The Half Life of Hi-Tech Devices
This article was originally published on 15th April, 2011
Before you start thinking that I mean that Hi-Tech devices are radio-active, let me say that I don’t mean that at all. This weekly hot topic is about how the half-life of hi-tech devices are constantly decreasing, with a good example of the iPad. The first generation was released April 3, 2010 and Apple has already announced the release date of the iPad 2 for March 25, 2011 for about the same price-around $499.99.
What is a half-life though? In radioactivity, the term half-life indicates the amount of time it takes for a radioactive substance to decay to half its original radioactive intensity. The isotope thorium 234 after isolation from uranium has a half-life of 25 days. This half-life period covers an extraordinary range of time, from billions of years to a few microseconds. In pharmacology, it is the time it takes for the concentration level of a drug to fall by 50 percent. It is often used to determine frequency of dosage and the amount of the drug to be administered.
Let us go back to high-tech devices. It is easy to see the burst of growth in the design and development of modern technological devices and the extent to which all our lives have been influenced by this growth. This has done a lot of good, we’ve witnessed an increase in life-expectancy, we have machines do the bulk of our menial work or make it easier for us to do them etc.
But we need to think again. We need to consider the impact of this rapid growth on our planet, on our finances and try to project a few years further to see what may happen if the growth continues at this pace. I will not be answering any of these questions but will encourage you to debate and discuss them.
I’ll refer again to the example of the iPad. We saw a groundbreaking product emerge and sell millions of pieces and months later, we get news of an improved, slimmer version that will sell at the same price as the older one. Considering that we all want the coolest devices around, what happens to the original iPad?
We see phone models being upgraded regularly, new ones every month and we barely have time to take a breath before we are wowed again by the next stunner. These devices are getting relevant for increasingly lesser amounts of time. The famous blackberry phones have several models available already with the tablet version, the Playbook set to drop next month in April.
From Charles Babbage’s Difference Engine to Apple’s iPad is a tremendous 190 years. We had time to adjust to the changes. Now that it seems that revolutionary changes will occur within months, how do we keep up with the latest technologies?
One could go broke even thinking about it!
