Extrapolated World (2017)

[#1]

Since we’re closing in on 2012, I thought I’d give the world of 2017 a little thought before starting my perspectives for 2012 post, after all it is only 5 years out.

There are many sources for trend information. One that has a great deal of this material is Ray Kurzweil’s The Singularity is Near. This book has numerous graphs about technical trends. There is even a website with the underlying data and its sources. I took some information from there as well as a few other websites that claim to have even newer relevant information and started to do some linear and logarithmic extrapolation, based on the type of data and its growth curve.

For the Internet:

• Number of internet nodes: 10 Billion
• Internet traffic: 4.5x 1021 Bytes per year
• Home Internet Bandwidth: 290 Mb/s - Nielson's law
• Internet unique users: 3.35 Billion

In the IT hardware space

• System memory: 6.8 Billion bits/$
• Average transistor price: 2.7x109 Transistors/$
• Transistors per processor: 13 Billion
• Wireless performance: 370Mb/s - Edholm's law
• Magnetic Storage: 400 Gigabytes/$

In the Health care space

• Cost of DNA Sequencing  3x10-4 $/sequenced pair

Global population

• 7.4 Billion people (This one was interesting because it had numbers ranging all over the map based on the assumptions that were used).

I am not saying these are “Right”, but these numbers should be the basis of some significant thought.

[#2]

I had an error in my calculation for how much magnetic storage will be in 2017. Hopefully this is more accurate.