ELEC 694 COMP 694

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ELEC 694COMP 694

• Introduction

Scott Cutler cutler_at_rice.edu 1/07/09
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Objectives

• Create a vision of the personal computing and
  personal digital electronics fields 5 years into
  the future.
• Derive this vision though a combination of
• Extrapolating component trends
• Identifying
• Synergies
• Interdependences
• Bottlenecks
• Identifying disruptive technologies
• Thinking like a CTO
• Course is sub-titled How to think like a CTO

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Who am I?
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Birth Through High School
New Haven, CT
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MIT
Cambridge, MA
BS 1973 MS 1973 Ph.D. 1976 Zork 1979
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GE Research and Development
Niskayuna, NY
First business use of PC (TRS-80) in GE
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Tandy Electronics (Radio Shack)
Fort Worth, TX
Deskmate - First graphical Quicken - First
graphical Lotus - Foundation for AOL
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Chips and Technologies
San Jose, CA
Wingine Windows Graphics
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Digital Equipment Corporation
Boston, MA
CTO PC Group
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Compaq
Houston, TX
CTO PC Group
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Rice University (2001 Present)
Houston, TX
COMP / ELEC 694 Future Personal Computing
Technology COMP / ELEC 446 Mobile Wireless
Services Project Digital Media Personal
Electronics
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Current Roster

• Tamer Ali
• GR, ELEC tamer.ali_at_rice.edu
• Britt Antley
• SR, ELEC britt.a.antley_at_rice.edu
• Rohan Balsaver
• SR, ELEC rbalsaver_at_rice.edu
• Stefan Goshev
• SR CAAM stefan.a.goshev_at_rice.edu
• Hemtej Gullapalli
• GR Nano Physics hemtej_at_rice.edu
• Kevin Le
• SR CS kevin.y.le_at_rice.edu
• Sohum Misra
• SR CS smisra_at_rice.edu
• Scott Novich
• GR ECE snovich_at_rice.edu
• Barron Stone
• SR ELEC barron.d.stone_at_rice.edu

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Modeled after MITs Area Exam

• Short term exercise to become fluent in a new
  technology
• Assess the interrelationships between the new
  technology and its broader area.
• Acts as the qualifying exam for the Ph.D.
  program.
• Taken after the Ph.D. qualifying oral and written
  exams
• Taken after the Masters degree, but before
  completing Ph.D. thesis.

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Area Exam Mechanics

• Provided a topic in a field quite different to
  your thesis area, but still in the general
  department area.
• Provided three papers relevant to the specific
  topic.
• Student lives, eats, sleeps, drinks, etc that
  topic for three to four weeks and writes a paper
  summarizing the new topic.
• Student appears before a committee of professors
  to defend and discuss the topic and paper
  followed by oral questions in a broad range of
  area topics.
• Successful students get to stay others have to
  leave before completing their thesis.

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Area Exam Value

• Pressure
• Often a feeling of being over whelmed at the
  beginning with little grasp of what is even
  important in assigned topic or what is important
  while knowing that they are to defend the topic
  in front of experts that have the power to deny
  continued study.
• Learn which way is up by the end of the first
  Week.
• Amazing level of understanding and comfort by end
  of second week.
• Most people get through exam (although many do
  not) with an understanding that they can learn a
  new topic quickly and to not let first
  impressions make them give up.
• Importance of broad knowledge of field.
• Skill used repeatedly through my career.

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Events of the Week

• The second part of the Area Exam dealt with
  random questions in your general area
• Brought out the need for balancing breadth with
  depth
• We will start every week with a 10 minute Events
  of the Week discussion where you let me know what
  significant events relevant to the personal
  electronics area took place over the prior week.

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Seeing the Future

• Most people have difficulty predicting technology
  6 months out, let alone 2 to 5 years.
• Tendency to wait until something can be touched
  before starting development
• People have even more difficulty seeing the
  impact on their area from future developments of
  other technologies
• Often possible to buy your way to 6 months out
  from where it is easier to predict 12 months out.

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COMP / ELEC-694 Format

• First two seminars are process and history based.
  There is also an overview on what makes a great
  presentation.
• Series of student led seminars each covering a
  technology or set of related technologies and
  products
• A futuristic paper typically on same topic as
  your talk
• A group project covering groups vision of a
  relevant technology / product 5 years out.
• Course finishes with an offsite seminar
  discussing trends taken to their extreme,
  interesting products and connected homes (a.k.a.
  end of semester party)

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Preparation Meetings

• 6 one-on-one preparation meetings prior to
  seminar.
• First meeting five weeks before seminar to
  discuss general area and potential readings.
  (15min)
• Second meeting, four weeks before seminar,
  reviews outline of presentation (1 hr)
• PowerPoint outline with slide titles and no
  content
• Third meeting, three weeks before seminar reviews
  a first draft of presentation (1 hr)
• Draft contains some content, lt 50 complete
• Fourth meeting, two weeks before seminar reviews
  a first draft of presentation (1 hr)
• Draft contains significant content, 90 complete
• Fifth meeting, one week before seminar reviews
  final draft of presentation. (1 hr)
• Completed presentation
• Sixth meeting, Communications review scheduled in
  the week prior to presentation with Tracy Volz
  (1.5 hr)

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Communications Review

• 1.5 hr. mandatory practice session with Dr. Tracy
  Volz
• Senior Lecturer of Professional Communication
  from the Dean of Engineerings office.
• Help develop and improve presentation skills
• Logistics
• Email final draft to tmvolz_at_rice.edu one week
  prior to presentation.
• Contact Dr. Volz two weeks prior to seminar to
  schedule your review
• Review can be any time the week before your
  seminar however the best times are either the
  Friday or Monday before your talk.

