Computers

Olu Taju-Deen Jr. 12/2/04

Professor Jones Research Paper

Computers are already giving people today access to large amounts of information. This is increasing our brain power, like a hot air balloon it increases our brain power. As computers become more powerful they will grow more intelligent. Some people think that someday computer and machines will be smarter than people. In 5 to 20 years there seems no reason why machines should not become more intelligent than people in the future. Scientists believe computers will start to design and build other computers. They will then be able to evolve more like life evolves. There will then be two forms of life.

Many thousands of years in the future there might be competition for power between computers and life. Computers certainly have many advantages over life. They can process large amounts of information quickly. They can be switched off for years, then start to work perfectly when they are switched back on. They come in handy for traveling over long distances. Computers can even be made very small, and control tiny machines which work together in networks to find equations for big problems.

The computers of the future are expected to be smaller, faster and smarter. For the past twenty years, CPU performance has doubled about every eighteen months. The storage capacities of hard drives will continue to expand, they are currently growing at a rate of about sixty percent per year. Today, Intel's Pentium II has 7.5 million transistors. If the trend continues, Intel processors should contain fifty million to one hundred million transistors in the first decade of the next century. In five years, computers will have sixteen times the memory capacity they do now. "One big challenge is the time for the processor to access the memory. Bill Gates solution is the processor might be on the same chip as memory. 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. According to Bill Gates, he 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 problem, software will look for conflicts, make sure drivers are up to date, when a fix is necessary, 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.

Many items that have been free on the internet, such as downloads and plug-ins can be priced at fees of $ one or $ two. This will allow opening up a new market to children, who previously could not make Internet purchases. Monitor displays may be flexible, and you'll unfold them from your pocket. Other ideas, in the works, are monitors the size of poster boards you will hang on your wall at your desk. Spherical shaped computer display a spherical display will have unique applications for computer users who need to observe the surface of the earth or other planets. Travel agents and meteorologists will have a better global view. Personal security, your finger print, and voice even your facial features will serve as a secure, virtually foolproof