Technology

Mar 13 2007

Coming Soon: 160GB Flash Memory

Just about everyone has some kind of flash memory stick. They come in cereal boxes and you get one if you open a new bank account. The 32MB sized ones are so inexpensive to produce that they are being given away.

Yesterday, Intel launched their Intel Z-U130 Value Solid-State Drive. This isn’t a memory stick for storing your MP3′s, it’s designed to replace a computer’s hard drive. The capacity of the Z-U130 are in 1GB, 2GB, 4GB, and 8GB. These won’t be replacing your 80GB hard drive, but it could be used for quickly booting your operating system.

Intel will be shipping 80GB and 160GB versions of this drive next year. The exciting thing about this is that these drives will be used in laptop computers and PDA’s. This will mean a much lighter computer using less power, and therefore lasting longer on battery power. PC’s will also be more “green” using the less power hungry flash drives.

Intel hasn’t announced the prices of these drives yet, but they did say it will cost less than half of a small hard drive (which is around $40).

By Johan • Technology • 0

Mar 7 2007

Windows Vista in Your Pocket

I recently got a Palm Pilot and I’m amazed at what you can do with it. You can store your contacts, to do lists, and appointments in a device that fits nicely in a shirt pocket. In addition to this, I use it for writing articles for my web sites (including this blog). Another thing I really enjoy is the ability to write while lying on a sofa. You can’t write with a pen upside down, but its easy to do this with a PDA.

With a Palm Pilot, or a Pocket PC, you can also install applications such as games, word processors, spreadsheets, and even programs which can turn your PDA into a remote control for your TV and home entertainment centre.

A PDA has an operating system that is different from your desktop computer, so you can’t run a Windows Vista program on it. There are PDA sized computers that can run desktop applications. One of them is the Vulcan FlipStart.

This is a computer that can fit in the palm of your hand. It classified as a subnotebook due to its size. The FlipStart has a 1.1 GHz processor and a 30 GB hard drive. It can run Windows XP or Vista. There is a small keyboard and a mouse touch pad as well. You can install all of your desktop applications on it. Imagine being able to compile Visual Studio applications while waiting in line at a bank?

You can even go online with its Wi-Fi connectivity. Portable internet is essential for a mobile office.

This is an amazing piece of hardware. The only problem is its $1999 USD price tag. You can buy a good PDA for around $300. The FlipStart costs more than many notebook computers, but it would be a great to have nonetheless.

By Johan • Technology • 5

Feb 22 2007

Brrrrrr … The Digital Ice Age!

It’s been fairly cold in Richmond recently and snow has been building up on the mountains again. Even though it’s winter in Canada, there is no snow in this city. We’ve had a few snow storms, but all of it melted away in a couple of weeks. This is one of the advantages of living in the Pacific Northwest.

You may have heard of people talking about another kind of deep freeze coming … a digital ice age. It has nothing to do with ice cold temperatures destroying your computer or PDA. This is about the data files you create from applications today becoming unreadable some time in the future. Your letters and digital photos are in a certain file format; in this case it’s probably a Microsoft Word (.doc) and JPEG (.jpg), respectively. The computer you’ll be using 10 years from now may not have software that can read these files anymore. Software evolves, so .doc and .jpg formats may be replaced by something superior. The new software may not have backwards compatibility for today’s files.

A problem can also occur if the digital files you have stored on some media can no longer be read in the future. The floppy disk that most computer users still remember is being phased out. PC World announced that it will not replace its stock of floppy disks once they are sold out. There is no longer a need for floppy disks. CD’s, DVD’s, and flash drives store vastly more information than a floppy could. More and more computers are being sold without floppy drives. Macs haven’t had these drives for many years now.

Not too long ago, 5.25” drives were common in PC’s. Today, I can’t read my old disks because I don’t have a 5.25” drive installed on my computer. Soon, my 3.5” disks will be unreadable when I don’t have the appropriate disk drive installed.

There is also the danger of a floppy disk or CD/DVD degrading so that parts of it or the whole thing can no longer be read.

Hence, the digital ice age.

Many writers of the digital ice age despair that nothing can be done and we’re all going to lose lots of valuable data. Nothing can be further from the truth.

When new software supports new file formats, they almost always can read the popular file formats today. If not, no one would use the application. We will have plenty of time to convert our Word 2003 documents to Word 2007. There are also many open source programs that can read very old formats, such as WordStar. You can then save your document in Rich Text Format which most word processors can read today.

If your future computer can’t use 3.5” floppy drives, chances are you will still have an old computer around which can still use it. Computers devalue so much that they’re not worth selling. It’s better to keep it and have a second machine available to use when the other one is busy. The older computer can connect to the newer by a network and then you can transfer all of your data to it.

The only real danger we have is the digital media being damaged, or wearing out. This is something we can’t really do anything about other than frequently checking the media and making multiple backups. It’s unlikely all backups would become corrupt.

