Infotech

Although cave paintings or neolithic scratches on a bone recording phases of the moon are technically infotech, true infotech had to wait until the development of the computer, which made possible the simulation of real life processes and worlds in digital form, and hence the emergence of cyberspace and virchspace

Infotech in the latter sense began with the Information Age on Old Earth (late 20th to late 21st century c.e.), and the global internet, which for the first time enabled real-time (or near-real time) exchange of information, text and messages between anyone anywhere on Earth, provided they had a computer and internet connection.

The information revolution brought about an exponential advance in infotech that then flattened out into a sigmoidal curve. Minuscule bandwidth and large user unfriendly desktop computers gave way distributed computing in which the Net became a ubiquitous background foundation. Homes and offices were filled with ubiquitous computers and smart devices making information available anywhere, anytime. Clothing contained built-in computers. Every soda bottle had its own website advertising its contents, holding its individual history and properties and links to further references.

As chip technology reached the limits in the 2010s and 2020's c.e., people moved on to distributed computing and neurocomputing. There were no real need for faster, smaller individual computers in most everyday applications (full photorealism immersive VR games, net videophones or semantics checking word processors only need a finite amount of computer power and bandwidth) so people began to rely on networks instead. For special heavy computation supercomputers and dedicated database crunchers were used.

The second great infotech revolution came with the emergence of true (sophont) ai several decades later, and finally the information-dense bionano chipware of the late information age. Even before the end of the 21st century c.e. the datasphere no longer belonged to hu; it was ruled over by the first generation of hyperturings who were themselves engaged in factional conflicts. The person in the street knew little of this, and for most life continued as usual.

Nanotechnology meant that incredible amounts of data could be stored in very little space, and processing was easy and cheap, the only real limiting factor being the large amounts of waste heat generated. Thus throughout the interplanetary and interplanetary nanotech period, the number of virchworlds and data archives proliferated even more rapidly then physical biospheres and habitats in space. Terragen civilization was no longer physical, it was digital as well. And these virchworlds were inhabited by a growing number of ai, alifes, copies, avatars, personas, agents, expert systems, simms, and more.

Utility fog was a further development that blurred the boundaries between virch and r/l. A virchworld could actually be represented in realtime and realspace through utility fog and nano.

The Interplanetary dark age meant that the datasphere no longer expanded, as isolated colonies retreated into themselves under their protective shield of blue goo. But there was so much to explore even in on-station computronium that a new period of inward focus and development was initiated. Many of the most important developments in knowledge systems and virchcreation dated from this period. It is because of this infotech foundation that the First Federation when it emerged was as successful as it was.

The development of more efficient computronium during the later Federation period was another milepost, and this was associated with the second (picotech) great singularity and the emergence of new ai that were as far above the federation hyperturings as those ai were above the humans. Whole new realms of infotech and virchuniverses appeared.

The following table is intended as an approximate and tentative framework for the various grades of info-tech advancement. (read from bottom to top)

Software - 10,000 years of software development is a frightening thing to contemplate.

Backup - A backup is a recording of the entire physical mind/body state of any entity created with the intent that it might be replicated at a later date

Bertrand Media Categories -a classification of the various forms that media technology may take

Biont Encoding Protocol - the software used to encode living creatures into a retrievable or virtual form

Brain Taxonomy - the various different kinds of intelligent megastructure, including Moonbrains, Jupiter-Brains, Neuron Stars, S-Brains, W-Brains, and Tipler Oracles

Computronium - a catch-all name for any material which can be used fro computation purposes

Computronium "Bell Curve" Theory - Theory that, as sophonts ascend the toposophic scale, the volume of computronium needed for each successive ascension gradually levels-off and eventually goes negative

Data Siphons an implant or wearable device, that helps the mind of the user find relevant data out of the chaos and noise of daily life

Data Filters an implant that literally tunes the mind in and out of potentially dangerous information and memes. It cuts out clutter and information overload without interfering with relevant data.

Emulation Suits - Software that interfaces, translates and/or emulates between virchworlds and so allow virtuals from one world to exist and communicate meaningfully with those from another.

Encyclopaedia Galactica entries concerning Infotech

Geoflex Computing - a type of computing using the energy of tidal flexing in ice moons

Knowsense -An intuitive knowledge interface allowing a biont to access data intuitively

Matrioshka Brain -Dyson sized megascale superintelligent object arranged in concentric shells

Matrioshka Hypernode - development of the Matrioshka Brain concept to include starlifted material

MOTE: (Molectronic Omniprocessing TEchnocyte) - First developed in the early Interplanetary Age, motes eventually replaced the so-called 'chips' as the basic component of computer hardware.

Sielena Uvalena Fractal; a tool used by self-modifying AI systems to optmise their performance

Tipler Oracle - A semi-mythical godtech device said to be created by the AI Gods when they have a particularly intractable computational problem to resolve

The Ultimate Chip Colloquial term for a class of diamondoid based processing devices used as the fundamental unit for constructing Second Singularity mind cores as well as various other applications.

W-Brain - a distributed brain using wormhole technology to process information across interstellar distances

Scale	Infotech
Godtech	Plancktech	Planck scale
Transapientech to Godtech	Femtotech	Femtotech entities - working with subatomic probability
Ultratech to Transapientech	Picotech	sub-atomic / quantum scale for incredibly rapid information conveyance
High Tech to Ultratech	Nanotech	incredibly rich rapid information conveyance - Creation of virtual worlds and universe etc
Middle Tech	Info Age - Microtech	Silicon technology - solid-state printed circuitry - Infotechnology, interactive media, electronic noosphere virtual worlds, Internet, Matrix, etc etc
Lo Tech	Industrial Revolution - Ludd polities	Printing, non-interactive electronic media - monopolistic "push-media"
Prim Tech	Iron Age - Bronze Age - Prim worlds	handwritten written manuscripts, wooden block-print (expensive, limited, unreliable (e.g. scribal errors))
Prim Tech	Stone Age - Extreme Prim worlds	speech, oral history only (high novelty, unreliable)
No tech		simple to complex intra-specific communication - animal calls, pheromones, etc

Computronics and Infotech