Advances in Technology. Moore’s Law
From Sensors to Servers Do you have a smart phone? Oops… isn’t that kind of obvious? With Samsung coming out with a new Galaxy “XYZ” or Apple coming up with new EMI schemes or Micromax and Karbonn with even cheaper models, almost everyone now has a smartphone. This is inevitable with the rapid downscaling of electronic devices and progress in telecommunication technologies. But are we overlooking something? Let’s see.
Moore’s Law
In electronics, Moore’s Law says that the number of transistors in a fixed area doubles approximately every two years. At the time this article is being written, microprocessors are being made with feature size as small as 14nm which is typically order of 10 atomic radii. It is pretty obvious and alarming for OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturer) as Samsung, Intel etc. that Moore’s Law is going to break down soon. However depending on the production cycle in the semiconductor industry any such saturating effect would take quite a few years and by that time some new grade of devices (concept phones such as Nokia Morph) will enter the market.
Data, Data and more Data
Every day we use about quintillion (1030) bytes of data; in fact over 90% of the data around has been generated in the past few (say 3 or 4) years. The near exponential growth of smartphone-tablet market is not as much of a concern as is the explosion of amount of data that is being dealt with. More the data more is the hazard of collecting, processing and retaining it. Smartphones have not become smart on their own. They are married to internet for a lifetime with their kids being e-mails, IMs, VOIP calls, video calls and many more. In the period 2000-2012, internet usage all over the world has seen around 560% growth. As the graph in Exhibit 1 shows, the growth has almost doubled from 2008 when the first android phone HTC Dream was launched. Terms called “Big Data”, “Cloud Computing” or “Internet of Things” (yet to be implemented) have become increasingly
Moore’s Law
In electronics, Moore’s Law says that the number of transistors in a fixed area doubles approximately every two years. At the time this article is being written, microprocessors are being made with feature size as small as 14nm which is typically order of 10 atomic radii. It is pretty obvious and alarming for OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturer) as Samsung, Intel etc. that Moore’s Law is going to break down soon. However depending on the production cycle in the semiconductor industry any such saturating effect would take quite a few years and by that time some new grade of devices (concept phones such as Nokia Morph) will enter the market.
Data, Data and more Data
Every day we use about quintillion (1030) bytes of data; in fact over 90% of the data around has been generated in the past few (say 3 or 4) years. The near exponential growth of smartphone-tablet market is not as much of a concern as is the explosion of amount of data that is being dealt with. More the data more is the hazard of collecting, processing and retaining it. Smartphones have not become smart on their own. They are married to internet for a lifetime with their kids being e-mails, IMs, VOIP calls, video calls and many more. In the period 2000-2012, internet usage all over the world has seen around 560% growth. As the graph in Exhibit 1 shows, the growth has almost doubled from 2008 when the first android phone HTC Dream was launched. Terms called “Big Data”, “Cloud Computing” or “Internet of Things” (yet to be implemented) have become increasingly