Boing Boing Staging

One Google query = one Apollo program's worth of computing

Here’s a thought:

“It takes about the same amount of computing to answer one Google Search query as all the computing done — in flight and on the ground — for the entire Apollo program.”

(Quote from Seb Schmoller’s “Learning technology – a backward and forward look,” attributed to Peter Norvig and Udi Mepher of Google on hearing of the death of Neil Armstrong)

I remember hearing that the processor in a singing greeting card had more capacity than all the electronic computers on Earth at the time of Sputnik’s launch, though I can’t find a cite for it at the moment. Exponential processor improvements are pretty wild.

Learning technology – a backward and forward look
(PDF)

(via Memex 1.1)

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