search processes at 100 million MIPS or the equivalent of a 168,000 MHz processor. A cat processes at about 15 million MIPS, and the most powerful super computer might process about 2-5 million MIPS.

What do you think?

 

[MindoverMaster]

There are systems out there smaller than a cereal box. But most of those are Atoms or similar low powered CPU.

We already have online storage, paid and free. Most of us don't want to do that because of personal reasons. I realize HDDs aren't cheap these days, but all of us gotta have storage somewhere.

 

[GhOsT1321]

I have doubts for quantum computing, I mean look at the best we could achieve thus far. 3 x 5=15. That's it, higher than that the randomness of quantum takes over and we get random, unpredictable results. I think that quantum will never be used in computing unless we incorporate a multi-verse theory like string theory into the computations. That would requite many more years of study, however.

We are supposedly hitting out limit. We know that we cannot continue Moore's Law with silicon. Silicon has its limits, we are nearly at them too. We are currently at roughly 10atoms thick, in 10-15 years we should be at 2atoms thick and that is very likely the limit.
Without another substance, we are halted without pairing up processors. If we find another substance, then that would be the limit.

 

[Joe C]

They are looking currently for new materials to replace silicon
Molybdenite
Future transistors may replace silicon with molybdenite
Graphene
IBM demos 26GHz graphene-based transistor, possible silicon replacement
Not sure if we will hit the limit of how far we can go, Moore's Law may be around for a while yet
The silicon chip eventually will be replaced - The Inquirer

 

[NobleGoldKnight]

Dr. Michio Kaku has some fascinating theories as far as where we are going with technology. He speaks how quantum computers would be an excellent choice as far as replacing the computers that we have today because of it relative "infinite" capabilities. The draw back to it is that it is hyper sensitive. The slightest touch or smallest wave of energy could disrupt the isolated atom. On top of that it is still a new concept with a lot of exploration needed.

But the reason I post and bring up Dr. Michio Kaku is his idea of the computer. He states that the computer has a physical appearance (the big black box) because we being simple minded "need" it to be there to identify that it "exists". He went on further to say that the compenents in the computer can easily operate even if it were in different locations in your house (again that is just an example). So instead of "housing" all the compenents in a case we should look more towards getting the compenents to operate from distance. Now this may seem like it is not a viable option, but it would be interesting to see what ideas people would come up with if their room or house is the computer. Where would you put the displays? How would you display? How would you interact with the computer rather than just the standard I/O options that we have now? Just food for thought, sorry for being such a long post.