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What amazes you?

OfTheDamned

OfTheDamned

The Friendly Undead
I had a Google Talk video chat with my mother and father the other day. They each just got their new Samsung Skyrocket (Merry Christmas) in the mail and I have the Rezound for a test drive. My mother was overjoyed with the fact that we could have a video chat via our phones and that started a conversation about the tech world. We started talking about Dick Tracy's video watch and some of the things that were in Science Fiction that are now more or less apart of daily life. This also brought up the fact that my kids (8 and 4) don't really understand how amazing all of this stuff really is. I talked with my kids at dinner time later on that night about things like Netflix, smartphones, computers, the internet, etc. and how neither of their moms had this sort of thing when we were their age. Of course they don't really get it :rolleyes: which I don't think I would have either at their age.

This made me wonder, what really amazes you in the tech world these days? What do you look at and just find it unbelievable that we can do now? What do you think we should have by now that we don't?
 
One thing we really need to start working on is battery technology. Or some kind of solar powered tech, we have so many electric devices these days without having the battery technology to keep innovating.

As for things that amaze me, well lets see. Screen technology has really been amazing me, especially the article about soon enough being able to feel textures while using a touch screen device. There are so many things that have amazed me lately, I really don't know where to begin.
 
What really amazes me is how dependent we've all become on things electric. The freak Halloween snow storm with accompanying record power outages drove that point home.
 
Well, when I was a kid the future forecasts tech wise were about flying cars, utopian cities, etc by 1984. :rolleyes:

But if you looked out the window of a building in say Chicago or St. Luis in 1960 or so, and looked out the same window now, you'd see pretty much the same thing, just more of it.

So much for utopia.

But I am amazed at being able to text instead of having to commit to a phone call just to say "hi."
 
I saw a commercial the other day for a gps dog collar. It was designed so you might track your lost pet. Many years ago I borrowed a gps setup to help me navigate a trip to Denver lol. It consisted of a softball sized satellite receiver that mounted to the dash and a laptop with installed software. At the time the setup was likely a two grand adventure and now they have it on a DOG COLLAR... it just blows me away.
 
Damnit, I had something thought out until you said "in the tech world". It had to do with viewing the evening stars and seeing how vast the universe is and we as a people still believing that our existence on this tiny spec is of great significance.


But in the tech field, what amazes me are semiconductors (microchips). When I was an Engineering tech in the semiconductor industry, I would have to sit at an electron microscope and measure deposition thickness on the semiconductors. When I'd inspect the semiconductor, it was amazing to see all the patterns as if you were looking down at a neighborhood from a helicopter overhead. The process involved in creating such a small "system" that runs some of our devices is truly amazing.


I'm with B2L, you'd think we would already be closer to using renewable energy to power everyday items. I think the reason we haven't made that jump is that there is no profit to be made in creating something that uses a resource that's available for free. I think if the issues we had in the 70s didn't put us on the right track to renewable energy then I'd hate to think what it will take to get us in that direction.
 
Something that continues to amaze me is that the original iPhone came out summer of 2007. It's amazing how far smartphones have come. Something as simple as multitouch or even touch scrolling didn't even exist on smartphones until that year.
 
what amazes me is how much time desktops/laptops still need for bootup. Thats a serious statement and i'm not being sarcastic.

What I wish is for batteries to last longer (i believe someone already said this so I'm agreeing with them).
 
TxGoat said:
Damnit, I had something thought out until you said "in the tech world". It had to do with viewing the evening stars and seeing how vast the universe is and we as a people still believing that our existence on this tiny spec is of great significance.


But in the tech field, what amazes me are semiconductors (microchips). When I was an Engineering tech in the semiconductor industry, I would have to sit at an electron microscope and measure deposition thickness on the semiconductors. When I'd inspect the semiconductor, it was amazing to see all the patterns as if you were looking down at a neighborhood from a helicopter overhead. The process involved in creating such a small "system" that runs some of our devices is truly amazing.


