The “Information Age” gives way to the “Communication Age”

Two news items that appeared this week struck me as significant. One sighted a breakthrough in manufacturing small microchip components and the other article highlighted the sale of 1.2 billion mobile phones last year. Observably, “Communication has trumped computation” as the “killer app.”

Since Mauchley and Eckert built the worlds first “mainframe” in 1946, people have been focused on the speed with which a computer can perform a given computation. In the last decade, the focus on computational speed has been eclipsed and overtaken by the immense human need to communicate ideas and images. Knowingly or not, global networks and the internet have enabled humanity to chatter with one-another more often and in more ways than anyone could have forecast.

Today, we are talking about the information in phone calls exceeding "peta-bytes" of information. (a petabyte = 2 to the 50th power or 1,125,899,906,842,624. A petabyte is equal to 1,024 terabytes.)

The human need to communicate will get a boost from a recent breakthrough in the manufacture of smaller chip components.

The break-through was announced today by IBM Research – and has far reaching implications. It involves making chip components as small as 22 nanometers – or 22 billionths of a meter) that involve new materials, new efficiencies and greatly increased functional power for a given device.

“Moore’s law” – an often sited statement that “as the size of a device is halved, the power doubles and that this happens every 18 months.” This has been the generalization used by the press to describe the constant push by electronics manufacturers to produce a “better, faster, cheaper” set of micro components.

Today, chip manufacturers stand at a point (130nm) where further progress with silicon is hampered by many factors. Drawbacks like the heat compacted components generate and the difficulty of “laser-cutting” tiny circuit boards are among a myriad physical limitations facing further miniaturization. So why is this important? Because of it’s impact on today’s most purchased electronic device – the mobile phone. Imagine a hand-held device with 100 times more how much programming power can be designed into a given component set.

Think about all the applications you’ve ever heard of – two-way video, internet video and broadcast video – plus hundreds of other applications still on the drawing board – processed by a credit card sized, wireless device that sells for under $50.00 and a battery life of 3-6 months. In other words, chips manufactured with 22 nm components will increase application for hand-held devices exponentilly.

The indication that mobile phones are important is summarized in the second news item … where 1/6th of the worlds population purchased mobile phones in 2006.

“Global sales of mobile phones totaled a record 1.02 billion units in 2006, according to IDC and Strategy Analytics, an increase of 25 percent over 2005.”

Most people will skip the text and give it no further thought. The fact that traditional markets were overtaken by new more remote markets wont register for most of us. Neither will the fact that mobile technology has expanded to include nearly all the functions available from a desktop computer including internet access and full function video.

Perhaps most people will think it was only a matter of time until all desktop functions were miniaturized, brought down in cost, and programmed to function in a palm sized form factor. But this is far from a usual evolutionary process and it’s effect on society is likely to be significant.

The devices are small, light weight, portable, running on batteries plus internet and video enabled at a $500 price point. This means that it is within the reach of 4 billion people. Given 25 years and that number will expand to 5.5 billions or about 90% of the human race while costs will fall significantly. And yes, you can add all sorts of GPS related services to the mix.

What changes might we expect from 2/3rds of human race capable of reaching one-another?

We are nearly at a point where full motion audio/video will be available with:

- any message
- to/from any person
- any time
- any place
- any group
- any company
- any government
- any country

The “any” list goes on and on, as the technology touches more and more people. Personal communication will spread through billioons of contact points in an unprecedented tsunami of conversations. The obvious need for language translations will emerge. GPS applications with further extend commercial advertising. The myriad uses are impossible to imagine and the “law of unintended consequences” will be set loose, without controls, to operate worldwide.

If the past is indicative of the future there will be bountiful benefits and despicable drawbacks.

If the immense upwelling of human communication caused by Internet is a valid model, the global introduction of handheld super-phones should bring surprises and unique practices.

Who could have predicted that people, once enabled, would find so many reasons to talk, chatter, write journals and relay news items. The modern citizen seems to operate with a tag line that says …and here’s what I have to say about that.”

What does this indicate about human communication, our egos, the need for recognition as an individual or the need to communicate our thoughts to others?

Clearly, the quantity of digital chatter is so large a number – whether expressed in bits, byes, packets, or words - that it looses meaning in its immensity.

Observably, a very large percentage of the worlds 6 Billion people will be communicating with one another in the next decade.

The big unknown is “How will this bring about changes to individual behavior?” and how will individuals effect large groups?

Terry Wellman

Powered by CityMax.com