????但到了2005年的時候，也就是大約到了每塊指甲大的新型芯片可以集成多達10億個晶體管的時候，一切都變了。摩爾定律帶來的量變的積累，使這條曲線陡然出現(xiàn)了幾乎垂直的增長，方向是正無窮，也就是每塊芯片集成幾千億個晶體管。換句話說，摩爾定律為科技界帶來了跳躍式發(fā)展，每年的發(fā)展速度都超過了自從硅谷誕生以來所有年頭的總和。

????我們已經(jīng)隱約地意識到了這一點。比如Facebook等企業(yè)的“指數(shù)級”崛起——Facebook是人類歷史上第一項超過10億名常規(guī)用戶的服務(wù)型產(chǎn)品。此外還有Twitter等。另外你也可以看看智能手機、智能平板電腦和云服務(wù)的使用曲線，尤其是云服務(wù)基本上使我們實現(xiàn)了無限存儲、隨時隨地存儲和免費存儲的能力。所有這些顛覆式的新產(chǎn)品和新技術(shù)，都是在過去短短8年之內(nèi)井噴出來的。

????下一步有什么在等著我們？首先是大數(shù)據(jù)以及已經(jīng)擁有500年歷史的抽樣統(tǒng)計學(xué)的潛力將被充分挖掘。很快我們將有能力監(jiān)測我們的每一次心跳，追蹤海里的每一條魚，地球上的每一陣風(fēng)。未來幾十年里，我們對自然界的了解，將超過人類有史以來的總和。隨著全球幾十億臺設(shè)備實現(xiàn)了交流互聯(lián)，我們很快也將成為所謂“物聯(lián)網(wǎng)”的一分子，而物聯(lián)網(wǎng)的貢獻，有可能要比以人為核心的“互聯(lián)網(wǎng)”大1000倍。

????摩爾定律的另一個潛在的應(yīng)用領(lǐng)域是納米技術(shù)革命，此外還有移動健康和醫(yī)學(xué)等領(lǐng)域。未來人體的每一項功能、每一秒鐘的人體指標都會被實時監(jiān)測，納米級的“獵人”傳感器將游弋在我們的血液中，替我們殺死癌細胞或其它疾病。

????沿著摩爾定律的曲線，未來動漫和現(xiàn)實之間的界限也會漸漸消失。建模作為一項技術(shù)也將成為我們?nèi)粘Ｉ钪械闹匾糠郑瑹o論是產(chǎn)品、我們眼中的世界甚至是我們的生活都可以進行建模。它可能首先會從虛擬性愛開始，因為科技的發(fā)展總是首先從性開始。

????然后呢？如果你相信雷?庫茨維爾的論斷，摩爾曲線會呈垂直發(fā)展態(tài)勢，我們的大腦可以被掃描進電腦，然后在虛擬世界永遠地活下去。如果你相信馬爾科姆?格拉威德爾的預(yù)言，那么這條曲線最終會遞減直至消失。

????無論哪種情形，都要等到幾十年后才會發(fā)生。這意味著只要英特爾和其他芯片公司能持續(xù)發(fā)展下去，摩爾定律將成為影響我們余生的“大曲線”。最近英特爾和IBM又發(fā)布了一項革命性的新型芯片晶體管工藝，這意味著事情向樂觀趨勢發(fā)展的可能性將非常之大。

????雖然硅谷還沒準備好迎接這種新的發(fā)展速度。但不管你是否已經(jīng)準備好了，未來都在馬不停蹄地到來……而且速度比以往任何時候更快。

????本文作者邁克爾?S?馬龍是一名經(jīng)驗豐富的硅谷記者、作家，也是哈伯柯林斯出版社出版的《英特爾三杰：羅伯特?諾伊斯、戈登?摩爾、安迪?格魯夫如何創(chuàng)立全球最重要的公司》一書的作者。（財富中文網(wǎng)）

????譯者：樸成奎

????But then, about 2005, roughly the time the newest chips reached 1 billion transistors on their little squares of silicon, everything changed. Suddenly the great accumulating leaps caused by the biannual doubling of Moore’s Law began to turn the curve nearly straight up, heading toward infinity – and tens of billions of transistors on each chip. In other words, Moore’s Law is now jumping the tech world forward each year more than the sum of all that has been accomplished since the birth of Silicon Valley.

????We already have glimmerings. Look at the rise of ‘exponential’ corporations like Facebook FB – the first service product in human history to reach 1 billion regular users – and Twitter TWTR -1.50% . Look as well at the usage curves of the smartphone, the smart tablet, and the Cloud, the last of which essentially makes memory infinite, ubiquitous and free. All of these earthshaking new products and technologies have exploded on the scene in the last 8 years.

????What’s waiting in the wings? The full promise of Big Data – and the end of the 500-year age of sampling and statistics. Soon we’ll be tracking every one of our heartbeats, every fish in the sea and every gust of wind – and we will learn more about the natural world in a few decades than we have in human history. As a billion devices around the world begin to talk with each other, we will also soon be just a minor part of the “The Internet of Things,” which may be a thousand times greater than the human-oriented Internet we currently know.

????Further up the curve lies the nanotech revolution. Mobile health and medicine, too. Go up even further and every function of body will be measured every second of our lifetime, and nano-hunter-sensors will swim in our blood helping to hunt down cancer and other diseases.

????Up the curve the line between animation and reality also begins to disappear, and modeling – from new products to new worlds to new lives – become a major part of our daily existence. And it will all start with virtual sex, because in tech it always starts with sex.

????And then? If you believe Ray Kurzweil, the line goes vertical, we map our brains into computers and live forever. If you believe Malcolm Gladwell, then the curve will eventually taper off.

????But neither scenario may arrive for decades. That means that as long as Intel and other chip companies can sustain Moore’s Law we may live within the Great Inflection for the rest of our lives. And, given the announcement recently by Intel and IBM IBM 0.07%

????of a revolutionary new type of transistor technology for chips, the odds of that occurring look better than ever.

????Even here in Silicon Valley we are unprepared for this new pace of change. But ready or not, the future is coming … faster than ever.

????Michael S. Malone is a veteran Silicon Valley-based journalist and author. He is author of The Intel Trinity: How Robert Noyce, Gordon Moore, and Andy Grove Built the World’s Most Important Companypublished by HarperBusiness.