Technology is wonderful.

[Cookiemonster]

You have to marvel at today's technology! I mean fitting 8GB into something as small as this....



Quite extraordinary.

[Lance]

it wouldn't suprise me if in a years time they have 128gb in the same space!

[Rik]

Most of that, of course, is the 'package'. Things could be much smaller if it were practical for us to use them at the reduced size.

[Sebby]

Very interesting point, Rik, I've never really thought of that.

I remember being impressed by 1.44MB floppy disks, so I'm sure that one day there'll be something even more amazing that this, which at this time is difficult to believe.

[Lance]

Something which writes/reads quicker would be nice!

[Rik]

It's happening all the time, Lance. The latest generation of cards are way faster (and cheaper) than the first. With IBM working on their new storage technology, expect the terrabyte SD card in the next couple of years...

[Lance]

Once they are a bit faster, solid state hard drives will be much more practical!

[Cookiemonster]

Expensive things aren't they!

[Rik]

For now. My first CD player a 1x affair, complete with SCSI interface, cost over £200. My first 10MB HD cost £300. My first packet of floppies (5.25", 160K) cost £36, 32K of RAM cost about £60...

[Lance]

In 10 years time, when we are all using multiple terabyte disks, we'll laugh at the prices of today's 500gig ones!

[Rik]

Not to mention the 16-core, 22GHz processors...

[Noreen]

http://technology.newscientist.com/channel/tech/dn13426-quantum-dot-memory-may-be-holy-grail-of-computing.html

[Rik]

With the commercial interest, you can pretty much guarantee the technology making it out of the labs, Noreen. In one respect, I'd like to live another 100 years, just to see how things develop.

[Lance]

And then another 100 years after that, and again, and again, and again!

[Rik]

I know. We'll never see it all, but it would be nice to be able to do so.

[Lance]

Indeed. It would be good to see a national fibre network within my time!

[Rik]

You stand a chance - I don't think I do.

[Lance]

I don't know. I think that once they have started it will all be done quite quickly. It's just the getting started that is the problem!

[Rik]

Well, if Ofcom were to be abolished, it would be a start - in more ways than one.

[Cookiemonster]

 

[Lance]

Getting rid of the uso would be another good thing. All the money saved from no longer having to operate loss making phone-boxes could be ploughed into fibre.

[Rik]

The only risk there is that some people would no longer be able to get a phone line installed. Certainly, phone boxes could go though.

[Lance]

Maybe a new, much more relaxed uso then? Get rid of the phone boxes, but keep the inportant things. BT would agree because its better than they currently have.

[Rik]

I think so. Include broadband in the USO, with certain exceptions, eg physical distance to the exchange. Abandon phone boxes except where a local authority wants one and will fully subsidise it. Scrap the Openreach 'separation' and reduce costs. Forget the limitation on BT's charging scheme, which only benefits the few.

[Lance]

This is the sort of things ofcom executives get paid thousands of pounds to think of!

[Rik]

Yeah, and most of their ideas work against the consumer. 

[Niall]

For now. My first CD player a 1x affair, complete with SCSI interface, cost over £200. My first 10MB HD cost £300. My first packet of floppies (5.25", 160K) cost £36, 32K of RAM cost about £60...

I remember when x16 Plextor CD writers came out. I paid over £200 for mine and that was nearly £100 cheaper. Computer fairs used to be brilliant

[bob_s]

I can see in a few short years, PCs being made without a single moving part as standard.  With the flash memory getting better, and the growing move to lower power usage and climate change.
A well designed PC, good heat sinks as part of the chassis, no fans, no hard drive.  Perfectly quiet, cheap to run and more than the average office or home user needs.  I know these exist now, but they are still not mainstream.

[Rik]

I agree with you, Bob. The move to reduce moving parts is inevitable and highly desirable. In part, I suspect it will be driven by the desire to make the PC the entertainment centre.

[pup]

Once they are a bit faster, solid state hard drives will be much more practical!

[Sebby]

In part, I suspect it will be driven by the desire to make the PC the entertainment centre.

I look forward to the day when this is the norm. I know it's possible at the moment, but I can't help but feel it's too much of a hassle.

[Rik]

It is right now, Sebby, but I'm certain the solid-state HD is not far away.

[kinmel]

My media pc is very similar to this this setup , the OS is on the flashdrive and instead of a hard drive it pulls data off the network from another pc.  No fans at all and no moving parts, so it is completely silent.

Using an adaptor plate it is bolted to the VESA fixings on the back of the lounge LCD TV

[Rik]

Eventually, we'll all be handling our entertainment this way, with a media server to handle supply to the whole house. If we could get fibre to the home, other forms of TV distribution could be abolished.

[john]

The trouble with fibre like the copper wiring before it is that it has to be run to every location that people want to use it. A wireless solution would be better but I don't think existing systems are up to high bandwidth mass communication of data for a while yet.

At the moment I'd just like everything to work as it should and I think solid state devices will mean more reliability.