Computers and Cell Phones Computers are getting incredibly advanced. They are actually beyond the point for being useful to most average people since they can already do what most of us want. If it wasn’t for the fact computer games keep needing more memory and speed, we could do nicely with the way they are already. Keep in mind I am not talking about those of us that need computers for special jobs. I am just talking about the average man or woman who does things like going online, typing messages and other mundane things. For those of us who don’t play those complex computer games, we already have what we need and have had it for a couple of years now. I am talking about classical computers. This has not stopped scientists and engineers from creating advancements for them. Things like bigger and faster memory, more powerful core chips and graphics that always seem to be at the cutting edge if we can afford them. A goodly amount of people are now using that small computer instead of a desktop or laptop. I am talking about their cell phones. Cell phones as most of us know are capable of taking over most tasks which we used to need a larger computer for. Even the games on them have become better than those years ago we used to play on our computers. An announcement was just made which was an incredible breakthrough in storage. It is called Kenzan Diamond. A new process allows the production of 2 inch disks made of diamond wafers. These disks can store the same amount as a billion blue ray disks on each wafer. Not only are they pure, but they are so pure they can be used on quantum computers. Recently, getting graphic chips has been very expensive and, in some cases, certain ones were impossible to get. The reason for this is graphics chips have another use besides allowing people to play games which are very high resolution and have many effects. That other use has to do with making money. These are the chips big and small operators want to farm bit coins. It is possible to get free bit coins although it no longer seems a wise investment for the small operators. To make it worth while many machines with these fast graphic cards are necessary along with a huge power supply to run all those computers. We are talking about something which would look like a data center. I won’t get into this any further but if you want to know more, you can research it on the internet. As computers have become more powerful, the core chips have been reduced in size. In 1974 the Intel 8080 chip could execute several hundred thousand instructions per second. Today an AMD 3990X from 2020 executes 2,356,230 millions of instructions per second and there are now faster ones around. The speed of an 8080 chip was 2 MHz, the speed of that 3990X is 435 GHz. The improvements in the chips over the years are obvious. But it isn’t just the speed and memory which has improved so has the software we use. For those of us using Windows 10 or even 11, it is a great improvement over the original Windows program. Many of the crashes and blue screens have become things of the past, although the operating system is still not perfect and some have had the occasional hiccup. Originally Word Perfect was the go to word processor for a computer. Word processing has been improved so much that a current copy of Word can do just about anything you would ever need and it will even read your typing if that is what you desire. For anyone interested in astronomy the software Starry Night can’t be beat. It not only can control a telescope, it can keep track of satellites, new discoveries and give great simulated views of the heavens and planets. For those who want to enjoy astronomy just occasionally without spending a lot of money for the software, there is a nice piece of software named Stellarium, which is free. As good as our current computers and cell phones are, we still will find new ways of bringing advancements to our devices we never thought about or improving those we already have. An example is the hologram. We know NASA has just sent a hologram of a live scene of a doctor and others there. This is demonstrating they have a new technology and maybe someday we will be able to project a hologram into a room with our cell phones and converse with others this way. Scientists are working with the holograms themselves to allow people to actually touch them and make them feel solid. Some of the improvements in cell phones of the future will be as a remote control for everything, not just a few devices as they are now. Using our phone, we may be able to project a movie into the middle of our living room and not even need a television anymore. That movie will eventually be in 3D and maybe even be a hologram. You will be able to walk around the projection and see the back, front and sides as if the objects were really there. If you doubt the disappearance of the television, think about what happened to the telephones and most of the cameras. Some manufactures of cell phones have been experimenting with a holographic keyboard which would make word processing on such a small venue possible. There are some companies who want to make their phones biodegradable. Others are working on making them flexible. There was a bare bones cell phone experimented with which used no batteries, but instead drew power from all the waves floating around us such as radio waves. The assistants on our smart phones are getting more human like, and eventually they will get to a point where it might feel the same as talking to a real person. Think about all the devices the smart phone has already replaced. It has replaced the computer in some instances, the telephone, the game machine, the camera, adding machine, translator devices, navigation devices and many more. It is only a matter of time before it replaces other devices I can’t even think of right now. Of course, some have the big brothers of the cell phone, the desktops and laptops and right now they do have some advantages such as even more power in many cases and easier to use in some processes. They feature larger screens for serious photo work and ease of use for Office procedures. I have to say however it might only be a matter of time before quantum computers get small enough, cheap enough and easy enough to use and if so, will replace our conventional computers and cell phones.
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