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Going Down Memory Lane - A Futuristic Outlook
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Monday, January 17, 2000
"For every modern convenience, there is a computer chip behind it. For every computer chip used, memory support is always there. Whether it is volatile, non-volatile, fast or slow, big or small, it affects our lives. It remembers, so we do not have to. Like it or not, it's here to stay."
I have just started my car to go home at 4:00pm today. The little screen on the dash-board lights up and flashes a message. "Good day Doc. Since you are going home early today, would you like your home air conditioner turned on right now so the house would be cool when you get there?" I answered “yes”. The artificial intelligence then prompted "Robo-dog will have your slippers ready at the door step! Have a good drive."
I pulled out my Internet cell phone, punched a button and ordered my favorite pizza. Knowing that the pizza will be ready at the Pizza Warehouse in 20 minutes, I still have a little time to stop by the laundry. At the drive-through laundry, I inserted my Smart Card into the secured slot and there came my clean laundry. I finished that stop at a breeze without any human intervention. Likewise, I picked up my pizza the same way without a hinge. Well, after doing that for the last 2 years, I should have expected that. As a matter of facts, I would suspect that I was paying too much if a human server is involved.
I soon arrived at home. My favorite music is already on. The house is cool and cozy. I did my routine check on that little screen on my refrigerator. It listed that I was short on milk and Coke. But it had automatically sent the order to the online grocer for a refill. At dinner, I decided to watch "My Personal News for the Day". I punched a button and entered my pre-registered news preference code and there came all the latest news on "Memory". You see that my news service searches the world and gathers all the news video clips on my favorite subject for me.
After dinner, I decided to call my girl friend on the giant screen videophone for a virtual date. Well, Daisy suggested renting an interactive movie from Blockbuster. I punched a button and the selection menu came up on both our screens. She picked a "romance". Throughout the movie, we kept our conversation and intellect at work by involving ourselves on being the virtual characters in the movie. This is accomplished by responding to the prompts on the side bar.
Apparently, the movie didn't satisfy all Daisy's appetite for the evening. She wanted to play a game of Bridge. We called up Marlin and Mary to join in for the video-bridge game. It lasted for three hours and into bedtime. Anyway, we all enjoyed the evening.
It is now 7 o'clock in the morning and I am already up for my workday. As soon as I have dressed up, I immediately dialed for the overnight memory price at the Hong Kong Commodity Exchange. I also did a video tour to the production floor on a couple of memory chip factories in Taiwan. Talked to the factory Foreman to understand today's yield on the various kinds of memories. I also checked with a couple of analysts in Europe on the memory price and yield situations there. By 10 o'clock I had logged in a shipment of memories directly from the factory in Korea. Hey, I did all these even before I left home.
Trip to the office is absolutely a joy ride. Since I am on a routine trip, I just simply set on the GPS (global positioning system) Auto Drive and let the computer drive me to work on the auto-lane. I also managed to read up my electronic morning news on the way.
My regular office day is usually action-packed. As soon as I walked into my office, my daily e-mails were automatically announced to me. I turned on the "junk mail filter" and discarded half of that. The rest is being read to me by the pleasant computer voice. That still comes to over 50 mails. Well, I would have to spend the rest of the day answering those letters if it had been a few years back. However, all I have to do now is to turn on my automatic e-mail answerer. This special software matches the keywords (by artificial intelligent) and pulls the reply from my library of canned letters. It then presents all the letters to me and highlights the words that it thinks I should tailor for the specific recipient. Ha! It takes me less than an hour to reply all 50 letters.
At noontime, I setup a video conferencing with executives at the M-Company and the I-Company to debrief on the latest development on computer appliance and software. Of course, they were anxious to find out from me what is the supply and demand outlook of memory in the coming week. Anyway, we all came out of the meeting with something to take home.
At one o'clock, I called an in-house staff meeting. Our newsletter group reviews their progress on their video commentary on Ferro-magnetic Rams. You know the new memory that promises non-volatility, speed and low cost. Our test laboratory supervisor shows off his video clips of data on this new kind of Ram. We also talked about the status of the new Molecular Ram that supposed to replace all the legacy memories like Rambus and DDR (Double Data Rate SDRAM). The test group demonstrates their latest progress on memory test technology. They are promising revolutionary new memory test products by the end of the year.
Time flies by and soon it is 4 o'clock. I instructed the computer to download all the economic market data from the New York Exchange. I then merge another set of data from the memory manufacturers worldwide. I also entered the major business events unveiled throughout the day. The only piece of data lacking would be the Hong Kong Overnight memory price index that I will not get until the next morning. You see that with a custom program that I have built-up in the last 10 years, the computer would be able to predict the memory market price for the following day. The work concludes at 5 o'clock.
In summary, I find myself working harder than ever in this digital world. However, once the work is done, the rest of the digital convenience certainly makes it worthwhile. Thanks to the guy who invented electronic memory.
By: DocMemory
Copyright © 2023 CST, Inc. All Rights Reserved
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