2022 State of the VITA Technology Industry
The “State of the VITA Technology Industry” report is published annually by VITA, the trade association dedicated to fostering American National Standards Institute (ANSI) accredited, open system architectures in critical embedded system applications.
EDITORIAL NOTE: The “State of the VITA Technology Industry” report is published annually by VITA, the trade association dedicated to fostering American National Standards Institute (ANSI) accredited, open system architectures in critical embedded system applications. As part of our embedded systems coverage this month, we’re including the “Technology” section of the report, which was published by VITA in April. You can view the full report on the VITA website.
After getting bored with researching EV problems, I have a new quest topic: Web 3.0. That’s a combination of the Metaverse, Blockchain, crypto currencies, interactive gaming, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), Las Vegas, and a Ponzi scheme all merged together. Web 1.0 was where dumb browsers accessed static web pages with shopping carts and different payment methods. Web 2.0 was when browsers got smarter and interacted more with users through centralized websites like YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook (now Meta) sharing user-created and other media content. Web 3.0 is a decentralized (distributed) network where users can interact with each other directly, create content, and make money instead of the big tech companies making all the money.21
Basically, Web 3.0 replaces your browser, TV, cellphone, and gaming console with a VR/AR headset and some software. You can roam around in different environments (like a video game), visit friends or attend meetings (like Zoom), go shopping (like Amazon), watch videos (like Netflix and YouTube), and pay for things with crypto currencies. You can pay for access to an online game and then make money on how well you do (like Las Vegas). Guess who owns some of the patents on the Metaverse? It’s Walmart.22
Today, you can buy an avatar, its clothes, capabilities, and its weapons (like buying on Amazon) to represent you when roaming around in different games and digital environments. You can also buy digital real estate in virtual spaces. You can buy and sell original digital artwork as NFTs. The most popular NFTs are “Crypto Punks” and the “Bored Ape Yacht Club” images. Some of this digital art has sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars (a Ponzi scheme).23 Eventually, you will be able to send your well-dressed avatar to the store, with a list of groceries you need. The avatar will do the shopping, pay for it, and have it delivered to your home while you are working in your office. I think this is why Walmart has some pertinent patents on the Metaverse.
Another Japanese company has created a wristband, so you can feel pain when your avatar is getting pummeled by miscreants in the Metaverse. It delivers electric shocks to the wearer during certain virtual reality experiences.24 Obviously, companies are trying to duplicate the five senses (sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch) to make your digital adventure more realistic. The Metaverse might be able to duplicate how it feels to be attacked and eaten by a great white shark while virtually surfing in Australia.
But these new primitive digital worlds are attracting thieves, crooks, and criminals. While Meta (Facebook) was beta- testing their virtual space (Horizon World), a female avatar was molested (groped) by another avatar.25 Somehow, over $1.7 million worth of NFTs were stolen from the primary website (OpenSea) where they are bought and sold.26 And we know that billions of dollars of Bitcoin have been stolen, even though Blockchain validates all transactions to and from your digital wallet.
In March, President Biden issued an Executive Order (XO) for the Treasury Department to study crypto currencies and make recommendations for new rules and laws. They will also explore the possibility of a government-issued crypto currency and other digital financial assets.27 So, the federal government is looking at getting into Web 3.0.
I am still trying to get my head around how Web 3.0 works and what it does. It just might knock many of the top tech companies (Apple, Google, Meta-Facebook, Netflix, and Amazon) off their centralized perches since the Metaverse is a distributed model. To understand it, you must follow the money. There are 18,000 crypto currencies in circulation today, and over 106 million people are using them. When mature, the Metaverse is predicted to handle billions or possibly trillions of dollars’ worth of transactions.
We will see a surge in mergers, acquisitions, and start-ups as Web 3.0 develops. In February, Microsoft bought Activision Blizzard (a game developer) for $68.7 billion.28 Sony bought Bungie, another game maker, in January for $3.6 billion. To complicate matters, a new bill has been introduced in Congress, to outlaw mergers and acquisitions greater than $5 billion. That will hamper M&A activity in the tech industry if it passes.29
In Europe, they are working on the “Digital Markets Act", that outlaws certain behaviors by the big tech companies, and bans them from using data analytics to gain market advantages in Web 3.0. In July of last year, President Biden issued an XO, tasking the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Department of Justice (DoJ) to investigate the tech industry (along with 3 other industry segments) for potential antitrust violations.30 I may need to include a “legal section” in my next report, to keep up with all the investigations and new laws targeted at the tech industry as Web 3.0 develops.
