In this month’s issue of IEEE Spectrum there is a discussion about a recent survey conducted of over 700 IEEE Fellows as to where they see the tech world heading.
Computer engineer Geordie Rose calls into question their willy-nilly predictions regarding quantum computing, suggesting that their timeline is way off the mark, by 50 or so years.
The other article is somewhat older, but I was reminded of it during the A&M tailgate earlier today (I go to tailgates and not the actual game). It is an overview of J. Craig Venter’s latest escapade across the Seven Seas. According to Wired, he is trying to sequence the genome of every living creature found in the matter that comprises 70% of the planet (I mentioned it briefly here).
I wonder if that really is worth the time and effort to do, seeing as you may one day be able to use genetic programming to sequence all possible iterations of any genome that could have existed (see the dynamic procedural generation used in Spore, as well as the machinations of John Koza, combined with Seth Lloyd’s Computational Universe).
I also wonder if Venter would ever want to track down some of our extremophile friends in the deep abyss.