Gordon E. Moore's Law
When discussing advances in communication, those familiar with the field refer to the ideas presented in a 1960 lecture given by Gordon E. Moore, co-founder of Intel Corporation, though the term did not become coined and widely used until a decade later. While his ideas were presented over half a century ago, they still hold reasonably accurate and true today. Before further discussion, it is important that a simple definition of the idea is presented. "Moore's Law is an observation that, over the history of computing hardware, the number of transistors in a dense integrated circuit doubles approximately every two years...His prediction has proven to be accurate, in part because the law is used in the semiconductor industry to guide long-term planning and set targets for research and development" (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore's_Law). An often flawed argument against Moore's is that over the past decade processing speed has not changed dramatically, with the typical personal computer having speeds ranging from 1.3 giga-hertz (GHZ) to around 3 GHZ. The reason that this argument is flawed is because in reading Moore's statements, he was referring to the number of transistors in a dense integrated circuit, which attribute to but not completely responsible for processing speed. Producers have focused on enhancing multiple task capabilities by integrating multiple core processors into their devices. As the graph depicts below, the relationship of transistors and time have linear correlation like Moore predicted.
Moore was not only a great mind in the field of communication computer technology, but he also possessed great insight of future trend. It is important to note that scholars hold two of Moore's ideologies to important value. Another idea of Moore is referred to Moore's Second Law, which states that as the price of computer technology falls the cost of producers to maintain the doubling trend of seen by his first law increases. Using economic theory, one can predict that the future outcome and consistency of his first law will have one of two outcomes. The first outcome is that the trend will plateau, but as the graph depicts above the rate of transistors over time has increased. The second possible outcome is that producers will be forced to raise the costs to consumers, which historically in relationship to inflation costs and monetary purchasing power has not held true. Computer technology is just as affordable, if not more affordable, to the modern day consumer. What the future outcome will be is not certain, however it is important to note that many computer manufacturers are relying on advertising and third party software services to help bear the cost to the consumer. When a person purchases new computing units one of the first things they will notice is that software is pre-installed on the device. Through advertising, producers may stay competitive in the market to consumers by having third parties help keep prices down.