Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Everybody knows a terabyte...how about a petabyte? WOW!

Here we are in 2011 and we have so much technology, it is comping out of ears, literally.  That would be blue tooth devices, of course.  In my new class, I finished English Comp II (got an A, yea!!!!) and am now moving onto Computer Literacy.  At first I thought this class will be boring for me, since I know computers and I have been working with many programs for many years.  I would even say I am computer savvy.  Luckily, it has been very interesting.  Not (OMG, I'm amazed, interesting) but I am learning things.  I learned and joined Diigo, ScreenCast, and found several fun sites, too.  How about Pandora Free Internet Radio where you can set up your own radio stations? (I have My Angel 80s Mix Station and Broadway Station) Here's the link if you would like to check it out:  (By the way, I am using Diigo on a sidebar to locate my bookmark for Pandora.  Technology at its best!)

http://www.pandora.com

These types of services are great and it does take time to see everything that's out there, if there is such a possibility (which I doubt).  The Internet is one petabyte large (almost), or as I learned if you had one petabyte in your computer, you could download the entire Internet or in computer terms, 1024 terabytes of storage.  By the way, Avatar (the movie) takes a petabyte of storage, so don't download the full movie yet! Here's the link to that reference:  http://thenextweb.com/2010/01/01/avatar-takes-1-petabyte-storage-space-equivalent-32-year-long-mp3/

Okay, back to school.  I am working on a research paper and PowerPoint Presentation on Open Source Software (that's what I picked).  Anybody out there use open source?  I downloaded Open Office from openoffice.com.  It's free, software!  Send me your comments, opinions and issues.  I would love to know.  

This week we are having a discussion in class about the new technology and how it affects us.  Here's mine:



There is so much information I learned from our textbook, Chapter 1-5, that I had to stop reading and start processing everything.  I love computers, technology and all the extras we can have in today’s ever-changing marketplace.  Currently, I own a computer with 160 GB hard drive, 1.6 Ghz of clock speed and 1 GB of RAM with a disk drive and LCD monitor.  I want to upgrade to more RAM soon since I work on videos and such.  I also need a better graphics card, like Nvidia.  My printer is a scanner, copier and printer.  I will not be getting a new printer since this one is only a few years old.  I also have an external hard drive with 500GB of storage that I rely on heavily when I am traveling and away from home, however I do need to purchase a terabyte external hard drive soon, (however I would love to own a petabyte external hard drive, which is currently being developed, because I could have almost all the music in the world) since I have used up over 75% of my current one.  I will be changing my cell phone shortly due to my cell phone plan having this capability.  I will be searching for one with better megapixels for picture taking and videos.  I have internet access on my cell phone, of course, but do not use it now.  Also, I have a GPS application on my phone that I will continue in the next few years. 

