Yes, they sure are here for IBM has announced yet another groundbreaking milestone in computing, The Optical-Microprocessor has been undergoing testing as to possible applications. This technology was seen as impossible a few years back but with ever growing developments in materials and manufacturing processes has done it again. IBM is known for its long history of innovations in the field of computing and technology. They have been part of the rapid development of technologies in many areas of computing and is recognized as one of the industry leaders.
The proposed supercomputers on a single chip uses only power equivalent to an ordinary household light bulb and uses the latest opto-electronics technology enabling the microprocessor to go as fast as the speed of light. To this day, fiber optics are the mainstay of high-speed data transmission which is what could we say, the fastest means of transferring data from one point to another.
The processor would use an electronic part that converts light into electrical signals similar to current modulators which are used to decode the impulses of light back into the electronic form useable by the computer which relies on a series of zero’s and one’s (the basic form of digital data). This would truly be a significant leap for it would allow computers to shrink smaller along with the power requirements. Today’s supercomputers occupy the space of a small room for all the supporting hardware (power supplies, cooling units and other such needed operational parts).
The Holiday Gadget Abundance
The Christmas season is considered to be the highest selling times of the year for consumer gadgets and gizmo’s and this year is no different. Manufacturers of consumer electronics have released their full array of innovative products that are truly marvels of the advances in technology during the past few years. Products like Digital Music Players that have spelled the end of the walkman (the monopoly of which used to be held by Sony Walkman the name most associated with portable CD players), with new products being introduced every few weeks. The ever dropping prices of memory modules means these gizmos have gotten bigger in bigger in terms of their storage capacity allowing them to store more and more songs. They initially came in 128mb capacities and now go into the Gigabyte range like Apple’s iPod Shuffle series the simplest no fuss digital music player you could get came out with a 240 song capacity that translates into almost 8 hours of music. These devices have also been given the ability to store data along with your favorite MP3 songs. It comes without a display module but who needs one when what you’re after is music.
Sony has a also has 1 and 2 Gigabyte model which comes with a display module which can also act as a voice recorder with a built-in microphone. It also has a built in Fm tuner, a feature that is non-existent in the iPod Shuffle which can only be used to store music that is uploaded through iTunes, where one can also purchase online music and many other nifty stuff .
Creative has come out with the Creative Zen Multimedia player which has a 2.5 inch display which is bigger than the display of the iPod Classic and can hold 4 Gigabytes of video, audio and other multimedia files.
More Gadgets and must haves in the next posts. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to All
Bit-Torrents the last vocies of hope
Bit torrent’s were developed as a P2P protocol which allowed fast sharing of information on the internet. The owner of the company Bram Cohen released the first version in 2001 as a way for researchers and others in the IT community to share information over the internet fast and hassle free. The initial design had a server or <"tracker" who holds information of who has which files among the several hundred if not thousands of users out on the internet. Those who conducted searches checks in with the tracker to see who has which and re-directs those who search for a particular file and then commences downloading the contents. The advantage is that if there were several users logged on with the same file (say a program) the one’s that are most likely to succeed are elected to be the primary source of the parts of the file and if that user happens to log-out out of the net, others with the same files can become alternates sources continuing the download without interruptions.
Anti-Piracy advocates have been after the technology which has taken on the role left by the many file sharing sites that have since been shut down due to the fact that the information being shared (well mostly all of them) are subject to copyright. The files or information themselves stay within the individual user’s computer with them only being made available if chosen to or if registered as a viable source on the tracker.
The newest version of the Bit torrent system as of 2007 eliminates the need for a tracker system instead making each and every computer a server on its own getting set up in so short a time to get starting downloads. The technology is mainly aimed at those who are connected at least to broadband services with those on dial-up being denied access to save on bandwidth consumes by the said slow-connection computers.
A company owned by the developer of Bit Torrent known as Bit Torrent Inc. who develops and distributes the system for more real-world applications such as RSS feeds, Content Updating and many other should we say useful applications continues to develop the technology for more commercial applications.