I reviewed your latest newsletter with interest.  I was especially interested in the subliminal message that was clearly expressed in the presentation – one of the future importance of Convergence.  You talked of 3 basic things – Solution of the year – where you addressed the evolution of Bio-power to ease the Processing of information in the micro-miniature world, the second of RFID – the capture of terabits of Information (much of which in reality is superficial and not required – more on that further) – the third was the use of Broadband – in India currently this is talked of in terms of 100s of kilobits – on other parts of the world it is currently implemented in 10s of Megabits – and the future is in terabits.  In your newsletter you have addressed the 3 key elements and through presentation implied the key – the need for Convergence.   

Looking at the 3 elements as 3 vertices of the triangle which people need to perform tasks or achieve objectives: Information; Processing Power; and Communications (and in increasing Volumes as civilisation becomes more complex), the concept of Time and Distance becomes important since this governs the Size of the triangle.  Convergence is the answer to that.  At slow speeds, time expands as does distance – similar in concept to that Einstein’s theory of relativity (only in reverse).  What massive increases in Processing power, Channel Bandwidth and Information provides is a reduction in Time and Distance- but these must be provided concurrently so as not to distort.  For example, in your RFI article, you emphasised the time reduction and the ability to complete tasks quickly.  In the broadband article, the net result of increased bandwidth is the reduction in time and thus conceptual distance (between source and sink).  In the Solution of the Year, you talked of reduced processing time through Bio-processing.  For RFID to work effectively in the future you need both Processing Power and high bandwidth – people wont wait for 20 minutes because the communications channel is too slow – or there is a delay due to congestion in processing the information.  So as you can see Convergence is essential for the new age! 

RFID technology is creating a whole new set of problems – information saturation and overload.  What will be required is very robust filtering and selective data capture.  A manufacturer may need to know the ID and component could on every TV set shipped from the factory – the retailer and consumer only needs to one or 2 – the rest have to be filtered as superfluous.  However at this point they all generate their IDs.  Massive filtering is required at the data capture device.  This will be an interesting problem to solve.  How do you handle the thief who builds a small RFID generator that provides false information – all you need is 1 or 2 compromised codes to collapse the whole system.  Another interesting topic to explore and solve.     

By the way – Bio-processing is here and has been around for hundreds and thousands of years – it is called the Brain.  There has never been processing power like that – and at that level of miniaturisation.   It is clearly at the cellular and perhaps even the atomic level.  My major concern is that humanity is working towards displacing the brain by artificial means – and thus become unable to think – interpret, understand and conceptualise.  It has been mankind that has developed all the tool for convenience – I wonder, will it really become a ‘Matrix’ world in the future if we forget that machines are tools to achieve a goal and not the goal itself.  Perhaps this would be an interesting topic for your team and readership to debate. 

Regards