Infographic: Just How Powerful is that eReading Device in Your Pocket?
Between our smartphones, tablets, and ereaders, many of us carry one or more mobile device around without realizing just how powerful it is.
Sure we may joke about how a graphing calculator has more processing power than the entire world had in 1950, but it turns out that the quip is even more true than I had realized.
The following infographic breaks down how the devices we have today compare with supercomputers of the past.
For example, the iPad 2 would be one of the 5 most powerful computers in the world if it fell through a wormhole to 1994. (Of course, that would only be true if measured in terms of sheer numbers, not actual computing ability, which raises a whole different issue of general-purpose vs restricted computing.) And that tablet isn't even all that impressive by the standards of 2015; there are plenty of $100 tablets that are more powerful.
You ever read John Birmingham’s AXIS OF TIME series?
In it a multinational naval task force ca 2050 falls through a wormhole into 1941. And unlike the folks behind FINAL COUNTDOWN he doesn’t weasel out of the mess it causes.
Their tablet computers and caching internet routers and servers really blow a hole in history. (Essentially, they bring the internet along with them. All of it.)
Highly recommended.
I’ve read the first couple books, and was planning to read more. He’s a convincing writer (“USS Hillary Clinton”, snort).
And yes, I’ve seen that movie, too. It didn’t amount to much of a story.
The novelization did a good job of patching the plot holes in the movie, especially the biggest one of all: the time storm’s timing and manueverability. Answer: it was artificial, a bootstrap play to close the time loop just as the Commander lived it.
On Axis of time: the third is the best.
I wish he would go back and finish the story.