GM,
<<I haven't seen any complaints that drives have insufficient
capacity or speed. So how can it be an obstacle?>>
Design limitations. Size or form factor of hard drive limits the design of full function portables, noise factor, environmental limitations (although I admit IBM and others have impressive numbers on shock tolerance that I never thought they would reach), bandwidth limitations because of spinning platter, heat limitations, and of course the looming physical barrier.
I fully admit that I'm looking way out there but the disk drive stands in the way of truly ubiquitous computing. Sure has brought us a long way though.
Bottomline (OH, OOH) society is in the beginning stages of the conversion of print and images into digital streams. Coming on-line soon: first run movies, mass entertainment (TV, VOD), Internet Telephony, videoconferencing, virtual strip shows <g>, and on and on. I don't think the winchester disk drive can handle it except with brute force. The evolution of technology is not about brute force it is all about elegance. Brute force means more and more disk drives introducing more and more complexity. It must, therefore, evolve or be replaced by a more elegant solution.
Holostore? Nanostore? Some new data compression algorithm? I haven't the faintest idea. How's that for a totally non-investable, useless speculation? (Hell, I even worry about the laws of thermodynamics. Global Warming? <VBG>)
IBM is my choice to lead and enable the evolution and is the only one I have truly long term bucks invested in.
Paul |
