Moore’s Law has held true for the last 40 years. Processing Power, RAM, physical data storage densities and Network capacity keep increasing at constant rates all while costs are dropping and devices are becoming smaller.
We see evidence of this today from the abundance of smart phones and tablets. Although it seems like there are a lot of devices today, we are just at the cusp of a smart device proliferation explosion.
Hardware computing hobbyists have been around since the dawn of the micro-processor, but because of costs and complexities, they have been limited to a small minority of individuals. Open-source wiring platforms, such as theArduino platform, are now popular because hardware is so cheap and they’re simple to understand. Devices that would take a team of engineers, several months and millions of dollars to design and assemble can now be done in a living room, as a hobby. In a short period of time, a Dad and his son or daughter can order a set of components, wire them together and program them to do many tasks. Each of these cheap open-source components can do incredible things such as communicate wirelessly with each other, detect their GPS location, or work with environmental sensors.
These open-source wiring platforms will exponentially increase the proliferation of devices because they will drive innovation which will then be productized by entrepreneurs and consumed by governments, businesses, and people. Increased demand, in the long run, will drive down costs even more and thus this process will feed itself and the rate of the proliferation of devices will just keep increasing.
So what can we expect? Imagine every electrical outlet and light socket in your house having a microchip that detects and reports energy usage and real-time costs, looks for abnormal current fluctuations, and reports them to the owner. These same microchips can allow the owner to turn the power on and off remotely. Imagine every doorknob has a microchip that reports who is entering or leaving a room and at what time. The home’s owner can determine remotely whether they have locked the front door on their way out and if they haven’t, they can lock it remotely via their smart phone.
OK, this scenario isn’t that hard to predict because it’s already happening in a few homes today. But, what will change, because of the low price of smart devices, is how these devices will soon come standard in all new homes and apartments.
This is just one small example of a device proliferation explosion. Our brightest hobbyists and entrepreneurs will ensure there are more to come.
