At the most elementary level, we got the chip set.
That is about to change, from “flat like a sheet of paper”” to 3D chip, announced Intel (which made Applied Materials jump to its 3.9 Billion acquisition of Varian Semiconductor to keep pace).
Our world is about to change once again, not to the tune of 10 Billion by 2100, but 10 Billion people communicating at the speed of thoughts. At this rate of growth, we can see 3D printing soon to be a norm.
You think that self-check-out at Wal-Mart is bad. Think again. Someday, we might end up ordering an item, only to have it print out at home (watch out UPS).
We’ve got “make your own stuff animal” stores and self-serve ice-cream machines.
Our homes are about to become mini-factories, and stay-at-home dads, in-sourced blue-collar workers (Dad, I want fresh bread. Dad, please squeeze the OJ. Dad, grind the coffee beans, please).
It’s only fitting that the last known WWI vet died leaving behind a changed world.
The US itself, in order to stay in the lead, will have to become world incubator of innovation and ideas.
CNN’s United States of Innovation (51 ideas from 51 states).
Think heat-sensor technology, facial recognition, speech recognition, drone, SPAM prevention, social marketing, Facebook/Skype , Utube and YouTube. None had been around when Bill Gates penned “At the speed of thoughts” (as of this edit, MSC announced it would buy Skype at the tune of 8 Billion dollars).
Now we have professors talking about $300 houses for the bottom 2 Billion (the last time, they couldn’t make a $300 computer). Incidentally, the Hyundai’s Excel got its start in the US at the price of $5,000 where the Nano’s starting price is.
To sustain innovation, we need clusters (and luckily, from the trajectory of history, our times seems to be one of those according to Steven Johnson in “Where good ides came from”). Clusters such as Seattle, San Francisco and Austin.
A little dose of music, art and literature, mixed with a heavy dose of tech, geeks, and flower children (rebellious streak).
Ironically, people who are into their own world (eccentric) are not people who can soup up for a fund-raising session with VC’s.
For now, commoners like me can’t wait to see what comes out of 3D chip set and 4-G broadband.
When all those dark fibers got lit up, and cloud servers turned on , let the show begin.
Like Back-to-the-Future scene, we might get blown away. I suspect that won’t be the case. Change will come sporadically, with an app peppered here, and a tweaking there. Before we know it, we can design and print our own T-shirts at home.
That’s what makes Chinese authorities awake at night. What are they going to do with the over-invested infrastructure we now call, world factory. And all the men, unemployed, then, already experienced a bite at the proverbial apple (the middle-class life style). History always reserves its best twist of plot for the end. I wish I be around to witness it, like our WWI last known pilot. RIP man of the greatest generation who lived and fought in a pure mechanical universe. We all need to have 2-D chip before 3-D, PSTN before Skype. “Hello, if you hear the sound of your own recording, you are on, for free”.
Thang Nguyen 555 