We know that digital code has over the past decade changed the world we live in. At the start of this new year I dare say that over the next ten years the genetic code is about to change everything again.
Genetics will drive the coming years and will soon become a dominant language.
What is the basic similarity between an orange and a floppy? The floppy disk stores information in ones and zeros.
The orange has a different type of code (the proteins represented by the letters A, T, C, G) but it is a code just the same.
Referring to the codes of both the floppy and the orange we know that the codes on a floppy can be changed but we cannot change the code of an orange.
Recently I came across an article that highlighted the fact that the code of a corn has been changed. So how long would it take to change the code of an orange and change to a contraceptive, or polyester or a vaccine?
Sounds far-fetched but, as these alterations have been achieved in corn, if we open our eyes, we can visualise the change that awaits us round the corner or over the next few years.
According to a study by the University of California at Berkeley, the world's media is currently producing about 1.5 exabytes of data annually (including 7.5 quadrillion minutes' worth of telephone conversations, over 600 billion e-mails and 500 billion photocopies in the US alone).
Compare this to all the words spoken by all the human beings throughout history, that is estimated at only five exabytes.
When you put the amount of genetic data that you possess in perspective you will find that your genetic data code consists of three billion letters. The code is also repeated twice in each cell and your body has about 50 trillion cells.
This means that you walk around carrying 150 zetabits of data (one zetabit has 22 zeroes behind it and to put things back into perspective the sequence goes like this: Kilo, Mega, Giga, Tera, Peta, Exa, Zeta, Yota).
When I read or write about this matter, I always think that there will be someone out there, whoever it may be, who could come up with a famous phrase.
There is the famous quote of Bill Gates who in 1981 stated that 640 K ought to be enough for anybody.
In 1977 Ken Olsen of DEC stated that there was no reason why anyone would want a computer in their home.
There was Popular Mechanics, which reported in 1949 that computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons.
In 1943 IBM's Thomas Watson thought that at the time there was a world market for maybe five com-puters.
A Western Union internal memo in 1976 stated that this telephone has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communications. The device was inherently of no value to them.
In 1899 Charles H. Duell, Commissioner US Office of Patents, stated that everything that could be invented was invented.
Some 20 years ago Dom Mintoff also commented that computers could not be imported into Malta as they would make people redundant.
Wonder what, keeping the quotes in mind, what we or the future generation will be smiling at 20, 40, 60, 80 or 100 years from now.
Storage data are marching on by having their bar pushed ever higher, or ever smaller, as the case may be. Individual atoms of gold on a silicon substratum are now being self-assembled into regular rows 1.7 nanometers apart, with a consistent 1.5 nanometer spacing between each atom within a row.
Atoms can simply assemble themselves, precisely without any litho-graphy. That is data density of 250 trillion bits per square inch or 7,800 DVDs full of movies in one square inch.
The above is just another laboratory prototype, and there might well be practical issues that might also prevent its eventual commercialisation.
Even smaller things are in the pipeline, especially since IBM can now image things that are smaller than a hydrogen atom - www. nytimes.com/2002/08/08/technology/08BLUE.html.
Back to reality, hard drives may remain about the same size that we've been used to but, according to a recent announcement from Fujitsu, the capacity of these drives is going to continue to increase dramatically.
Using a refinement of the giant magneto-resistant (GMR) read/write head commonly used today, they expect their current perpendicular-to-plane (CPP) head will generate one-third terabyte (360 gigabye) notebook hard drives by 2006.
Assumedly, this new GMR technology could also be applied to the larger 3.5-inch drives commonly used on desktops as well, so in just a few years, terabyte-plus PCs will not seem outrageous at all.
Over this Christmas period we read about these adult playstations that are being said to be harmful when operated by youngsters.
This reminds me of years ago when they tried to ban my favourite television programme as they said that it was harmful to children since the programme was vicious, to say the least.
I am referring to Tom and Jerry. Seriously.
The game I used to play years ago on a computer consisted of hitting a ball across the screen from left to right, right to left, and so on. Some kind of tennis, I dare say, that eventually helped me to train my eyes to umpire tennis matches up to international standard.
I also enjoyed landing a lunar module on a lunar surface with hundreds of new craters created bearing my name whenever I failed to land the module softly on the surface. But things do change.
A new chip called the Cell is due in 2005. This will power a new generation of Sony console video game and other computing devices.
What makes the Cell different from today's typical microprocessors or Digital Signal Processors (DSPs) is that the Cell contains several different types of computing cores (or cells), each optimised to its own task (such as video processing, high-bandwidth communications processing and more) but the processing cells can be interconnected in different ways under program control to optimise the task at hand.
Additional details can be found at http://zdnet.com.com?2100-1103-948493.html.
If the Cell does come out of the manufacturing process, as intended, it will end up as a new hit PlayStation that is merely a game.
But games often drive the advances that eventually become the forerunners for business computing. How can we forget colour monitors, sound cards, 3D graphics acceleration and so on?
As you must have noticed, I wrote enough today that if you blinked you would have missed it all. But I don't believe that we should close our eyes to what is happening around us, especially when we are depending more and more on the Internet.
By 2009 it is envisaged that there will be six billion Internet-enabled devices, each with an IP address. Will the IP networks of 2009 be stable enough to cope with the demand?
Are the governments and private industries, on a worldwide scale, doing enough to prevent the World Wide Web from being vulnerable?
This means of transport is speeding ahead in an uncontrolled fashion. Maybe I might be proved wrong, but I strongly believe that if the right precautions are not put into place the grid will collapse.
Internet security is no longer a luxury. It's a deadly serious necessity. We live in an age of virtual city gates. Where's everybody, I may ask - literally speaking, of course.
Mr Vella is managing director of CAS Ltd. E-mail: paulvella@cas.com.mt.