On the semiconductor front, Intel announced that they are spending $36 billion on two new fabs in Madgeburg, Germany, along with design and manufacturing facilities in France, Ireland, Italy, and Spain.31 The semiconductor supply chain is still a mess, and things could get worse. Russia’s attack on Ukraine has shuttered plants that make about 50% of the neon gas used in advanced chip manufacturing.32
In January, the University of Manchester,under a program called SpiNNaker-1, connected 1 million cellphones together, running neural network software, creating a neuromorphic computer with the power of a mouse’s brain. With the participation of Technische Universitat-Dresdan, they are running enhanced algorithms on SpiNNaker-2, a more powerful neuromorphic computer based on cellphones with the latest advanced processors. Obviously, the upper-case NN in each name stands for “neural network."33
The PCI-SIG finalized the specifications for PCIe 6.0 (PCI Express) in January. If you have a tough time remembering the bandwidth for the number of lanes for each version like I do, here’s a handy chart that lists them all.34
Today, we have the latest PCIe versions and Compute Express Link (CXL) interconnects to deal with. Add to those two new interface concepts to consider, that seek to solve different problems. The first is Open Memory Interconnect (OMI), released last year. It’s a high-speed serial low-latency memory interface for memory pooling and sharing. CXL has memory sharing capabilities (with cache coherence) and a more efficient interface for data storage, but nothing associated with memory pooling.35 Rumors are that OMI will merge into CXL at some point, solving the near-memory, far-memory, memory-sharing, and memory-pooling challenges.
Next is Universal Chiplet Interconnect Express (UCIe). That’s a new interface standard for connecting chiplets together inside 2D and 3D chip packages.36 This one is mostly for the semiconductor guys, but you never know what mechanisms and concepts from these two new standards could find their way into chip-to-chip and board-to-board interconnect standards in the future. Just be aware that they exist.
Advances in technology are outpacing the old industrial-revolution antitrust laws, consumer protection laws, labor laws, and business models. This is setting-up a huge conflict between tech companies and the legal system as Web 3.0 develops. Technology dramatically changes yearly, while the law changes over 25 to 50 years. New reactive laws (on data collection, the use of analytics, and restricted mergers and acquisitions) could retard the development of new concepts, ideas, and algorithms bringing negative economic effects upon the tech industry.37 I recommend that you read Klaus Schwab’s book, “The Fourth Industrial Revolution” for a better understanding of how technology is affecting the world we live in. You won’t sleep for a week if you are more than 10 years from retirement.
Citations
21 Brian Wang, "An Introduction to the Billion-Dollar Web 3.0 Industry", NextBigFuture, February 20, 2022, https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2022/02/an-introduction-to-the-billion-dollar-web-3-0-industry.html
22 Thomas Hum, "Metaverse barriers to entry are ‘rather high:’ CoinDesk Global Macro Editor", Yahoo!Finance, January 19, 2022, https://finance.yahoo.com/news/metaverse-barriers-to-entry-are-rather-high-coin-desk-global-macro-editor-191654235.html
23 Natasha Dailey, "Crypto isn't decentralized.", Business Insider, March 20, 2022, https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/currencies/crypto-isnt-decentralized-nft-bored-ape-yacht-club-buys-cryptopunks-2022-3
24 Lucas Nolan, "Virtual Insanity: Japanese Startup Makes Electric Shock Bracelet So You Can Experience Pain In The Metaverse", Breitbart, March 26, 2022, https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2022/03/26/virtual-insanity- japanese-startup-makes-electric-shock-bracelet-so-you-can-experience-pain-in-the-metaverse/
25 Paul M. Barrett, "The metaverse is the world’s strongest argument for social media regulation", The Hill, March 23, 2022, https://thehill.com/opinion/technology/595333-the-metaverse-is-the-worlds-strongest-argument-for-social-media-regulation
26 Russell Brandom, "$1.7 million in NFTs stolen in apparent phishing attack on OpenSea users", The Verge, February 20, 2022, https://www.theverge.com/2022/2/20/22943228/opensea-phishing-hack-smart-contract-bug-stolen-nft
27 J. Fingas, "Biden's executive order on cryptocurrency opens the door for a US coin", Engadget, March 9, 2022, https://www.engadget.com/president-biden-executive-order-cryptocurrency-strategy-142547135.html
28 Jay Peters, "Read exactly how Microsoft’s $68.7 billion deal for Activision Blizzard came together", The Verge, February18, 2022, https://www.theverge.com/22941636/microsoft-activision-blizzard-acquisition-sec-filing-came-together
29 Tim de Chant, "Antitrust bill would bar mergers over $5B, allow regulators to unwind others", ARS Technica, March 17, 2022, https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/03/antitrust-bill-would-bar-mergers-over-5b-allow-regulators-to-unwind-others/
30 Thomas A. Hemphill, "‘Big Is Bad’: Unpacking Biden’s Economic Executive Order", The National Interest, July 15, 2021, https://nationalinterest.org/blog/politics/‘big-bad’-unpacking-biden’s-economic-executive-order-189789
31 Sam Shead, "Intel commits $36 billion to making chips in Europe", CNBC, March 15, 2022, https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/15/intel-commits-36-billion-to-making-chips-in-europe.html
32 "Russia's Attack on Ukraine Halts Half the World's Neon Output for Chips", NewsMax, March 13, 2022, https://www.newsmax.com/finance/streettalk/russia-ukraine-semiconductor-chip-neon/2022/03/11/id/1060761/
33 Charlotte Christopherson, "SpiNNaker: Next-level thinking", ARM Community, January 31, 2022, https://community.arm.com/arm-research/b/articles/posts/spinnaker-next-level-thinking
34 Andrew Cunningham, "PCIe 5.0 is just beginning to come to new PCs, but version 6.0 is already here", ARS Technica, January 12, 2022, https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/01/pci-express-6-0-spec-is-finalized-doubling-bandwidth-for-ssds-gpus-and-more/
