Future Directions of Computing - II

Next set of technologies are related to life sciences and would be taking paramount importance in future.

Here comes Chemical Computing

Chemical computing is an unconventional approach to computation that uses a "soup" where data is represented by different concentrations of chemicals. Chemical computers can exploit several different kinds of reaction to carry out the computation. For example, so-called conformation computers use polymer molecules that change shape in response to a particular input. Metabolic computing exploits the kinds of reactions typically found inside a living cell.
Dr Andrew Adamatzky of the University of West England works on another type. "I am dealing only with reaction-diffusion computing," he explains. This type of computation exploits waves travelling through a beaker of chemicals to carry out useful calculations.
These waves are the information carriers in the computer. They are created by triggering chemical reactions in the soup at specific points. As waves propagate from different areas they collide and interact - effectively processing the information they hold. At the site of their interaction a point with a new chemical concentration is created, which is in effect an answer.
With a beaker full of thousands of waves travelling and interacting with each other, complex computational problems can be solved. Quite Interesting, ain't it? Now I know its quite difficult to assimilate those things, but its real and IBM is already into it. Lets not be amazed when it shows up in future.

Next is my favourite, DNA Computing

DNA computing, commonly called biomolecular computing, is an emerging field that uses DNA and biochemistry instead of silicon-based electronics. The first proof-of-concept use of DNA to perform computation was carried out by Professor Leonard Adleman at the University of Southern California in 1994. The original goal of the field was to use biomolecules to beat electronic computers at solving large complex problems. But most of scientists refuse to believe that so the goal has been changed to do unconventional things that silicon cannot. In particular Shapiro is trying to develop smart drugs that are capable of computation. "You want a drug that can sense the biochemical environment, analyse it and, in response, release a molecule which is the appropriate drug for that particular situation," he said. Very useful indeed, I thought it could apply somewhere in complex computations and then get in touch with financial and scientific systems. There's where my curiousity for it emerged.

The final future front is Plastics Computing

Silicon is expensive and complex to produce, requiring clean rooms and precise manufacturing techniques in plants that can cost billions of dollars. This means they are currently out of reach for low-cost products. But organic polymers, a class of substances that are used to make everything from bin bags to solar panels, could offer a solution. "It really opens up a whole new set of options for what you do with electronics," said Professor Art Ramirez of Bell Labs. Highly conductive polymers were first discovered in the early 1960s and are already used in some electronic devices. In 2004, electronics giant Philips announced a concept flexible display, while other companies such as Cambridge Display Technology use them to manufacture organic light-emitting diodes (LEDs). Earlier this year, UK firm Plastic Logic said that it would build the world's first factory to produce plastic electronic circuits. Although, circuits made of polymers are much slower than silicon devices, they have one significant advantage: they can be printed using techniques similar to those used to mass produce magazines and wallpaper. This means they are cheap and easy to produce. And as the polymers can be printed onto flexible substrates they can also be used in totally new types of device, such as large-scale billboards or electronic newspapers.

Wow, Imagining picking up electronic newspapers is like having papers from Hogwartz.

So, this was a brief about six upcoming future computing to keep an eye on...lets see what catches up faster!!!