Back At Today's Personal Computers example essay topic

Olu Tau-Deen Jr. 12/2/04 Professor Jones Research Paper Computers are already giving people today access to large amounts of information. This is increasing our brain power, like a hot air balloon it increases our brain power. As computers become more powerful they will grow more intelligent. Some people think that someday computer and machines will be smarter than people.

In 5 to 20 years there seems no reason why machines should not become more intelligent than people in the future. Scientists believe computers will start to design and build other computers. They will then be able to evolve more like life evolves. There will then be two forms of life. Many thousands of years in the future there might be competition for power between computers and life. Computers certainly have many advantages over life.

They can process large amounts of information quickly. They can be switched off for years, then start to work perfectly when they are switched back on. They come in handy for traveling over long distances. Computers can even be made very small, and control tiny machines which work together in networks to find equations for big problems.

The computers of the future are expected to be smaller, faster and smarter. For the past twenty years, CPU performance has doubled about every eighteen months. The storage capacities of hard drives will continue to expand, they are currently growing at a rate of about sixty percent per year. Today, Intel's Pentium II has 7.5 million transistors. If the trend continues, Intel processors should contain fifty million to one hundred million transistors in the first decade of the next century.

In five years, computers will have sixteen times the memory capacity they do now. 'One big challenge is the time for the processor to access the memory. Bill Gates solution is the processor might be on the same chip as memory. Every time you buy memory, you get a processor. ' Actual voice input will become a reality, but it may not be widely employed in offices because of privacy and environmental issues. According to Bill Gates, he predicts that within ten years, 'every computer will have speech and linguistics built into it".

Instead of typing or clicking, you " ll tell your PC to launch this application or print that document. At the office, your e-mail message is just as likely to be a video clip. At home it probably means that your PC takes control of the lights, temperature, and appliances. When you have a problem, software will look for conflicts, make sure drivers are up to date, when a fix is necessary, ask if you want to go online and get a patch. Later on, it will search for the medicine it needs with no intervention from you. Even later, software will watch what you are doing and step in when you " re having trouble.

In ten years there will be better input systems; handwriting, speech, visual recognition. As much as 90 percent of the operating system code will go to these new capabilities. Many items that have been free on the internet, such as downloads and plug-ins can be priced at fees of $ one or $ two. This will allow opening up a new market to children, who previously could not make Internet purchases. Monitor displays may be flexible, and you " ll unfold them from your pocket. Other ideas, in the works, are monitors the size of poster boards you will hang on your wall at your desk.

Spherical shaped computer display a spherical display will have unique applications for computer users who need to observe the surface of the earth or other planets. Travel agents and meteorologists will have a better global view. Personal security, your finger print, and voice even your facial features will serve as a secure, virtually foolproof way of verifying your identity. In use for many years for high level security in government agencies, biometric security devices will be common. "Voice recognition won't replace keyboards and mice.

The reason is because of privacy. A computer you can talk to will be a dead giveaway. Personality services for computers will be able to hold intelligent conversations with our computers. This will give birth to a new industry; computers equipped with personality services. Most people will subscribe to more than one online personality service. If you were to subscribe to a comedian personality service, your computer voice would start sounding like Jim Carry.

As machines and computers become more intelligent, they will also take on personalities. Computers are already beginning to take on identities, for examples take the Furby doll and intelligent agents in software. Machines will become so human-like there will be man machine marriages. Wearable Computers are also on the verge of coming in the future Tomorrow's computer-human interface will be wearable. Computers worn on smart glasses will broadcast information into a person's eyes. Applications for smart glasses might start in an industrial area like car repair shops, where the goggles would allow a mechanic to see a diagram of a car with all of its parts identified.

This would allow a bedridden, retired person with a lot of experience to direct a younger person without experience, and the two would act as a single entity to perform a job, by using a wearable computing device and a wireless connection. And way out in the future about thirty to forty years evolving from the wearable computer is a system where you and the back plane are one. Scientist at the MIT Media Lab are working on it. They figure you can deliver about 100,000 bits per second through your skeletal and nerve structure. Implantable and inject able computers are a recent experiment at Atlanta's Emory University, a tiny device designed to amplify brain signals and send them to special computers through a small antenna implanted in the skull of a stroke victim who was both paralyzed and mute. The procedure gave the patient the ability to communicate by moving a cursor across a computer screen using just his thoughts.

A direct brain-to-computer connection maybe possible in the next ten years. In Conclusion In the future, when you look back at today's personal computers, your grandchildren will hear the stories about your computer that couldn't listen, couldn't talk, or couldn't see.