Recent advances in future computing speed:

Harvard researchers believe that relatively inexpensive nanowire transistors could perform four to five times faster than existing silicon chips. Added bonus: the processors can be embedded in flexible plastics, so printed circuit boards are not required. This would make them ideal for compact, low-cost appliances such as cell phones and displays (via Slashdot).

But don’t give up on silicon just yet. IBM and Georgia Tech have pushed silicon-germanium (SiGe) chips to a new processing peak: 500 GHz, by cooling them to an all-goosebumps-would-be-in-vain minus 451 degrees Fahrenheit (a mere 9 degrees above absolute zero). In theory, the admixture of germanium with silicon could result in processor speeds of up to 1 terahertz — a trillion cycles per second.

By the time similar technology reaches the desktop, it should be just enough power for Windows Behemoth(tm), even running Office 20$$.

TDavid had a post today on speech recognition. Thought that I would give this a try and make today’s blog entry using a microphone into Microsoft Word and then pull it into BlogDesk. Let’s see how well the speech recognition engine works. So far it looks pretty good, except of course that it got TDavid’s name as “the David”. Not too bad, still going to require some manual edits…tending to agree with TDavid’s assessment that speech recognition is not the fastest way to create a document. Typing in, at least for someone to whom it has become natural, is much quicker.

OK, that required a lot more edits than I thought it would while I was speaking. Here’s the original as captured by the microphone and interpreted by the speech engine:

The David had a post today on a speech recognition such that I would give this a try and make do this block the entry using a microphone into Microsoft word and then pull it into one of us let’s see how well the speech recognition engine works so far it looks pretty good except of course that a guide to David’s name as the David Gunn too bad still going to require some manual and it’s selecting to agree with the David’s assessment that speech recognition is not the fastest way to create a document typing in at least for someone who has come naturally is much quicker had

No punctuation at all. Quite a few incorrectly recognized words. Interesting that it knew to capitalize “Microsoft”, but not “Word” immediately following “Microsoft”. I had to edit every sentence. Not sure what that final “had” was supposed to be. There is no way I would use this for anything except creating a quick reminder list of what I wanted to say when a keyboard is available. I was using Office 2003 on Windows XP SP2, so maybe this will be improved in Vista and Office 2007. I’m not holding my breath.