technology advancements

Forums › Off topic › technology advancements

1 | 2 | 3

2945 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#1276611 3-Apr-2015 09:13

Technology is actually evolving slower than it has in the past.

Yes it is getting smaller and cheaper but that will soon stop when physical and financial limits are reached. There have been no real breakthroughs since Kilby and Noyce invented the microchip.

Your parents or grandparents lived through much greater technological changes (eg the telephone, television, jet travel, advances in medicine) than we do now.

There have been no real breakthroughs for over 40 years.

khull

1245 posts

Uber Geek

#1276638 3-Apr-2015 10:31

Spinning hard drive capacity have remained largely stagnant since the floods in asia. Manufacturers realised the world didn't collapse and still bought drives off them that were less reliable and with shorter warranty and decided that this could be exploited and point the finger to SSDs instead.

SaltyNZ

8218 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

2degrees

Lifetime subscriber

#1276651 3-Apr-2015 11:01

linw: I'm still so embarrassed when I recall the huge sums of money I spent on crap stuff in the early days. But I didn't spend $3,390 on a 10 MB disk! I think my first 10MB HDD was $720. My first CDROM was $1,200! Ouch. Double ouch, considering I didn't even have much to put in it. And my first digital camera (Canon 2000) was around $2,300. Still goes, though!

Anyway, enough of these horrible memories.

I paid $900 for a Pentax digital camera in 1999. It came with 2MB of onboard storage, expandable with an additional 4MB on a (full size) PCMCIA flash card. It took glorious 640x480 photos which could be downloaded onto your computer at up to 115,200 bps via serial port.

It's dynamic range was superb. Every photo consisted of an artistically perfect blend of black blobs and white blobs with some coloured bits in the middle that were vaguely distinguishable as the thing the camera was pointed at. About 2 years later I got my first phone with a camera in it. That took much better pictures than the Pentax.

iPad Pro 11" + iPhone 15 Pro Max + 2degrees 4tw!

These comments are my own and do not represent the opinions of 2degrees.

Geese

1028 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#1276697 3-Apr-2015 12:50

I remember in 1996, when I was earning $5 an hour, buying 4mb ram for my computer and it cost $120.

My current computer has 4gb of ram. So 1000 times more in just under 2 decades. Difference also is my entire current computer cost under $120, at 3 hours pay, compared to 24 hours in 1996 just for the ram, and a staggering 500 hours work to buy the computer... secondhand!!

Geektastic

17942 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#1276701 3-Apr-2015 12:59

I recall reading somewhere that in the 60's, 1Gb of RAM would have cost $1 million.

So my iMac is worth $32 million, if only I can figure out how to make my hot tub into a time machine....

MikeB4

18435 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Trusted

#1276702 3-Apr-2015 13:02

I can remember buying Ram @ $100 per mega byte would not like to buy 16 GB at that price

Batman

Mad Scientist
29760 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#1276709 3-Apr-2015 13:10

Geektastic: I recall reading somewhere that in the 60's, 1Gb of RAM would have cost $1 million.

So my iMac is worth $32 million, if only I can figure out how to make my hot tub into a time machine....

by observation, no one in the future has mastered time travel. otherwise we will see amazing stuff being sold on ebay etc, which i have never.

unless of course ...

Equinox IT

Cloud spending continues to surge globally, but most organisations haven’t made the changes necessary to maximise the value and cost-efficiency benefits of their cloud investments. Download the whitepaper From Overspend to Advantage now.

mattbush

784 posts

Ultimate Geek
Inactive user

#1276714 3-Apr-2015 13:24

KiwiNZ: I can remember buying Ram @ $100 per mega byte would not like to buy 16 GB at that price

I can remember when Vodafone actually answered their phones!!!

Fred99

13684 posts

Uber Geek

#1276716 3-Apr-2015 13:27

SaltyNZ:
linw: I'm still so embarrassed when I recall the huge sums of money I spent on crap stuff in the early days. But I didn't spend $3,390 on a 10 MB disk! I think my first 10MB HDD was $720. My first CDROM was $1,200! Ouch. Double ouch, considering I didn't even have much to put in it. And my first digital camera (Canon 2000) was around $2,300. Still goes, though!

Anyway, enough of these horrible memories.