I'm with B2L, you'd think we would already be closer to using renewable energy to power everyday items. I think the reason we haven't made that jump is that there is no profit to be made in creating something that uses a resource that's available for free. I think if the issues we had in the 70s didn't put us on the right track to renewable energy then I'd hate to think what it will take to get us in that direction.
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+1 with the semi conducters, I may noy have first hand experience at the level, but i am always fascinated when they announce new chip architecture and looking at the lay out and how much they manage to cram on such small dies.

What art is hiding on your microchip? - CNET News

that post amazed me that they are able to work so precisely in such small areas.
 
gallandof said:
+1 with the semi conducters, I may noy have first hand experience at the level, but i am always fascinated when they announce new chip architecture and looking at the lay out and how much they manage to cram on such small dies.

What art is hiding on your microchip? - CNET News

that post amazed me that they are able to work so precisely in such small areas.
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In the early stages of some of the processes I used to monitor, we had a process where we'd apply about 1000 angstroms of Nitride IIRC (although I think it was Oxide). The color spectrum of that deposited wafer was very slick. From the front it looked like a bright blue but then as you turned it, the color would turn purple, red, and yellow-ish orange. I always wondered what would happen if a car's exterior paint had the same type of process applied to its finish. Below is something similar, but if you can imagine a much brighter deeper more uniform hue. That wafer actually looks like it's scrap since the deposition doesn't look very uniform.


742aca37612dd47afbf0ddb4a9b9.jpg
 
What amazes me is how easy geometry is when everyone was telling me last year it was very hard...

Sorry, best I can do for a 17 year old who hasn't experienced much of the technology revolution. Although video game progression has amazed me, when I was ~5 years old playing video games I could only play by myself or with another person sitting next to me in the room. Now I can play with someone in China, Europe, Japan, Australia ect... all at the same time.

EDIT: dangit, now I want to play video games but I gotta do my homework :(
 
OfTheDamned said:
This made me wonder, what really amazes you
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It never ceases to amaze me how ignorant the average person is, and how horribly cruel, selfish, and short-sighted we can be...

in the tech world these days? What do you look at and just find it unbelievable that we can do now? What do you think we should have by now that we don't?
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Oh... Um... The tech world you say?

Oh look, a bunny!

ETA: Actually, wireless data connectivity still has me shaking my head. The fact that I can send and receive these little EM waves from this little thing in my hand to a tower to orbit and back and have this world-spanning network of servers' worth of data on every topic known to man instantly accessible, just blows my mind.

I remember the first time I saw a *car phone* in person... Some kid got hurt at a ball game I was umpiring, and this guy in a suit jumps up in the stands and says "I have a phone in my car!" and we were all like WTF? Who's this dude?? We get to his car, and he pulls this brick out of a shoebox wired into his car, and we called an ambulance from there... I wish I'd been old enough to ask the right questions, and then invest, because I'd be stinkin' rich now. That was the first, and only time to date, that I saw something and just thought in one moment "Holy frickin' $hit- This changes *everything.*" Only other time I came close was the first time I used "Windows" to get on the "World Wide Web" instead of dialing up a bbs...
 
I'm amazed by the Internet in general (and the more you know about it the more impressive it gets). I can send a cd to someone in a minute across the world. Pretty damn amazing.

Also, math and space amaze me, but that's not really tech.
 
The light you are seeing today from M31(Andromeda) left there when Homo Habilis first appeared. (You can see Andromeda with the naked eye. It's huge. I've seen it here naked eye when overhead)

The light from M51 (Whirlpool) left in the Miocene (large and funky mammals)

With stars, some like Betelguese could have gone nova, but we won't know for over 500 years.

The light from the nova that appeared in M101 this summer was at least 21 million years old.

If you dig under the Holocene gravel, what I'm standing on is from the cretaceous. (Fox Hills)

Puts a lot of the stuff from today in perspective.
 
The phones we have is what amazes me. Its really crazy but you use it everyday so it dont seem all that awesome anymore.

I stopped using a house phone to talk.

I stopped using a computer to check emails and surf the web.

I check personal and work emails whenever they arrive and i also have a gmail in addition to the 2 I use on a normal basis

I can text anyone in a matter of seconds

I can check the weather (sorry weather man)

I can play games

I can listen to music (sorry iPod)

I can find an app for just about anything I need (even thousands that i will never need)

I have a camera

and a photo album

All this stuff is stuffed in my pocket inside a little case that fits in my hand and is smaller than the 8-track that my mom needed to store 12 songs. I remember when i got a pager as a teenager and I thought I was hot stuff lol..
 
