A half-century makes a difference

Abstract

What a difference a half-century has made in the evolution of information processing! In the 1960s our ability to process information using computers tended to revolve around numerical processing, mathematical modeling, mundane computations (payroll, inventory, accounting) and numerically controlled machines. In the ensuing 50 years, everything has changed. Machines have gotten faster, cheaper, smaller and portable. Computing power can be embedded in virtually anything (buildings, houses, appliances, and even our bodies). The Internet and the World Wide Web applications have created an infrastructure that highlights every conceivable form of digital information and, perhaps most important, the relationships among these ethereal quanta. Any bit of information can be related to any other bit of information and it is the relationships that inform the texture of the 21st century information era. We have entered into a new period in the evolution of the Internet. We can see an Internet of “things” emerging. Wireless communication, coupled with programmable edge devices and massive “cloud computing” capacity, is bringing computing power to virtually anything that can house some form of computational and communications capability. Our “smart” mobile devices (I hesitate to call them “phones” any more) can see, hear, feel and speak. They can participate in the real world almost in the way we do. In fact, they can even do things we cannot. In a recent and extraordinary presentation at TED1 the speaker demonstrated that one did not need expensive laptops and notebook computers to engage com-