Well, here we are at the end of 2007, my fifth full year of having the privilege of populating the “Technology” section of the Weekend Edition of the Times Record with words, thoughts, ideas, opinions, and, yes, at times, out-and-out propaganda.  I hope you’ve enjoyed reading it as much as I’ve enjoyed penning it.

As I was reflecting on and researching the year-in-review piece next door, I looked back upon the last five years of my article headlines and was struck with how far technology has come during that period.  Back in 1965, Charles Moore, a co-founder of Intel, observed that the computer industry was developing a new generation of chips about every three years, with the number of transistors on chips doubling every 18 months.  His observations, now called Moore’s Law, have rung true for over 40 years.

In 2003, single-core, 4 GHz Pentium processors ruled the computing roost.  It was all about the clock speed.  Problem was, all those gigahertz required a lot of electricity and generated a lot of heat.  Desktop “tower” computers (with more room inside than dorm room refrigerators and plugged into the wall all the time) could afford to gulp electricity and sport big cooling fans.  But the trend was toward “portable” or “notebook” computing, where power-hungry processors and cooling fans drained precious battery life.  So, as necessity is the mother of invention, and in keeping with Moore’s Law, a new generation of processors came on the scene in 2006.

These “new chips on the block” had reduced clock speeds, but were “faster” and more efficient by increasing the amount of data that could be worked on at any one time.  These cooler-running and more efficient processors enabled two big trends in computing that we’ll see continuing in 2008 and beyond:  smaller, thinner, portable computers with speeds equal to their bulkier desktop siblings; and, powerful desktop computers in smaller enclosures (a la Apple’s iMac).

So, as time (and Moore’s Law) marches on, by late 2008 or early 2009 we should see a new generation of processors come on the scene.  Sure enough, Intel recently unveiled a processor architecture called “Silverthorne”.  Silverthorne is said to be as fast as the current crop of portable computer processors, but will consumer only one-tenth as much electrical power.  Sounds perfect for second-generation iPhones and ultra-thin MacBooks, don’t you think?  2008’s gonna be a fun year.