Paradigm Shifts in Technology

We have all seen an important change and approach in technology as it advances before our very eyes. Fast forwarding into 2016 we have come to an understanding that technology is famous for going in cycles, every 20 years we get a paradigm shift.

Paradigm shifts have been seen occurring throughout the past 50 years. At the time if you wanted computers to do something you would go to a main frame, a room full of computers which we fed programs to using punch cards and typing in terminals which were connected to the mainframe.

A few decades later we saw a paradigm shift in a personalised approach (personal computing) where everybody would have their very own personal computer with a desktop that would be connected to servers.

Gordon Moore (co founder of Intel) invented what we now know as Moore’s Law. In 1965 he observed that the number of transistors per square inch or integrated circuits had doubled every year since their invention. He predicted that this would continue in the foreseeable future. His prediction has been witnessed in action for the past 50 years, for example the smallest chip on a birthday card holds more power than the first ever computer invented.

Where are we now?

Although experts and Moore himself express that the Law will last for a few more years, the next big question is what will the next paradigm shift be?What we do know is that technology is changing rapidly and faster than ever before and that there are only a number of transistors one can throw into a chip.

Rebirth of Client-Server

We fashioned a technique of feeding the server with programs. We have manifested the same ‘Client Server’ like behaviours to work with our requirements today, but see this as something known as a ‘Cloud’. A cloud is a main frame dematerialised in an interesting way, where the whereabouts of the main frame could be anywhere. You can access the cloud computer from wherever you are.

What can we expect from the future?

3D Stacking

The von Neumann bottleneck problem is when it doesn’t matter how fast chips can process if they need to wait for communicating with one another. This is where 3D stacking allows combining integrated chips into a single three dimensional chip. It would benefit by increasing speeds.

Neuromorphic Chips

Engineers/developers are responsible for creating the concept of relational databases and applications of many types. The emphasis here is that this subconsciously creates a conventional like thinking in the mind of developers. The idea of changing the habit of developing applications to having a new architecture can change the way our devices interact. Interacting with the architecture rather than the cloud could be the way forward.

Whether it be ‘3D Stacking’, ‘Neuromorphic chips’ or any new transformation that impacts us technologically, what does the future hold?

I’ll leave that for you to decide.