Computing at the Speed of Light-2

Optical computing – processing information using light instead of the electrons used in ordinary electronic computers – may soon be a reality. In 1990 Alan Huang unveiled the world’s first digital optical processor, the device that would form the guts of any optical computer.

William Ninke, Mr. Huang’s boss at Bell Labs, calls the achievement a milestone. “The Wright brothers only flew so far and they only flew so fast. No one expected them to build the Concorde their first time around. But because they had built on a solid engineering and technological base, as we have, the opportunities for doing more were immense, ” he says.

Though many now are willing to concede that an optical computer is possible – a concession Mr. Huang sees a triumph in itself – only a few believe it can ever be a practical alternative to today’s electronic technology.

“It’s easy to get seduced by the idea of computing with light, ” says Jim McGroddy, IBM’s director of research. “The work is interesting, the physics is interesting, and their devices may be useful for certain purposes, but one shouldn’t kid oneself about this area’s applicability or practicality.”

IBM did extensive research on photonics, as the field is sometimes called, during the 1960s. Its scientists concluded that computing with light uses more energy than computing with electricity, and therefore that photonics would never compete with electronics. Light is good for transmission and connections, Mr. McGroddy says, but not much else.

Even Joseph Goodman, Mr. Huang’s former teacher and a Stanford electrical-engineering professor who is considered the guru of optical computing, says that “the first commercial general-purpose digital optical computer will appear sometime between the year 2000 and infinity.”

Like some others, Professor Goodman suspects AT& T is less interested in general-purpose optical computers than in highly specialized ones that would switch telephone calls and other information through its burgeoning optic-fiber network. Huang and Ninke concede such a use of their photonic technology is likely, but Mr. Huang says his main goal, endorsed repeatedly by superiors, remains development of a general-purpose machine.

Despite the detractors, this approach has many well-regarded believers. “The field has changed, and half of my fellow researchers don’t even know it, ” says John Caulfield, director of the Center for Applied Optics at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. He calls Bell Labs the leader, and its SEEDs ” unquestionably the best optical devices in the world.” Though Professor Caulfield won’t endorse Mr. Huang’s idea of an optical computer, he says the opportunities for parallel processing with light can’t be ignored.

Photonics research is burgeoning. Spending in the US has been estimated at about $100 million annually. Over 50 institutions working in the field are funded by the US military alone. The Pentagon is interested because optical computers would be harder to break into and wouldn’t be disabled by the electromagnetic burst of a nuclear blast. A market-research firm, Frost & Sullivan Inc., has gathered data suggesting the market for all types of optical computing devices reach $1 billion.

OptiComp Corporation, a small firm in Zephyr Cove, Nevada, aims, like Mr. Huang, at a general-purpose optical computer. Its founder, Peter Guilfoyle, demonstrated a special-purpose prototype in 1984. But many researchers say they are leery of Mr. Guilfoyle’s work, which uses a different principle to make light beams switch each other.

Most research has been focused so far on individual elements that would go into a computer, especially those that could be used in tandem with electronics.

Hewlett-Packard Corporation has about 50 photonics researchers mostly looking into interconnection rather than optical computing. “Our work is aimed at projects that can be of practical importance in a reasonable time frame, say three to five years, ” says an official. Ted Laliotis.

Aaron Falk, lead scientist at Boeing Aerospace & Electronics, says he will believe in optical computers only when he sees optical “transistors” that can be made of something as cheap and versatile as silicon. Bell’s SEEDs are made of the much-more-costly gallium arsenide and aluminum gallium arsenide. “There’s no reason to believe that won’t happen sometime soon, ” Mr. Falk adds, “though I sometimes joke that we’ve spent so much time looking for this dream material that it should be called “unobtainium”.

Mr. Huang hates such pronouncements. “The Japanese don’t say such things, ” he says. “The Japanese don’t ask, “Will it be viable in five years? ” They know it’ll be viable sometime, so they go ahead. Doesn’t anyone in this country realize that ten years isn’t a long time? ”

Mitsuhito Sakaguchi, head of NEC’s opto-electronics research laboratories, predicts that optical computing will develop, with a 20-year lag, the same as electronic computing did. Taizo Nishikawa, deputy director of MITI’s Industrial Electronics Division, says, “Optical computing is one of the most important technologies of the near future.”

Japanese electronics conglomerates have an edge because optics involves a merging of previously unrelated technologies. The same Japanese companies make both semiconductors and computers, and the biggest computer companies are also the biggest makers of telecommunications equipment – a field already revolutionized by optics.

Nevertheless, most Japanese experts say the US is still ahead, citing the pattern wherein they do better perfecting a technology rather than inventing it. Japanese companies develop many systems, but the fundamental motive is commercial. In the US the important thing is the frontier spirit.

 

Ответьте на вопросы к тексту:

1. What is AT& T?

2. Who is Joseph Goodman?

3. What are Mr. Goodman’s expectations?

4. What is light good for, according to Mr. McGroddy?

5. Why is the Pentagon interested in optical computers?

6. What is Mr. Falk’s joke about?

7. Why, according to many researchers, cannot photonics compete with electronics?

Текст 3

D Writing

What do Hyperstudio, SuperLink, Director, HTML, Flash, Netscape Composer, FrontPage, Dreamweaver, PowerPoint, Microsoft Word, and AppleWorks all have in common?

