3 ms·

Computing is a field where integration matters a lot and bottlenecks (many of them in the human-machine interface) are often not even recognised as such, but se

by narag 18y ago

Computing is a field where integration matters a lot and bottlenecks (many of them in the human-machine interface) are often not even recognised as such, but seen as "the way things are". I mean there are a lot of good ideas that nobody has found the way to implement with enough usability so people wants to use them. Was YouTube a new idea when it "exploded"? I don't know, but I believe that it represents an innovation, maybe not in the idea, but in the right way to implement it. I guess there are a lot of innovative ideas in the "implementation pending" state.

abossy 18y ago
"Implementation pending" is a great way to put it. There is a lull between the time an idea can be conceived, it's feasibility proven, and it spreading into the modern zeitgeist. I feel that at this particular point, we know that there are lots of ideas that can be implemented, but aren't, especially in the mobile space (hence, the oligopoly reference in my post). Other continents have disseminated many mobile innovations into the public before the U.S. has in the last ten years.
10ren 18y ago
Just on the YouTube example, it was more an that its time had come, and YouTube just happened to be the one who got popular. The factors included: multimedia-capable PCs, broadband and cell-phone cameras. All driven by Moore's Law. A great deal of compsci seems to be like this (even including new ways of multiplying numbers) - not surprising, since Moore's Law dwarfs all other forces. No other industry has anything anywhere near comparable. This can be used predictively: what obviously great but ridiculously infeasible idea will Moore's Law soon make feasible? Examples: spherical TV (you sit inside); golf-swing analysis by brute-force matching with 3D recordings of every possible swing (to arbitrary resolution); literal recording and playback of 3D cerebral cortex activity (to arbitrary precision).
- narag 18y ago
  Displays are tricky. A 1280x960 is four times the 640x480 that was typical some years ago. We need more memory, more buses bandwidth, bigger and faster everything in different levels (without talking about colour depth), so I'd say that the power needed would be 20x or 30x. My gut feeling is that displays only have consumed Moore's gift for the last ten years.
  - 10ren 18y ago
    You mean for spherical TV? Taking your 20x estimate, it's due mid-2015: log 20 / log 2 * 1.5 + 2009 = 2 015.48289

by narag 18y ago

abossy 18y ago

"Implementation pending" is a great way to put it. There is a lull between the time an idea can be conceived, it's feasibility proven, and it spreading into the modern zeitgeist. I feel that at this particular point, we know that there are lots of ideas that can be implemented, but aren't, especially in the mobile space (hence, the oligopoly reference in my post). Other continents have disseminated many mobile innovations into the public before the U.S. has in the last ten years.

10ren 18y ago

Just on the YouTube example, it was more an that its time had come, and YouTube just happened to be the one who got popular. The factors included: multimedia-capable PCs, broadband and cell-phone cameras. All driven by Moore's Law. A great deal of compsci seems to be like this (even including new ways of multiplying numbers) - not surprising, since Moore's Law dwarfs all other forces. No other industry has anything anywhere near comparable. This can be used predictively: what obviously great but ridiculously infeasible idea will Moore's Law soon make feasible? Examples: spherical TV (you sit inside); golf-swing analysis by brute-force matching with 3D recordings of every possible swing (to arbitrary resolution); literal recording and playback of 3D cerebral cortex activity (to arbitrary precision).

narag 18y ago
Displays are tricky. A 1280x960 is four times the 640x480 that was typical some years ago. We need more memory, more buses bandwidth, bigger and faster everything in different levels (without talking about colour depth), so I'd say that the power needed would be 20x or 30x. My gut feeling is that displays only have consumed Moore's gift for the last ten years.
- 10ren 18y ago
  You mean for spherical TV? Taking your 20x estimate, it's due mid-2015: log 20 / log 2 * 1.5 + 2009 = 2 015.48289