76ford90lx said:
The phones we have is what amazes me. Its really crazy but you use it everyday so it dont seem all that awesome anymore.

I stopped using a house phone to talk.
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I don't have a landline phone.

76ford90lx said:
I stopped using a computer to check emails and surf the web.
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Great for surfing the web in bed.

76ford90lx said:
I check personal and work emails whenever they arrive and i also have a gmail in addition to the 2 I use on a normal basis
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Emails can wait they're not urgent to me, although IM is.

76ford90lx said:
I can text anyone in a matter of seconds
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Definately.

76ford90lx said:
I can check the weather (sorry weather man)
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Very useful.

76ford90lx said:
I can play games
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A good way to pass the time on long-distance bus rides, like 10 hours, Xilinhot to Beijing.

76ford90lx said:
I can listen to music (sorry iPod)
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Yup.

76ford90lx said:
I can find an app for just about anything I need (even thousands that i will never need)
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Was in Beijing a couple of weeks ago, some very useful apps for that. City guide, street map that works offline, subway map etc.

76ford90lx said:
I have a camera
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Which is the best sort of camera, because you always have it with you.

76ford90lx said:
and a photo album
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Good for showing friends your photos.
 
Vihzel said:
That's a mighty big pocket!
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Nope, just a small computer! My first computer was a Pentium 2 at 400 MHz, and my second was a P3 at 933 MHz. My Droid X beats both of them in memory, storage space, cpu speed, pretty much everything. My parents still use my old P2 400 setup, but the way.

And yeah, I work at Intel, and what we do here just boggles my mind. I seriously have trouble wrapping my mind around the scale we work in. And if Moore's Law continues on like it has, then sometime next year (2012) it will run into physical size issues, where the transistors will be smaller than a single silicon atom, meaning silicon won't be a viable base for the CPU. Whoa! A transistor smaller than a silicon atom! Mind = blown! I'm sure we have a plan for what we will do, but I have no idea what it is, but we'll find out soon enough!
 
Hrethgir said:
Nope, just a small computer! My first computer was a Pentium 2 at 400 MHz, and my second was a P3 at 933 MHz. My Droid X beats both of them in memory, storage space, cpu speed, pretty much everything. My parents still use my old P2 400 setup, but the way.

And yeah, I work at Intel, and what we do here just boggles my mind. I seriously have trouble wrapping my mind around the scale we work in. And if Moore's Law continues on like it has, then sometime next year (2012) it will run into physical size issues, where the transistors will be smaller than a single silicon atom, meaning silicon won't be a viable base for the CPU. Whoa! A transistor smaller than a silicon atom! Mind = blown! I'm sure we have a plan for what we will do, but I have no idea what it is, but we'll find out soon enough!
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Wow. How in the hell is that even possible!?!? You guys must be dealing in some black magick! Very very impressive.

Most of the things that really impress me are not quite technology related, but flash memory is one of the things that impresses me. The fact that a few years ago floppy disks were the primary media and now we've got micro sd cards carrying thousands of songs or books with up on pocket sized devices that can communicate with nearly anyone anywhere on the planet within seconds. DAMN!
 
9to5cynic said:
Wow. How in the hell is that even possible!?!? You guys must be dealing in some black magick! Very very impressive.
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I think a wizard did it! Otherwise, I have no idea. Early next year, the new 22nm Ivy Bridge transistor arcitecture comes out. Just looked up the comparison, and a human hair is about 100,000nm. So a single hair would cover more than 4500 of these transistors if they were side by side! Ow ow ow ow ow! My brain hurts!

Edit: Oh, and I guess it's not really that the thransistor will be smaller than a silicon atom, but it will be small enough that they circuits will be so close together that they will interfere with each other. A silicon atom is a little over .54nm, so the Ivy Bridge transistor is as wide as about 40 silocon atoms. Basically, Moore's law is going to run into Quantum Law very soon.
 
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