Computer Knowledge - Exam Oriented
1. Future Trends in Computers
At present the latest computers calculate 500 million operations per second. Efforts to develop a radical computer chip design capable of performing one thousand billion operations per second are on. Efforts are also being made at present to devise a natural language computer system that can recognize more than 3000 words in a specific knowledge area; have a reasonable command of grammar and respond to different voices.
Another important area of research is the �computer vision�. There will be computers that can read maps to �intelligent� anti-aircraft missiles capable of recognizing an enemy plane from a friendly plane and bring down the enemy craft. Already warheads are in operation which find the target with the aid of a contour map of the terrain and the picture of the target. They don�t have to be aimed accurately, but just fired in the general direction and they find their way.
There are proposals to build unmanned vehicles that can navigate upto 50 km of difficult terrain, recognizing and avoiding obstacles along the way while moving at speed upto 40 km an hour. This will require an image processing capability of over 10 billion instructions per second. Efforts to develop fifth generation computers are on in the two most powerful industrial nations in the world, viz, the United States and Japan.
These fifth generation computers will be able to �see�, �talk� and �think�. High tech buffs are thinking aloud of even the possibility of inventing altogether different machines�optical and organic computers�which will be many times faster than the present day super fast computers. Thus instead of electronic components, single molecules of some organic chemicals shall be used which would enable billions and billions of switches to fit into a conventional chip.
