www.ditl.org

This particular subforum has become a bit quiet, but it seems to some extent a microcosm of a larger trend. It's remarkable how quickly it's happened, since all this quantum effect-powered, rapidly shrinking electronic wizardry hasn't been a mainstay of life for all that long. New features and improvements to phones and other computing devices seem more evolutionary for now. Tech that could be more revolutionary in nature is still in development limbo.

VR/AR? Cool but not ready for daily life yet.

Future combined storage - well this one is mostly known only to computer geeks with names like "memristor technology." It's another improvement in speed, but a big one. Currently even SSD are rather slow in comparison with the rest of the PC, but a future generation of non-volatile memory could see the distinction between RAM (working memory, fast) and storage (long term and slow) vanish as the same fast memory tech also holds information without power. This would in effect make loading a program irrelevant: currently launching something involves moving bits from storage into RAM, but a combined fast memory pool would have everything available immediately.

Future batteries -not as geeky to even describe but as important as it is under the radar. Battery tech has been largely stagnant, but a revolution in capacity could have wide ranging impacts.

Quantum computing - will render modern cryptography entirely moot, but offer huge power to scientists too.

Maybe it's me, but is tech really advancing as fast as it used to?

I mean, I lived through the days when genuine colour TV was introduced. I saw the first video recorders. The first remote controls. I saw the ZX-81 and Dragon 32 and Apple II and BBC Microcomputer come to the market... the first computers that people actually could have in their home. I saw the invention of computer games!

And now... the computers get faster and more powerful every year. The displays get bigger and nicer. The phones can do more than they did.

And... well, what's actually new and revolutionary? I guess you could say the rise of social media and sharing sites for video and images and such.

But beyond that, we seem to be in an era of development of existing technology, with very little revolutionary about it. Or so it seems to me.

I thought almost the exact same way... that we’re doing more improvement these days than innovation. But then again, we’ve got real-time feasible AR, portable VR environments, everyday secure and real-world usable RFID... hell, the Coke machine at my store is diagnosable and reparable via an onboard online connection. I truly believe that part of the phenomenon that CPH describes is the fact that we’ve become jaded to such progress.

“Is tech not exciting?”

I don’t know about anyone else but once Quantum computers become widespread, it’ll only be a small step towards FTL computer cores! That’s exciting as heck to me!

Graham Kennedy wrote: ↑Sat Dec 30, 2017 3:14 am Maybe it's me, but is tech really advancing as fast as it used to?

I mean, I lived through the days when genuine colour TV was introduced. I saw the first video recorders. The first remote controls. I saw the ZX-81 and Dragon 32 and Apple II and BBC Microcomputer come to the market... the first computers that people actually could have in their home. I saw the invention of computer games!

And now... the computers get faster and more powerful every year. The displays get bigger and nicer. The phones can do more than they did.

And... well, what's actually new and revolutionary? I guess you could say the rise of social media and sharing sites for video and images and such.

But beyond that, we seem to be in an era of development of existing technology, with very little revolutionary about it. Or so it seems to me.

Pretty much this. At this point, we are just advancing what we got now. Nothing revolutionary yet at least. The last big thing was the touch screen phone with nearly the same capabilities as a computer.

I think the next big step would be true robots.

I mentioned this before and noticing the forum does have some brainy well-educated computer people (either going to college for IT or already working in the field of IT, Programing, and others). So I’ll mention it (quietly) again. Quantum computers = exciting future technology.
My earlier post didn’t seem to get noticed so I’m curious as to if they not considered a breakthrough?

Backstory: I’ve been following the Q.C. idea and later the prototypes papers of building them. At present, some countries and large companies are investing in them and they seem to hold a lot of promise to increase computing abilities light years beyond what present day computers can do.

Thoughts?