1 of 4

Write now Article Tools

Page 3 of 3

tagged me as an asshole? Or a good mark for pickpockets? What would law enforcement and the military do with this technology? The 'what ifs' are endless. One thing I can tell you is that when something like this does come along, it's going to change the way we think about everything. It's going to change the way business is done as well, which means a lot of resistance from large corporations and lots of startups that will fail.

This little bit of technology, along with the convergence of small, powerful parts into a piece of technology that's easy to use and easy to wear is going to change the way our society functions. That's a pretty big thing to say but I think it's true. Look at the world now and how data pertains to our lives in things like the Net. Now look back 25 years ago and see how different things were. You couldn't just hop online to see what movie was playing, use the Web as a dictionary or Google a soon-to-be boyfriend to see what they've been up to. Now take a change just as big, just as available and just as sweeping and move that ten years out. That could be what we're looking at. And all of the technology to do this is available in one form or another right now. A few more years of development, a few more advances in miniaturization and we'll be swimming in this stuff.

The problem used to be how to store and access all of this data. Now we've got larger capacity hard drives growing smaller every quarter. Multiple core computers are shrinking and using less power than their less powerful predecessors. Indexed databases make data searching easy. Our next problem isn't going to be on the computing end, it's going to be on how to sort and use all of this stuff!

And that, my friends and Internet acquaintances is what will help drive Artificial Intelligence one rather large step forward. If you're thinking "Glasses to AI...what?" then let me clarify. A big problem with AI is in how a computer can interact with the outside world. How do you get a computer to sort and prioritize the millions of data points that flow across our senses every second? Colors, sounds, shapes, touch, lighting, depth, tone the list goes on. Turns out that all of that mushy grey stuff between our ears does that on a regular basis. We learn to tune out what's not immediately important and focus on what our brains assume is. That's big. That's what keeps all of us from drooling into our laps as we try and process an entire world of perceptions and data. If we can learn to work with this, which we'll have to once the technology described above becomes more pervasive, we'll be taking a big step towards computers that learn.

At the core of my being, this makes me happy. Happy to see not only new tech coming and new ways to think coming with it but to see all of my wonder at the fiction I've been reading since I was a kid coming to play in my life as real, tangible stuff. That is exciting. That makes me want to see what's going to happen ten years after our next leap!

Learn more about this author, ArsGeek.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.

• << previous page
• 1
• 2
• 3

Add your voice

Know something about What is the future of personal computing?
We want to hear your view. Write now!