The Future of Computing

Alright, in reading this, I’m asssuming you have seen avatar or the like, keep fairly recent on upcoming trends, etc.

The future of computing:
As you may remember from James Cameron’s Avatar, the lab techs had somewhat outlandish clipboards made of a single piece of transparent glass, that displayed images that are modifiable by touch.  They had almost no visible space containing processors, a battery or anything of the like. What’s more, when placed near another screen, they could “drag” the contents of one to the other.  Here’s how we can do that- right now.

Within the next 12 months, Samsung will be releasing a laptop with a transparent OLED screen.  It’s going to be thin and portable, but is still glued to that bulky laptop body.  Apple is, of course, releasing the iPad soon, which is a perfect example of a tablet. But we can do better:  http://gizmodo.com/5465084/samsung-to-release-laptop-with-a-transparent-screen-within-12-months
The iPhone already has a bluetooth-enabled “Bump” application which lets two iPhone users exchange photos, contacts, etc. with simple contact.  It’s buggy and doesn’t always work, but the concept is still there and all it needs are some bug fixes and streamlining to be perfect.
Pop quiz: what makes a laptop so bulky? The battery, for one. New advances in wireless energy will soon allow a cellular-network style power grid, allowing you to use your device without ever needing to charge it. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_energy_transfer)
Innovations like that could shave half the weight off of a computer. But I haven’t even reached the best part yet. Processors, graphics cards, and the like suck huge amounts of power. Laptops have a delicate balance of battery and computing power- upset one and it becomes worthless. However, if you remove the battery component and allow for wireless power, your processors and graphics engines can be dozens of times faster without ever worrying about a five second battery life.

What is the end result of all of this? An ultra-thin transparent AMOLED touchscreen with a 5ghz processor and amazing graphics capabilities. It never needs to be plugged in, it can connect with nearby “juice towers” that literally beam power to it. Want to share photos, contacts, or that one slide of a powerpoint presentation? Go up to it and drag it onto your screen.  And where are you going to store all of this?  Advances in cloud computing and network speeds will allow you to store all of your data in private- or government- owned data banks, freeing up valuble space on your portable device.  It’s even possible that the processor will be completely seperate, making your entire computer literally just a single pane of glass.

Cool, huh?

Zupafly.com: Yeah, I own it…but it’s still cool.

Well, technically I don’t own it myself – it’s the brainchild of a group of virtual geniuses (and me).  But it’s cool stuff – without all the fluff of those heavily hyped mega-sites you all know about.  We pared down social networking to it’s bare essentials…social, fun, easy to use – that’s it!  The rules are as follows:

“ZupaFly is an information nexus that allows the virtual universe to rate just about anything. There are no limitations on what can be rated – this site is open to anyone, for any topic, as long as it is not offensive or illegal in nature. On ZupaFly, you can provide your own ratings, follow ratings, subscribe to feeds and contribute to ratings created by other people. ZupaFly encourages its users to utilize the site creatively – such as reposting content from other sites, adding direct links to other sites and adding originalcontent. Although ZupaFly maintains an administrative presence and reserves the right to remove any inappropriate content, all content posted on ZupaFly will be provided by the ZupaFly community. Ratings…Just Ratings!”

Barack Speaks!

Whatever you might feel about his politics, you have to appreciate that the guy can speak.  The quality and content are a credit to his skilled delivery, topical knowledge and (last but not least) his speech writers.  For example, the 2010 State of the Union Address, he mentions:

“Washington may think that saying anything about the other side, no matter how false, no matter how malicious, is just part of the game.  But it’s precisely such politics that has stopped either party from helping the American people.  Worse yet, it’s sowing further division among our citizens, further distrust in our government.

So, no, I will not give up on trying to change the tone of our politics.  I know it’s an election year.  And after last week, it’s clear that campaign fever has come even earlier than usual.  But we still need to govern.”

We still need to govern – whether you submit to Republican or Democratic ideals, government seats need to be populated with individuals of high moral fiber that are above petty disputes.  They need to focus on what they can change in their own districts and under their own jurisdiction…they need to focus on governing.

Whether he can help deliver is a completely different story – but you have got to appreciate the unabashed honesty in the content of his speech.  It demonstrates his ability to address a hot topic, defuse any rising ire by confessing that it is “…an election year…”, and present a solution.  All in all, a pretty good (some might say slick?) bit of politics…which in another word is, well…governing.