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Convergence of a Different Kind

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PCQ Bureau
New Update

The end of a year is a good time to look ahead and wonder

what the future will be like. Whether it will be like the year that went by, or

will changes be wrought to the way things currently are?

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Unfortunately, technology is an area where even the wildest

of predictions can turn out to be extremely short sighted, as many stalwarts

have found to their own peril. History is full of quotes about the future of

technology that the present makes those who made them look silly. So, I shall

resist the temptation to make predictions, and instead point to a potent

combination of technologies that can drastically change the way our lives are

lead.

There are four areas whose eventual convergence can open up

exciting possibilities like the ones we have never witnessed before. The

interesting fact is that none of them is new. Their potential has also been

known for some time; it is only recently that it has started to get realized.

The full impact of the convergence that I am talking about may be a while away.

But we can start to see it happen in the next couple of years.

Enough of mystery. Which are the four areas I am talking

about? The four in my list are robotics, nanotechnology, wireless broadband, and

biometrics. Of these, wireless broadband and biometrics are already hot areas,

and products are already available or are on the verge of becoming available.

Robotics has always been more of science fiction than reality. But this year, a

number of working products, ranging all the way from robotic pets that can learn

on the job to robots that can design other robots have become a reality.

Nanotechnology, the method of miniaturizing everything from motors to robots to

microscopic scale, is still in its infancy, and is the least developed of the

four.

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Imagine what seemingly impossible to achieve products and

conveniences these four can combine to produce. Maybe, miniaturized products

that will not even be seen, that will learn as they go along, that will not need

wired connects, and that will be made to work by your touch, or perhaps even

your thought. Your cellphone, for example, may not remain that bulky instrument

weighing down your pocket, needing to be recharged every couple of days. It may

well be a micro device implanted somewhere under your skin, directly sending

voices into your inner ear and video to your retina, and never needing to be

recharged.

As I said before, many of these technologies individually

exist. The cellphone already exists, and wireless broadband is almost here.

Miniature projection systems also exist. Miniature, almost microscopic, storage

systems are also being developed. The pace maker immediately comes to mind as an

example of a device implanted in the human body. The difference is that a device

like the one we are talking about will not need the complex procedure involved

as in the implant of a pace maker. All it will need is to be placed under the

skin, somewhere near the ear, or even in the ear itself.

So what needs to be developed is the complex mechanics of

connecting up the earpiece and the video screen. What we then need is the

devices to be further miniaturized (that is where nanotechnology comes in), made

biometric capable, and functions to be combined.

That, given the state of affairs today, looks more like

normal evolution that should take just a couple of years, than any revolutionary

new technology that needs to be developed from scratch.

Krishna Kumar

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