For decades anyone buying a new computer did so in the knowledge that within a few years it would be overtaken by a much faster machine.
Driving this rapid evolution has been Moore’s Law – which has allowed the building block of information processing, the transistor – to be packed in greater numbers onto ever smaller computer chips.
But Moore’s Law is slowing, as various engineering challenges have limited the rate at which transistors can be added to processors and this throttling back will increasingly provide an opening for the little guys to make their mark in the hardware world.