Wow. Colour me impressed. Compellent Technologies produce network servers and data storage hubs. With the rise of the internet, the amount of power generated by servers and data has grown exponentially, with most internet servers needing vast quantities of power and cooling of the heat produced. Compellent have made a product that only uses power when the data is being accessed, using a load of technologies like Automated Tiered Storage, Thin Provisioning and Advanced Virtualization. This can cut the power usage of the company buying the data centres by up to a massive 93%. If every server used technology like this, a large chunk of every developed country’s electricity usage would disappear.
There’s fascinating article on Discover today about a control theorist called John Doyle working on ways to improve internet speeds. He compares the structure of the internet to the E-Coli bacteria – both structures resemble a bow tie in the way they homogenize information or DNA into a small knot in the centre then spread them out to their respective destinations. With the oncoming prospect of RFID on most products and wireless nodes popping up all over the place, having an internet structure that doesn’t collapse under the weight of all the signals broadcast across it is essential. Doyle thinks that by letting computers use more information about internet traffic flow and speed, they can use the quickest route more easily, speeding up transmission of data by a huge amount.
The department of Physics where I study in Bristol has a massive new nanoscience building nearing completion. The field is full of promising breakthroughs for micro-sized (and so less energy intensive) devices, especially in computing. Anyone hoping to build a palm held supercomputer may well use devices like the holographic nanoassembler coupled with high speed atomic force microscopy to put together such tiny machines. The holographic nanoassembler is especially fascinating research as it never touches the tiny particles, using lasers to manipulate the smallest of objects. Nanowires are also incredibly useful for solar panels, where current efficiency is limited by the large metal substrates that carry electric charge, which obscure some of the sun-collecting surface.
Indeed, this isn’t the first time Moore has sounded a death-knell for the Law, but as conventional electronics is inherently limited by the laws of physics, it’s plausible that it has to stop at some point. So what does this mean for the exponential theories of Singularitarians like Ray Kurzweil? Or will technologies like quantum computing pick up the ball before semiconductors drop it? [Via SlashDot][Image by oskay]
The ten ‘Colussus’ code-breaking machines, thought to be the first modern digital computers, broke the code of many German communications through the second world war. To commemorate the work done by the codebreakers at Bletchley Park, Tony Sale has rebuilt one of the machines, which were broken down after the war for security reasons.
Gordon Moore has predicted the expiry of the "Law" that bears his name to occur within the next ten to fifteen years