I paid $900 for a Pentax digital camera in 1999. It came with 2MB of onboard storage, expandable with an additional 4MB on a (full size) PCMCIA flash card. It took glorious 640x480 photos which could be downloaded onto your computer at up to 115,200 bps via serial port.

It's dynamic range was superb. Every photo consisted of an artistically perfect blend of black blobs and white blobs with some coloured bits in the middle that were vaguely distinguishable as the thing the camera was pointed at. About 2 years later I got my first phone with a camera in it. That took much better pictures than the Pentax.

Digital imaging is interesting also for what it hasn't achieved if "Moore's Law" was to be an expectation.
It's taken 10 years to double linear resolution (in 2005 a 6mp dslr was typical, Nikon D70. Canon 300d etc, as a 24mp dslr/mirrorless interchangeable lens camera is typical today).
In that 10 years, quantum efficiency of sensors has doubled - from 25-30% (of photons captured) to around 50-60% now. QE can't double again.
Most cellphone cameras are oversampling at working apertures (diffraction limited) so that more pixels are pointless. You can't change the laws of physics and in many cases we're close to a brick wall.
The only true innovation which has been commercialised is the Lytro light-field camera, which so far is a curiosity but very limited for any practical use. Not to say that something revolutionary might be just around the corner, but guessing what it might be is a problem.

Geektastic

17942 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#1276719 3-Apr-2015 13:35

mattbush:
KiwiNZ: I can remember buying Ram @ $100 per mega byte would not like to buy 16 GB at that price

I can remember when Vodafone actually answered their phones!!!

Fnaar fnaar!

See they got a bit slated on Fair Go for that this week.

Aredwood

3885 posts

Uber Geek

#1276729 3-Apr-2015 14:12

SJB: Technology is actually evolving slower than it has in the past.

Yes it is getting smaller and cheaper but that will soon stop when physical and financial limits are reached. There have been no real breakthroughs since Kilby and Noyce invented the microchip.

Your parents or grandparents lived through much greater technological changes (eg the telephone, television, jet travel, advances in medicine) than we do now.

There have been no real breakthroughs for over 40 years.

What I'm waiting for - fusion power becoming a practical reality. As nothing else will ever be able to replace fossil fuels. By any decent amount. And without long term increasing costs.

Geektastic

17942 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#1276748 3-Apr-2015 14:53

Aredwood:
SJB: Technology is actually evolving slower than it has in the past.

Yes it is getting smaller and cheaper but that will soon stop when physical and financial limits are reached. There have been no real breakthroughs since Kilby and Noyce invented the microchip.

Your parents or grandparents lived through much greater technological changes (eg the telephone, television, jet travel, advances in medicine) than we do now.

There have been no real breakthroughs for over 40 years.

What I'm waiting for - fusion power becoming a practical reality. As nothing else will ever be able to replace fossil fuels. By any decent amount. And without long term increasing costs.

Your only problem is that it won't be legal here...! NZ will look like something from a Mad Max movie by that point with creaking wind turbines everywhere whilst everyone else enjoys virtually limitless fusion power.....

MikeB4

18435 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Trusted

#1276758 3-Apr-2015 15:05

Aredwood:
SJB: Technology is actually evolving slower than it has in the past.

Yes it is getting smaller and cheaper but that will soon stop when physical and financial limits are reached. There have been no real breakthroughs since Kilby and Noyce invented the microchip.

Your parents or grandparents lived through much greater technological changes (eg the telephone, television, jet travel, advances in medicine) than we do now.

There have been no real breakthroughs for over 40 years.

What I'm waiting for - fusion power becoming a practical reality. As nothing else will ever be able to replace fossil fuels. By any decent amount. And without long term increasing costs.

Fusion power generation won't be in our life times or even grand children's life times.

teamyoyo

58 posts

Master Geek

#1276796 3-Apr-2015 16:30

KiwiNZ: Fusion power generation won't be in our life times or even grand children's life times.

The same thing was said about global aviation, spaceflight, computer miniaturization, etc at the beginning. Never underestimate humanities ability to rapidly change the world.

SJB

2945 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#1276811 3-Apr-2015 16:57

teamyoyo:
KiwiNZ: Fusion power generation won't be in our life times or even grand children's life times.

The same thing was said about global aviation, spaceflight, computer miniaturization, etc at the beginning. Never underestimate humanities ability to rapidly change the world.

Or wreck it.

1 | 2 | 3