Moore, Moore, Moore

“Everyone knows that modern computers are better than old ones. But it is hard to convey just how much better, for no other consumer technology has improved at anything approaching a similar pace. The standard analogy is with cars: if the car from 1971 had improved at the same rate as computer chips, then by 2015 new models would have had top speeds of about 420 million miles per hour. That is roughly two-thirds the speed of light, or fast enough to drive round the world in less than a fifth of a second. If that is still too slow, then before the end of 2017 models that can go twice as fast again will begin arriving in showrooms.” In The Guardian, Tim Cross provides an interesting look at the incredible run of Moore’s law, and explains why it can’t go on forever. (And why it won’t need to…)

+ Some computing advances take longer than others. America has been trying to automate cheeseburgers for more than 50 years.