You might say that all are programs allowing the user to create Web pages incorporating text, multimedia, and links to the Internet. You might say that they are all programs you would like your students to be able to use. What you wouldn't say is that they are all easy to use, or that they are all likely to be used in all subjects by all teachers to increase written communication skills and promote writing across the curriculum. You certainly wouldn't say that they were tools all of your students had easy access to in school and at home. Wouldn't it be great to have a simple-to-use program one with a near-zero learning curve that was easily accessible by every teacher and student, both in school and at home? If your response to that is, " Dream on, " I urge you to " read on."

Having judged computer contests for 10 years and having viewed thousands of these projects, I can tell you that they can be a real hazard to your health. Just try reading one page of black text on a red background and you'll know what I mean. Anyone who has worked with students with any of the tools listed above has had similar experiences. In 1999, I was fortunate enough to be a reviewer for the U.S. Department of Education's Expert Technology Panel.

Then I came across the National Assessment of Educational Progress test results. The NAEP showed that writing expertise was extremely low among students nationwide. While 83 percent had at­tained basic proficiency, only 1 percent had advanced skills. Experts agreed all that was necessary to improve scores was to increase the amount of writing that takes place across the curriculum.

The key to success would be to focus on using hypertext narrative writing in all subjects.

Improving writing was certainly an important is­sue. Hypertext writing could be implemented within the frame­work of already-established writing programs that have proven success. Teachers already know (or should al­ready know) how to teach and assess quality writing. Thus, professional development should center on the use of a new tool.

Hypertext narrative writing is not a new concept. It predates the printing press. The first form of hypertext narrative probably appears in the Talmud, ancient Jewish scrolls of wisdom and commentary from scholars on subjects in the Torah. Scholars and rabbis would write their thoughts and theories in the margins and refer to other sections in the Talmud and the Torah.

As you are well aware, the concept is present in electronic encyclopedias, dictionaries, Web sites, choose-your-own-adventure books, and many other formats. Technology allows hypertext narrative to move beyond text and incorporate multimedia and links to the Internet, making it truly three-dimensional.

After spending a year searching the Internet and every computer vendor I could visit at conferences and shows, it became clear that the software I en­visioned to help improve writing and communication in the classroom didn't exist. My vision for the software was straight forward. It had to be devoid of bells, whistles, and other distractions that take the focus off of content and writing. It had to be easy to learn in order to avoid the technical barriers that inspire reluctance in teachers.

Beyond that, I wanted it to be a new kind of software that was so inexpensive, schools could provide it for their students and teachers to take home with no more thought than they give tosending home pencils and paper.

3DWriter allows the teacher to com­bine traditional writing assignments with the addition of hyperlinks for spe­cific purposes. The resulting document goes beyond the typical 2-dimensional linear structure of beginning, middle, and end. It allows the author to expand the audience or enrich the experience of a smaller audience by creating hy­perlinks that reach out to other sources. This introduces the third dimension, thus the term " 3DWriting."

People often ask, " I already have Word; why should I use 3DWriter" You don't use the space shuttle to go to the corner store for coffee, and you don't teach driver education in a Porsche. Why use expensive, feature-laden soft­ware when, for much less money, you can provide every student, teacher, and home in your community with a sim­ple piece of software that is designed to do one job: promote writing across the curriculum?

This is not specifically a substitute for other software. It is a completely new software concept. I call it " community ware." I want people to think of it in the same way they think of pencils and paper, as essential writing tools that every student needs and that every school supplies.

In today's world, the equivalent of pencil and paper is the word processor. It is simply wrong to expect schools, students, and parents to have to spend big bucks on expensive software in order to type basic curricular documents. Every student should have access to a word processor in school and at home. 3DWriter makes it possible for schools to supply a single common tool to every student, teacher, and home at a cost that is less than the expendable papers they currently send home with students. The power of 3DWriter lies in its simplicity. When I commissioned it, I told the programmers that I wanted a program that was so simple that anyone who knew basic word processing would experience an almost zero learning curve.

The reason for creating 3DWriter was to put a simple hypertext writing tool into the hands of any and every teacher who wanted it and to increase the amount of writing that takes place across the curriculum. Measured against those two goals, I would say that 3DWriter definitely works. I have already had more success using 3DWriter with students and teachers in 5 months than I have with other pro­grams in the past 5 years. More impor­tantly, I have been able to help teachers do something that I have never been able to do before: to strengthen home-school ties by making it possible for students to have the same technology tool at home that they use in class. Will it result in increased learning? If the NAEP and the experts are right that increased writing across the curriculum will result in higher scores, then using 3DWriter is an easy way of making that happen. Ultimately, the success of any software lies in the hands of the teachers and students who use it.

 

Ответьте на вопросы к тексту:

1. What does 3D Writer allow the teacher to do?

2. What is the equivalent of pencil and paper in today’s world?

3. Where does the first form of hypertext narrative appear?

4. What is NAEP?

5. Why should people use 3DWriter?

6. What was the reason for creating 3DWriter?

7. Why is 3DWriter considered to be a simple-to-use program?

Вариант 4

Текст 1

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