The Future of Computers

The Future of Computers

The computers of the future are expected to be smaller, faster and smarter. For the past 20 years, CPU performance has doubled about every 18 months. The PC

will stay close to this pace for the next 10 years--a nearly 100-fold improvement in that time. The storage capacities of hard drives will continue to expand, they are currently growing at a rate of about 60 percent per year. Intel's Pentium II had only 7.5 million transistors. Within a few years, Intel processors should contain 50 million to 100 million transistors. In 5 years, computers will have 16 times the memory capacity they do now. "One big challenge is the time for the processor to acc-ess the memory. [One solution is that] the processor might be on the same chip as memo-ry. Every time you buy memory, you get a processor."

Actual voice input will become a reality, but it may not be widely employed in offices because of privacy and environmental issues. Bill Gates predicts that within ten years, "every computer will have speech and linguistics built into it. Instead of typing or clicking, you'll tell your PC to launch this application or print that document. At the office, your e-mail message is just as likely to be a video clip. At home it probably means that your PC takes control of the lights, temperature, and appliances. When you have a prob-lem, software will look for conflicts, make sure drivers are up to date, when a fix is neces- sary, ask if you want to go online and get a patch. Later on, it will search for the medicine it needs with no intervention from you. Even later, software will watch what you are doing and step in when you're having trouble. In ten years there will be better input systems; handwriting, speech, visual recognition. As much as 90 percent of the operating-system code will go to these new capabilities. Predictable hardware improvements and unpre-dictable software advances have been a signature of the personal computer industry, thisis simply supply and demand.

Technologies That Will Change the World

Digital Money-Disposable Money Cards, inspired by the success of prepaid phone cards. Web sites will be quick to accept the prepaid cards. Many items that have been free on the internet, such as downloads and plug-ins can be priced at fees of $1 or $2.