This part of the discussion was hard for me, since there are so many features/components/form factors that could be available in the next three months, six months, and a year.  I believe that the trend is certainly leaning towards more advanced smart phones with higher memory capacity, new operating systems, more storage on external hard drives, better applications and add-ins, to say the least.  I did find out about some exciting advances regarding emerging and brand-new technologies.  NVidia has launched its ‘Tegra 2’ chip for this year’s release.  This ‘super chip’ as described by NVidia CEO, Jen-Hsun Huang, will enhance cell phone technology. (Venture Beat, 2011).  Optical technology is also an option in the future, since Intel is currently developing ‘Light Peak.’ “It connects computers with other devices using high speed optical cables running speeds to the tune of 10 gigabytes per second-twenty times faster than a standard USB cable.” (Rajarshi, 2011).  There is also a new Blackberry phone that is coming out soon and technology that is trying (or seems to be) catching up to the recently released Apple I-Pad.  Dell has also released the first laptop that has a Dual core Neo processor called ‘Inspiron.’  I believe we will be seeing more and more of these types of laptops that can compete with dual and multicore processor PC computer.
One of the biggest changes that have occurred in technology end users has been that many opt to use their cell phones for the internet and most of their daily computing needs rather than a PC.  The number seems to be small (only 30%) but it is growing.  This means that new technologies will have to focus on cell phones, but will continue to make strides in computer processing components, such as the above mentioned optical technology.  I believe that many of the companies mentioned are looking for the fastest paradigm for the market.  As with optical technology it has come down to ‘how can it be made cheaper’ to both manufacturers and end users.  The market is flooded with technology now that many do not know how to use, so emerging technologies that change the core of the platform, computer, cell phones and such will be difficult to market to end users who are baffled and confused by technology that all ready exists.  This will be the big challenge in my opinion.  Microsoft has announced it is working on Windows 8 for a possible release in 2012, although Windows 7 was just released in Oct, 2009.  So I guess my only question now is:  When are the crystals coming to our computers?
Processing speed and memory will be of the most importance to me, because I store many, many video and audio files on my computer.  As I said, I have used 75% of my 500GB external hard drive (I did this within a period of 6 months) and need to upgrade to a 1 TB soon.  So technology that advances the capability to provide more clock speed and run more efficiently, such as multicore processors are where I am headed.  Next generation RAM (beyond DDR3) that allows more memory would be great.  I’ve also thought as far as software is concerned all applications should contain the ‘make it perfect’ button.  Although it is just a joke, it may just happen someday.  I would love to see if we thought it was perfect. 
Utilizing applications is my mainstay, I love trying new things and beta testing when I get a chance.  I download trials for Microsoft and use the applications whenever I can.  The most important ones for me in the future will be making Office (in particular Word) better with each new edition.  The current Office 2010, which I saw a comparison with Office 2007 (I currently have)  on You Tube, gave me a sense that the application has just added some features, but nothing mind blowing or worth it to change to 2010 at this point.  One of the biggest advances I am interested in is storage space.  I want to go to Petabyte or at least a few terabyte external drives and internal storage.  I realize it is a little off since even one petabyte seems to be a ridiculous amount of space needed for running software now. 
I began with a personal home computer in 1995 and to say that it has changed my life would be an understatement.  It has revolutionized my life.  I use my current PC to create higher productivity with my novels, stories, communication and of course, in college.  I love working with the word processing and graphic applications, email, Google talk, Google docs and all the features of the Internet.  Utilizing IGoogle as my homepage has made finding tabs and websites, such as my student portal available to me at a click.  I recently received my external hard drive, which is very portable and so small, I carry it in my purse when I working away from home.  It is very convenient and extremely helpful.  I suppose the only risks are that I have gone so far in the hardware storage on my drives that it is possible I could lose data.  It has happened before, however, I like to back things up at night (especially my little external drive, which is an automatic function).  The other risk would be identity theft, which is terrifying to me over the Internet.  This is a real deep rooted risk we all have, I am certain. 

References:

Rajarshi. (2010, May 28).  Is optical technology coming of age? Global Thoughtz. Retrieved from http://technology.globalthoughtz.com/index.php/is-optical-technology-coming-of-age007/

Takahashi, D. (2011, Jan 5).  Nvidia’s tegra 2 aims to power a new generation of super phones and tablets.  VentureBeat. Retrieved from http://venturebeat.com/2011/01/05/nvidias-tegra-2-aims-to-power-a-new-generation-of-super-phones-and-tablets/

Technology and Lifestyles. (2011, Jan 7).  CES 2011 NVIDIA’s tegra coming out party.  Technology and Lifestyles. Retrieved from http://www.tywigs.org/gadgets-reviews/ces-2011-nvidia%E2%80%99s-tegra-coming-out-party


That's it.  If you could get through reading that, you're good!  Well back to the grind, even with the sleet and snow here in New England, no online classes ever close...keep safe on the roads today and watch those weather reports on your blackberries and smart phones.  That's technology working!

Until next time...

3 comments:

  1. Great job and informative..I am going to join pandora :)

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  2. Well written as always! I loved the opening about technology coming out of our ears!
    One question that I have is, how will our privacy be affected by this technology? I know that data is being stored on us on a daily basis and others are making lots of money off of our data. Shouldn't we get to profit from it? After all it is our data. Just a thought.

    Thanks for writing your blog!

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  3. Wow - tons of info here and some of it is just over my head. Glad you are enjoying your new class! And thanks for sharing the links.

    ReplyDelete