There are other significant exponentials in IT besides Moore’s law and they suggest opportunities for new research and new business models, says Rodney Brooks.

For example, today’s iPod could store 20,000 books. But just 10 years from now, an iPod might be able to hold 20 million books. By 2017, you’ll be able to carry around the complete text for all the volumes in the Library of Congress.

Other exponentials include multiple processors, wireless bandwidth and range, and the cost of sequencing DNA, which is expected to be a mere penny a base pair by next year. In the 2020’s, sequencing enough base pairs to determine a person’s genetic fingerprint and disease susceptibility would cost only about one dollar.