WOZNIAK SEEKS LIGHT-BASED COMPUTING AS NEXT FRONTIER

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Apple co-founder urges audience to be independent thinkers

Story provided by Aida Garcia at Tijuana Inovadora

October 20, 2012 (Tijuana)--Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak would like to develop a computer whose chips operate on light instead of electricity. If possible, it would make computing dramatically faster and use virtually no power.

In his presentation to Tijuana Innovadora on Saturday, his shared his personal history as a technology pioneer, while criticizing the U.S. education system that discourages the kinds of independent thinking that fosters innovation.

Currently, computer chips work by funneling a flow of electrons, basically electricity. Wozniak would like to develop chips that can operate on photons, the particles that make up light. Were that to happen, large amounts of data could be processed much faster, resulting in things like faster genetic decoding that can lead to swifter scientific and medical breakthroughs.

During his presentation, Wozniak shared his personal history and the development of Apple, which he cofounded in the mid-1970s. He urged the audience to be an independent thinker; or to “think different,” as was his company's slogan.

“I don’t like to do what other people are doing,” he said during the press conference afterward.  “I’m shy and avoid confrontation, so I prefer to go in ways that other people aren't going.”

Wozniak, who stopped working at Apple years ago, is chief scientist for Fusion-io, a hardware and software systems company based in Utah.

In the last year he has been traveling extensively, giving 70 talks worldwide, he said.  

He criticized the U.S. education system, which he said teaches students to look for other people’s answers in books, as opposed to going out and finding their own.

He said that independent thinkers are punished because they go against the standard model of education.

For details on Tijauana Innovadora, visit http://Tijuana2012.com

He advised the audience to not be discouraged when people criticized their independent thinking. Had he listened to people like that, he never would have succeeded.



 


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