Peter Cochrane's Hard Drive 1997
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Peter Cochrane's Hard Drive column appears each week in the Connected section of the Daily Telegraph.
This page lists articles published in 1997. Articles published in 1996 1998 1999 2000 are also available.
For more information about Peter Cochrane and copies of other publications, visit his company's homepage: http://www.conceptlabs.net
Battle of the Babel Bugs - 30.12.97
Charge for each translation and infinite revenue is assured, the world is ransomed at a fraction of a penny a go, says Peter Cochrane
Little Brother is growing... - 23.12.97
What should we be worrying about? Is there some underlying threat posed by the ability to place cameras in anything? asks Peter Cochrane
Oh dear oh dear oh Dear Sir - 16.12.97
Email is informal, free from the paper past and Dickensian mindsets, argues Peter Cochrane
When machines break the law - 09.12.97
Let's say the Inland Revenue discovers your system has been committing crimes to make money: who is responsible? Peter Cochrane investigates
Single spies... or battalions? - 02.12.97
An equipment failure can make us tense and prone to error, which leads to mistakes that promote more failures, says Peter Cochrane
Fill the tank and empty the shelves - 25.11.97
We will be able to pull into the garage and fill up the tank with petrol, while at the same time filling up the hi-fi with new music, says Peter Cochrane
Beyond biology - 18.11.97
Peter Cochrane, our engineer of the future, has gone as far as he can with technology. Next stop: social engineering...
There's nothing to the universe - 11.11.97
If we could manipulate the space in materials we could perhaps reduce the weight of an aircraft by 90%
Banking beyond the museum - 4.11.97
Peter Cochrane has his future in the bank
Concrete sense for laptop design - 28.10.97
In my experience reinforced concrete doesn't excite many. But it turns out to be pretty subtle stuff, writes Peter Cochrane
The answer is blowing in the wind - 21.10.97
The balloon goes up for Peter Cochrane
Remember me to the future - 14.10.97
This is the last time I shall sit at this laptop and type. Its time has run out and it has become a museum piece, overtaken by technological advance, and, sadly, old age.
No handbooks - learn it manually - 7.10.97
Having been an engineer in the IT industry for more than 30 years I religiously refuse to read handbooks
The molecule is the message - 30.9.97
Many animals tend to wear their sensory and processing technology as an integral component of their skin
Fear of machines is all in the mind - 23.9.97
No one would try arm wrestling an assembly line robot, or manipulating graphics faster than a PC
Win or lose, war goes binary - 16.9.97
Garments that sense injury and then perform limited treatment and repair also look possible
The mismeasure of machines - 9.9.97
On the IQ basis our species looks pretty smart, at the top of the class, because we thought up the problems in the first place
Quantum leap into future in a jar - 2.9.97
Instead of being subject to chaotic change, perhaps we could get ahead of the game
Time travellers - 26.8.97
When travelling, open up your laptop for the duration and a seven hour journey can seem about 60 minutes long
The X factor traps politics in past - 19.8.97
For the first time, we have the mechanism instantly to measure the mood of populations
How to upgrade your stress - 12.8.97
I confess to a growing resentment at continually having to upgrade
Software copyright issues - 5.8.97
Software copyright often means having to make every nut, bolt and screw as if they could not be mass-produced
Who will then be a taxman? - 29.7.97
No frontiers, no barriers, no limits. All bits are potentially for sale, for different bits
Trees, paper and friends - 22.7.97
This is the planet's forests being turned into insulation and room decoration. Is this really the right thing to be doing?
No absolutes in a perfect world - 17.7.97
The carbon 14 from coal-fired power stations cumulatively exceeds the radiation leak at Three Mile Island
The ND of the line for the 3D metaphor - 8.7.97
In the bit world there are no physical limitations, and if I can see what I want, then I want it instantly by click or voice
The downside of the digital dream - 1.7.97
Once a picture has changed down from thousands of colours to 256, information has been irreversibly lost
Super sidewalks - 24.6.97
From all the media hype we might think someone somewhere had a grand plan for the information superhighway
Hard tests for soft children - 17.6.97
If a 'child' does not measure up, it can be terminated. Its attributes can be fed back to modify the next child
Guess before you leap - 10.6.97
We face a future dominated by problems we cannot solve by any linear or well-behaved, or even known means
Memes not genes - 3.6.97
When you say something new it may be interesting the first time. But say it three times and you're on your soapboax
More out than in - 27.5.97
Our utterances and animation pale into insignificance compared with the visual, audio, and tactile input we absorb
Is there an NC in your attic? - 20.5.97
The desktop resembled a major motorway accident site, with wreckage extending well into the hard disk
The remote prospect for healthcare - 13.5.97
The biggest single innovation in patient records this century has been to redesign the cart in which the paper is carried
Dangerous dogs on the highway - 6.5.97
People write and mail things they would never say face to face. It is as if technology affords some cloaking device
Reality simply doesn't add up - 29.4.97
I am still surprised that we've been able to achieve as much as we have, given the crudeness of our models
A world of fewer words - 22.4.97
The documentation defining and pricing cabbages in the European Union consumes nearly 7,000 words
Where mind meets machine - 15.4.97
We should reflect that our biological systems are actually an interesting mix of analogue and digital
Dumber is smarter - 8.4.97
Why make interfaces so convoluted? Spending more money ought to be rewarded by more simplicity not complexity
Unequal bits - 1.4.97
The pricipal money earners are the emotional bits - the emotion of chat shows, news, sport and movies
Sow in joy, reboot in tears - 25.3.97
They actually reboot software during battle - sometimes more than once. Here was a $40 m machine with flaky software
Symbiotic machines - 20.3.97
Surely my machine was not smart enough to tell us apart and then inflict some secret trial by crash on my colleague
Ignorance is valued at your peril - 11.3.97
People get alarmed at the prospect of silicon implants but happily put their names down for silicone implants
Just thinking ahead - 4.3.97
With a 1m diameter head we would be in danger of concussion every time we started or stopped walking
A marriage of unlike minds - 25.2.97
Mathematician, scientist, engineer and artist can now talk and understand each other as never before
Netquakes - 18.2.97
In a virtual world of electronic commerce, perhaps the most critical calamity will be the network crash
Total security is safe from us - 11.2.97
Legal systems stand or fall by pen and ink - the human signature is binding. It is also one of the easiest things to forge
Carbon copies or silicon originals? - 4.2.97
Progeny by instalments might be a new means of avoiding the evolutionary cul-de-sacs that hamper carbon
I've got chips under my skin - 28.1.97
Most people get paid more than one apple a minute. On this basis, buying a house or a car is very efficient
Strange things about strangers - 21.1.97
Ignoring the constraints of language, there are enough letters to provide a unique address for everyone on the planet
What's sex got to do with IT? - 14.1.97
If you can make transistors you can make circuits, and then ... machines that make better transistors
Time to hang up, Mr Erlang - 7.1.97
Users find they miss calls when they are online longer than they think. It appears most of us have to get a second phone line