<snip> [ From the end djf]
Future of computing
Q: Not all countries survive now and not all companies survive. What does MIT's Media Lab need to do in the future?
A: We have a very large, relatively unknown biotech programme going on. We have the world's authority on quantum computing, we have lots of people who walk around with little white lab jackets on ordering chemicals. Maybe some TV programmes will be sent in vitamin pills. Just as you now swallow Vitamin E you might also get the news. I don't know.
Q: One of things you do is to predict the future. You say that eventually there will be more Barbie dolls connected to the internet than Americans. Why would they want to be, and beyond that are there any other visions of the future?
A: First of all, put that in context that the largest amount of semi-conductor material to flow into the home will undoubtedly be through toys. It's not TV sets; it's not refrigerators; it's not PCs; it's not handsets - it's going to be toys. The reason I use that Barbie doll example is that the Barbie doll has to be connected in order to get stories, in order to get your content.
If you are not making content for Barbie dolls today, you should start real soon.
So, when we talk about Barbie dolls being online, it's part of a very general and I think a very important change. The next 10 years isn't the difference between bits and atoms. The next 10 years is about how bits and atoms come together; how do more bits get embedded in more atoms right down to grains of sugar?
I'm not talking about refrigerators with microprocessors in them, I am talking about right down to the molecular level where you start to put more computation into things and that merger - bits and atoms - as they come together is the caricature we see in the Barbie doll. This is a very serious and important trend.
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