1. Skills: none Concepts: technology refinement versus technology shift, progress in processing and memory, storage, and communication technology, pre-electronic computers This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License. Technology progress

2. Where does this topic fit? Internet concepts – Applications – Technology – Implications Internet skills – Application development – Content creation – User skills

3. Information technologies Processing and memory Storage Communication

4. Technology refinement and technology shifts

5. Technology refinement 1905

6. Technology refinement 1903 First flight

7. Technology shift

9. Storage progress 960 bits274,877,906,944 bits Shift or refinement?

10. Storage technology shift From punch cards to magnetic recording

11. 1956 5 million 6-bit characters 50 two-foot-diameter disks 2009 320 billion 8-bit bytes 1.8 inch disk Technology improvement – magnetic storage Shift or refinement?

12. Storage technology shifts

13. Four ways to store bits – storage technology shifts

14. Processing and memory progress 8 on/off switches 2 billion on/off switches Shift or refinement?

15. Communication progress 100 bits per second 40 billion bits per second

16. Progress enables new data types Data typeDecade Numeric1950s Alphanumeric1960s Text1970s Image1990s Speech2000s Music2000s Video2000s HD video2010s

17. Charles Babbage IBM 602Vannevar Bush Atansoff-Berry Before the programmable, electronic computer

18. The bottom line

19. Summary

20. Self-study questions 1.We looked at information storage, processing and communication technology. What other technologies are undergoing dramatic improvement? 2.If the first cars got only 1 mile per gallon, and that doubled every two years, what would our mileage have been 20 years later? Thirty years later? 3.What have been some of the applications made possible by improved IT in the last five years? 4.What have been some of the implications of IT progress for individuals? 5.What have been some of the implications of IT progress for organizations? 6.What have been some of the implications of IT progress for society? 7.What sorts of changes might you see during your lifetime?

21. Resources Ray Kurzweil is controversial and very optimistic about the technology progress (IT and other) and its implications for the future: http://www.kurzweilai.net/the-law-of-accelerating-returnshttp://www.kurzweilai.net/the-law-of-accelerating-returns There is much more on Kurzweil’s Web site: http://www.kurzweilai.net/http://www.kurzweilai.net/ Gordon Moore published a widely quoted article predicting that the number of transistors on an economically feasible integrated chip would double every 18-24 months. This is called “Moore’s Law:” ftp://download.intel.com/museum/Moores_Law/Articles- Press_Releases/Gordon_Moore_1965_Article.pdf ftp://download.intel.com/museum/Moores_Law/Articles- Press_Releases/Gordon_Moore_1965_Article.pdf For more on Moore’s Law, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore's_lawhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore's_law Wolfram Alpha Moore’s law calculator: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=moore's+lawhttp://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=moore's+law A short article on the discovery of the transistor: http://focus.aps.org/story/v23/st16http://focus.aps.org/story/v23/st16 New York Times article on an early demonstration of television: http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/Test- TV-NYT-8apr27.htmhttp://www.mindfully.org/Reform/Test- TV-NYT-8apr27.htm Video of Ivan Sutherland demonstrating Sketchpad: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=ivan+sutherland+sketchpad&aq=f http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=ivan+sutherland+sketchpad&aq=f Two videos on the first transistor and the way transistors work: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdYHljZi7ys http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdYHljZi7ys http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvrjIJw3OSU&feature=related