We’ve come a long way with computers already. The interactive children’s toy called a Furby has ten times the processing power of the Apollo command module, and there are now so many microchips in an automobile that Chrysler like to joke that they only bother to put wheels on their cars to stop the computers dragging along the highway.
In simple terms, the eighties were shaped by cheap microprocessors and the nineties by cheap lasers; the symbol of the eighties was the IC, and the symbol of the nineties is the web. The next decade Well, that’s going to be shaped by very low-cost, very high-performance sensors. We’re basically going to attach eyes, ears and sensory organs to our computers and ask them to observe and manipulate the physical world on our behalf.
Processors and sensors are going to be everywhere: helping McDonalds to keep your French fries consistent the whole world around by embedding networked sensors in their frying machines; telling Coca-Cola when a vending machine is broken or empty; and helping diabetics with subcutaneous microdelivery systems for insulin which deliver medication on a precise schedule.