A "mini-MIT" campus at Gallaudet University?

There is this thing about technology. No one can say for sure what it'll be like 10 or 20 years from now (barely a generation away) or what technology would be capable of in terms of advances in computer chip development, memory and artificial intelligence. But we do have some very good ideas on where all of this could take us.

Without getting into too much detail let us look at last year's report on the new "core" chip or "stacked cores" that basically got started in 2005 with a 1 core chip that made the news in 2005 and into 2006 and compare that to a recent press release on the advances on "stacked cores" chip a few days ago. You can see that was over a course of a year where we saw a jump in chip design improvement.

Now, there are plans on getting out a 1000 core chip design sometime next year or so as a proof of concept seeing the power of "stacked core" chip design. That alone should just boggles our minds.

So, in three years we saw that technology has gone from a one core chip design to a 1000 core chip design and practically witnessed a jump in performance (and not speed as it was crucial with computer chips prior to the cores) going into the trillion of instructions per second! A chip that happens to be an extremely efficient and potent computer chip. What would you do if you had a computer with that kind of power containing "stacked cores"chip? For a computer science major at Gallaudet University, what would you do with such a computer? For a linguistic major, how would this help? Or if you're a Digital Media major, how would this help us with the outside world? What could researchers do with such a powerful computer for their ASL computer recognition research work?

Today's computer chip operates anywhere from a MIPS (millions of instructions per second) to about 1 BIP (billion of instructions per second) in our PC, laptops and super computers. Technology is moving fast, indeed. Gallaudet University must try and take advantage of that by having some sort of a "mini-MIT" campus that'll allow students, professors and graduates to experiment new, innovative, and experimental concepts on campus in order to try and bridge that communication gap on campus and outside. We simply cannot just sit back and wait for technology come to us. Gallaudet need a kind of a "Media Lab" that operates on a much higher and esoteric level of thinking where Gallaudet University can help establish and let it thrive and grow.

We must (and we can!) develop such innovative use of existing technology on campus using our own "research teams" that would surely get the attention of the the outside world. Help improve education outreach. Retain students longer and help make them much more at ease on campus. And basically be the campus that would be the envy of many other universities when it comes to full and complete communication access.

The next video below shows a particular new technological concept that are being developed whose computers are run with computer chips that we are familiar with today before the core chip. Imagine allowing such a computer to have stacked cores chip enabling to operate into the terraflops or trillions of instructions per second. What would you do to have that power in your hand? A 3-D display that you could fully interact with? There's no limit in imagination here.




Now, is Dr. Davila listening to all this? Does he read blogs at all? Why wait for technology come to us when we can use existing technology for Gallaudet's own team of researchers (students, staff, grads, etc) on campus? The people on campus know what they are looking for. They are the true engineers. They know what they want when it comes to communication needs and how we want to interact with each other and to those on the outside.

And you know what's really sad? Seeing Christian Vogler move back to Germany this year when his VISA expires. Only a few months away. So much time, money and resources went into this guy and he's leaving who devoted so much time into computer ASL recognition. What a waste on losing such a valuable resource that could be key to Gallaudet's greater successes into the future.

What would you do if you had a computer with a computer chip that can do 10 trillion instructions per second? And combine that with research on ASL computer recognition? This is only but several years away until that happens.

It's time that Gallaudet "re-invent" itself on what we're capable of. Technology is the key on helping bridge and break that communication gap. It's time to invest in the students, grads and staff themselves in order to see a greater return on investment down the road. Retain them longer and get them interested and a reason to come back and teach at Gallaudet University. What would Gallaudet pay to see that new students stay on campus rather than seeing them leave after 1, 2 or 3 years down the road? Technology is the key on helping retain students longer and with greater success in school. With the right technology on campus it outght to become intuitively clear to us the moment we enter the front gate that Gallaudet University is a campus that have no problems with communication at all. And yet still retain that all important ASL link that is key on keeping the community together.

Again, what would you do with that kind of computational power and potential that is literally several years away?

We're ain't that stupid.

Or are we?