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Why We Need a Second Moore's Law
Roland Piquepaille writes "In its April issue, Wired Magazine argues that we need a second Moore's law, this time about overall efficiencies of our computers and other electronic devices. The subtitle of the article summarizes it: "If we don't do something about increasing battery life, we're toast." Michael S. Malone, the author, says that the first Moore's law is endangered, not because the semiconductor industry cannot build new generation of chips, but because we will not be able to provide them with enough power. And he contends that the problem arises from the fact that we are using more and more wireless devices, which obviously are not connected to a plug. This overview contains selected excerpts of this eye-opening article."
a fair point, to be sure. although the article's author clearly feels that the basis for such a law exists in moore's paper, the fact of the matter is that i'm pretty certain engineers working on batteries are keenly aware of the need to develop more efficient batteries, capable of holding a charge longer, while ideally not becoming too hot to avoid "scorched lap" syndrome. further, i'm similarly certain that if such an observable principle actually existed that some reasonably perceptive engineer would have picked up on it and written his or her own dissertation along those lines.
we may need such a law, but at best, right now, it's just a bill.
ed
At the very leasy these gyms could push the generated power back into the power grid. They could even get paid for it by the power company.
Do I smell a new business model here?
really, springs, clocksprings to be exact. I brought this up in another discussion last week. I have two radios (baygen/freeplay)that make quite good use of windup to tighten a spring to run a microgenerator technology in lieu of batteries. I have another radio that has built in solar and a crank on the side that is a direct generator to on board rechargeable battery, plus it has another compartment that holds disposable batteries, or you can plug in a voltage adapter. It's an inexpensive radio, but it has 4 way power and works quite well. I understand now that grundig has an even higher quality radio with a similar crank to microgenerator scheme. This sort of technology makes use of extremely efficient energy conversion and energy storage, ie, biochemical from the human body, that beats heck out of any battery out there. How about at least starting with a PDA to see if the windup style concepts have merit and can be adapted up the useage scale then? I see a lot of these PDAs use AA or AAA batteries, the same as these small radios, seems a natural to me. Even just a power adapter that is the spring, crank and battery bank, and that plugs into existing PDAs if they have a DC jack in. something along those lines. It's just not that hard to run a tiny crank for 30 to 60 seconds.
You know what I want someone to invent for me? A stationary bicycle that's nothing but the pedals and some sort of mechanism for adjusting the resistance, that can be placed under a standard sized desk. I'm the Queen of multi-tasking, and it would be great if I could somehow give my feet something to do, especially something physically constructive, while my hands and brain were working on other things.
I'd make it myself but I'm too busy drawing and don't really know anything about making stuff like that.
My Webcomic: Asylum on 5th Street
Moore's first law is a two-edged sword - more transistors for the same price is great for computers, but it's hell on batteries: As the processor power doubles, the power consumption also rises.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but: Malone, the author, is exaggerating by implying that the size of a transistor is remainaining constant while the number of transistors doubles. As I understand it, the smaller the processor, the less power it requires. Is this right?
Sure the chip industry needs to work on energy usage (perhaps through either fuel-cell batteries for lap-tops). Also, Malone is merely following the wagon with Intel's recent processor naming change. They've already figured out, that cycles are losing their prior applicability.