Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 14
Future Computing
In This Chapter
• A review of multi-megapixel visualization systems
• An examination of high-performance computing technologies
• Considerations for “green IT” implementation in the enterprise
A comment often attributed to an anonymous military officer during
World War II indicated that he believed “We will never need more than
a slipstick [slide-rule] for calculations—anything more complicated is too
likely to fail and prove worthless in a pinch.” Fortunately, that prediction
proved to be very far from the mark, and computing power has continued
to expand at the exponential rate predicted by Moore's and Kryder's laws.
Computers have progressed from building-sized constructs of tubes and
wires to ultraminiaturized powerhouses capable of tremendous process-
ing using nothing more than a battery power supply, yet able to share
processing across hundreds of cores on a single chip.
Future computing can only be expected to continue this progress,
enhancing processing power and distributed processing ability while
reducing energy requirements and environmental impacts. This chapter
will examine multiple high-performance computing models and various
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