The Future of Technology

The Future of Technology

Most people perceive computer science as being a rapidly changing subject, ant in the main they are right.  However, many of the basic principles don't change, its just that the technology used does change at an amazing pace. For example, hard disks have been with us now for about 30 years. Their principles of operation have changed little, but what has changed is a great increase in their speed operation, a vast increase in their memory capacity, drastic reductions in their price and a huge increase in their reliability. Disks with Gbyte capacity would have seen regarded as a mainframe peripheral device just ten years ago. Today they are now common inside portables- tomorrow who knows? Nanotechnology might mean that they will fit inside a credit card. 

What has now revolutionised computing is the linking up of the computers via the Internet and Intranets. You are no longer regarded as a 'Nerd' if you surf the Net, and getting information from some of the millions of Web sites is now regarded as normal. 

Video Phone calls to anywhere in the world for the cost of a local call, secure credit-card transactions and on-line banking ae becoming the norm for the 'information rich' societies. With the introduction f VRML giving us 3D access to information, its a small step to the common use of VR helmets and perhaps the whole busy suits. Put this together with the simulators which are now available at reasonable cost and the future for computer interaction should reach new heights in the next decade. Couple this with the real-time analysis of speech which is on the verge of being perfected at sensible cost, and the potential for education and training alone is truly breathtaking.   

(Understanding Computer Science: Fourth Edition- Ray Bradley,1999)