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Grading

• 60 Individual Topic Presentation
• Content and delivery
• Includes Communications evaluation
• 15 Discussion Participation
• 10 Final Presentation
• 15 Final Paper

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Logistics

• Typical technology seminar format
• 025 status update and current topics
• 045 presentation on technology
• 015 group discussion
• 005 preview of next topic and selected papers to
  read
• 015 possible presentation on interesting
  products
• Based on current class size, we will have 9
  student presentations. If class size goes above
  10, we will have to have a few lectures with two
  presentations.
• No class on 2/4/2009 (TED Conference)
• Office hours DH 2049
• Website http//www.ece.rice.edu/Courses/694.html
  
• Email Cutler_at_rice.edu
• Phone[phone] (or Rice office 713 348-2526)

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Schedule for Spring 2009

• 01/07/09 Introduction and Waves of Computing
  (Cutler)
• 01/14/09 Historical Perspective On PC Technology
  (Cutler) Creating and Delivering Great
  Presentations (Volz)
• 01/21/09 Processor and Chipset Technologies
  (Barron Stone)
• 01/38/09 Cloud Computing (Kevin Le)
• 02/04/09 No Class (TED Conference), prep
  meetings 2/2/09
• 02/11/09 Digital Living Room (Rohan Balsaver)
• 02/18/09 Next Gen Web Applications (Sohum Misra)
• 02/25/09 Topic 5
• 03/04/09 No Class - Rice midterm recess
• 03/11/09 Topic 6
• 03/18/09 Topic 7
• 03/25/09 Topic 8
• 04/01/09 Topic 9
• 04/08/09 Topic 10
• 04/15/09 Final Projects - Final Papers Due
• 04/19/09 ??? Off-site - Interesting Products,
  Infinity

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Candidate Topics Spring 2009

• Processors and Chipsets including 64-bit
  Processors, multiple cores, Intel v. AMD  (Barron
  Stone)
• Cloud Computing (Kevin Le)
• The Digital Living Room, including Media Center
  Edition, Video extenders, Apple TV, TiVo, Home
  Automation, etc. and/or Digital Home Servers
  (Rohan Balsaver)
• AJAX, next generation web applications (e.g. Web
  2.0) and the semantic web. (Sohum Misra)
• Silverlight, Flash 10, Thermo, Oslo and other
  next gen app development platforms.
• Gaming Computers and Game Consoles PS3 v. Xbox
  360 v. Wii v. Alienware, Cell v. nVidia
• Storage SATA, EIDE, Flash, HD DVD standards,
  RAID, Backup, disk in the clouds
• Virtualization
• Minimizing spam, identity theft and securing a
  personal computer while allowing remote access to
  home.
• Parallel / multicore technology for consumer
  uses.
• Second Tier Topics (will require additional
  rigor)
• Broadband / Last Mile implications of 1Mb,
  10MB, 50Mb broadband and ubiquitous connectivity
• Biotech and nanotech with emphasis on personal
  medical electronics
• Digital Rights Management
• PDAs and Smart Phones, Palm vs. Windows Mobile
  vs. Symbian OS vs. Android vs. iPhone
• Automotive Electronics Beyond the engine
  including GPS, XM audio and XM data
• Digital Cameras, High Definition, Photo Printing,
  Digital Video Processing, DVD and solid state
  media

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Discussion
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ELEC 694

• Waves of Computing

Scott Cutler cutler_at_rice.edu 01/7/09
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The Law of Accelerating Returns

• Great Paper by Ray Kurzweil
• http//www.kurzweilai.net/articles/art0134.html?p
  rintable1
• Rate of technology change is accelerating
• Will achieve 100 years of 2000 technology
  progress in 25 years.
• Moores law (doubling transistor count of ICs
  every 24 months) has lasted 60 years
• Continuing, but will flatten (transistors a few
  atoms wide by 2019)
• Was the 5th, not 1st technology wave
• Likely to be replaced by 6th wave via paradigm
  shift

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Moores Law was the 5th Paradigm to Provide
Exponential Growth of Computing
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Kurzweil Computer Brain Calculations

• Human brain
• 100 billion neurons
• averaging 1,000 connections/neuron
• 200 calculations / sec / neuron
• Human Brain Capability 21016th CPS
• Achieve 1 Human Brain Capability
• For 1,000 in 2023
• For 0.01 in 2037
• Achieve 1 Human Race Capability 21026th CPS
• For 1,000 in 2049
• For 0.01 in 2059

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On Intelligence

• Jeff Hawkins (inventor of the Palm and Treo)
  book on how the neocortex works.
• Interesting model of brain function based on
  prediction coupled with alerts when things are
  not as predicted.

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Seminar 2

• How to give a presentation like a CTO
• Dr. Tracy Volz, Senior Lecturer of Professional
  Communication. Office of the Dean of Engineering
• Technology History
• Disruptive Technologies
• Personal Computers 1991 2009
• Five year simple extrapolation
• Logistics
• Wednesday, January 14
• 1000 1130
• DH-2014
• Read
• Kurzweil - The Law of Accelerating Returns
• http//www.kurzweilai.net/articles/art0134.html?pr
  intable1
• Introduction from Christensen The Innovators
  Dilemma
• Available on http//www.amazon.com