One of the most reliable ways of storing documents is by printing them. Paper will easily outlast any digital media that exists today. One disadvantage is that printed documents can be cumbersome. A 10,000 page volume of books takes a lot of space. The equivalent as a digital file may only be 30 MB in size which can easily be saved with today’s technologies.

We can prevent a digital ice age by carefully managing our data. Frequent backups are a necessity as well as checking the integrity of the data. A DVD is good for making backups. With HD-DVD emerging, you’ll be able to transfer your DVD backups there. An HD-DVD has the capacity of storing more than 5 DVD’s.

Also, watch the file formats that new software use. You may need to resave your documents or import them to the new application.

By Johan • Technology • 0

Feb 9 2007

Quantum Computing

Moore’s Law states that the number of transistors on a microprocessor will double every 24 months. Since Gordon E. Moore made this observation in 1965, it has proven itself to be fairly accurate. I should note that many people state the doubling time is 18 months, but Moore is being misquoted and has always said that it would take 2 years.

The problem with Moore’s Law is that by the decade of the 2020′s, the circuits on a microprocessor will be measured on an atomic scale. You would either have to put the circuits on a larger wafer, or use another technology. That other technology could be quantum computing.

Computers today operate like switches, binary switches to be more precise. The fundamental storage unit is a bit which uses the metaphor of being on or off. Engineers represent this as a 1 or a 0, but its actually a high or low voltage that is being stored in the memory circuit.

Unlike a binary computer, a quantum computer will be able to perform multiple calculations concurrently where a binary computer can only do one at a time. This shouldn’t be confused with computers with dual processors or dual core processors. The CPU on a binary computer can only do one thing at a time. A machine with two CPU’s will each be able to only process one calculation at a time.

Quantum technologies use quantum physics to govern their behaviour, as opposed to the classical laws of physics that binary computers use. The basic storage element is not a bit, but a qubit (quantum bit). While a binary bit can only be in one of two states (on or off) at any moment, a qubit can exist in mutliple states. It can be 1 or 0, a superposition that exists simultaneously as a 1 or 0, or be somewhere between a 1 or 0. However, its not accurate to describe quantum computers using a 1 or 0, its actually two spin states that are either down or up. A qubit represents the atoms that are working together as memory and the processor.

Quantum technology will revolutionize computers. A quantum computer will be able to make calculations billions of times faster than that a silicon computer. This will be major leap forward in the computer industry. Unfortunately, this technology is still years away from appearing on your desktop.

D-Wave Systems will be demonstrating their 16-qubit quantum computer this month at the Computer History Museum and the Telus World of Science. Their machine can perform 64,000 calculutions simultaneously. They will be showing an adiabatic quantum computer (AQC) which was designed for solving just one type of problem. We still have to wait for the consumer quantum computer for our gaming needs.

By Johan • Technology • 0

Feb 7 2007

The Paperless Office

Business Week made a prediction of the paperless office in 1975. This term refers to automation making paper redundant for routine office tasks. In the early days of the personal computing industry, this was used as a strong selling point. In reality, computers have not reduced or eliminated paper but instead have made larger stacks of it on desks and the need to purchase filing cabinets with greater capacity.

While digital media has certain advantages over paper, our generation has been thoroughly conditioned to prefer paper as a medium for conveying information. Paper is also easier to read than text on a computer monitor or PDA. It has better colours and the image is sharper (not to mention less eye strain). Digital media is, however, more convenient because you can perform searches, create multiple bookmarks and comments, and its much more portable.

For example, BibleWorks is a software package that has “112 Bible translations in 30 languages, 14 original language texts with 18 morphology databases, 12 Greek lexicons and dictionaries, 5 Hebrew lexicons and dictionaries, plus 30 practical reference works”. Try carrying all of those printed books around. A notebook computer can store all of this in about 5 GB. Obviously, digital media is the way to go. The only thing that needs to be improved is the user interface and people need to be conditioned to accept it.

There are transitions from paper to digital media. The most common one is Adobe Acrobat. PDF documents are everywhere and they’re great for print publishers making digital versions of their work. The problem is that its not convenient reading them on a computer monitor. If the text is designed with columns, you have to scroll up and down the page to read an article. Its not really as convenient as reading a top-down scrolling web page.

Xerox PARC has also created electronic paper. This is a design technology which imitates ink on paper. Its a thin plastic electronic display which is flexible like paper. There are millions of small beads which can be rotated to show white or black. The image is written by applying a voltage to it which then rotates the beads to the desired colour and is permanent until it’s changed. While this technology may be expensive, it’s very useful for people who require easy access to large amounts of black and white documents and portability, such as architects.

We’re still a long way from paperless offices but it is a vision which will be realized by future generations, especially by those who are environmentally conscious.

By Johan • Technology • 2