[Phanuthier]

peter,

So, okay. What is your point? I know, this is the cutting-edge of basically everything productivity-related, and the possibility of real breakthroughs is small, but would obviously be super lucrative.

I would disagree its small, because its not a all or nothing deal. Parts of this technology are/have been implemented into cars for the past decade. (Lexus, Ford, Chevy, etc)

where it goes? again I'm not sure, I'm not sure if we'll ever have a pilot-less vehicle. But automation isn't a future thing, its a process that began a long time ago, is already implanted and in some of your cars already. its it a matter of "will it reach the real world" as the underlying infrastructure has already been implemented into car that has 60,000km on it.

I would be interested in hearing your perspective. Honestly. I was only focusing on the futurist mode of thinking that guarantees technological progress based on exponentially processing speeds.

i guess a little off topic, but lots of things... heat and power dissipation, limits on power supplies, QA of such small gate size due to the microfabrication process (things like electromigration, gate breakdown)... maybe power sequencing and startups, especially if you don't know quit how to deal with race conditions in your system... solutions like other materials, moving more towards optics as a solution to these rather then using slow, drift electrons. Things like the analog behind things, noise/precision/offset of the analog, similarly noise and how its mitigated/filtered in the analog, its effect on power supply and how that powers your entire system level design... and this is still the tip of the ice berg, still... again a lot of it is a maze that is really confusing (its still really confusing to me) and most people even working in this field are walking the line on barely knowing what the hell is going on, and they aren't dumb.

lots of factors change the direction of things like supply and demand (since fabs are so expensive, see my posts regarding TowerJazz in the stocks thread; or see the economic supply/demand of Micron and how it mirrors natural gas)... not to mention just the general economics of the world and companies trying to meet their quarterly earnings and hedging their bets

all of these factor in the advancement of things you identify to be "success" or "failure" for a generalized "technology".... which you cannot do. thats like using advanced stats in hockey.

Or that success is just based upon the will that wealthy people or corporations exert on a particular progress that bets on a certain outcome.

rich/powerful people usually have the most sway