Computer Technology About to Get Way Smaller

Computer Technology About to Get Way Smaller

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“The New York Times” today reports that new breakthroughs are about to shrink computer chips yet again, finally making the Will Ferrell SNL skit with the tiny cell phone a reality.

We’ve come a long way since the days when computers that were basically glorified calculators took up the size of your living room. The ever-dwindling size of computer chips and shrinking ratio of required space per unit of information has changed the world, allowing you to listen to your iPod while tracking your location in Google Maps GPS while answering a text message, all at the same time. 

I remember when I was a kid I thought that mobile video phone calls represented the end-all, be-all of the future, along with flying cars (and we apparently have those now, too).

So what’s next for personal technology in a world where shrinkage continues at warp speed? I can’t really think of anything I want my iPhone to do that it can’t do, and I don’t really want it to get any smaller—I can barely text on the thing as it is. 

One thing is clear—no matter how bad things get in the world economy, our thirst for inexorably shrinking technology will not be stopped. 

HP has just announced a major partnership with a semi-conductor company and IBM, Intel and others are pursuing a technology called phase-change memory, which reinvents the standard chip format. Investments in new chip technologies can cost up to $4 billion for each facility dedicated to building the new devices. 

I’m sure no one knows what advances like phase-change memory computing will bring, but if history shows us anything, it’s that there will always be a guy like Steve Jobs to employ it in creating new functions we never even knew we wanted, but suddenly can’t live without.