The Future of Networks and Computing

Brad Templeton

E.F.F., Foresight Inst. & SU

June 2010

Singularity University – Graduate Studies Program

What makes a revolution?

• Technology purchased by early adopters• Nobody who can tell you “no”• Open and hackable platforms with a

culture of talent & innovation• Insatiable market demand for doubling,

less demand for incremental improvement

• Disruption!

Singularity University – Graduate Studies Program

Important principles

• End to end networking with “stupid network.”• Best efforts delivery• More bandwidth is cheaper than “Quality of Service” (QoS)• Interesting pricing models, such as the internet cost contract,

and “free”

Singularity University – Graduate Studies Program

Networks

• Optical Fiber now at 69 terabits per fiber with DWDM (Dense Wave Division Multiplexing)

• FSO in gigabits, terahertz in 100s of gb/s• Radio offers arbitrary bandwidth with picocells• Spectrum allocation is obsolete, as WiFi teaches

– Cognitive Radio– Whitespace– Don't be selfish

• Big companies in the way• Time for a “glass roots” movement & fiber-bots

Singularity University – Graduate Studies Program

Coming in computing

• Languages: Object oriented, scripted, higher level• Programmer's mission: Waste CPU, memory and other

resources, not coder's time• Fundamental theorem: “Every problem can be solved by

adding another level of indirection.”• Jan will show you hardware/software trends• Software recalls and product liability

Singularity University – Graduate Studies Program

The cloud

• Abstraction• Virtualization• Computing on demand• Massively parallel computing on demand• Mainframe to time sharing to. PC to client/server to Web ?.0

Singularity University – Graduate Studies Program

Media

• Serial vs. Browsed vs. Pushed vs. Sampled• Reader-friendly vs. writer-friendly• Presence awareness (phones should never ring!)• Information overload and too much signal?• Need for new economic models• The “efficiency” of advertising

Singularity University – Graduate Studies Program

Coming up

• The next 10 years of hardware and software• Computer security and threats to privacy• Open source software and documents (@Google)• Quantum Computing and other future miracles• Advanced user interfaces• Computers networking people and their friends• The networked and robotic city of the future• Internet of things• Workshops