Just imagine the
n00b g1bb1Ng possibilities.
I remember reading an article awhile back that talked about how behind-the-times processor chips in PCs have become. The article attributed that obsolesence to investors who put their money both into computer hardware manufacturing interests and also into silicon interests. Those investors are wary of diversification in the hardware industry for fear that the demand for silicon will go down.
This is much the same problem with automobile manufacturers being wedded to big oil. Options exist for cars to have better, more efficient engines which would stretch the world's oil reserves out for a longer period of time. However, the oil tycoons, who invest in car manufacturing, lobby to keep new technology out if it means a decrease in immediate profits.
The possibilities in mass-produced optics chips are so much greater than the potentials in silicon. Other techonogies, such as proton/electron processors and DNA computers, on which a friend of mine wrote her thesis, are emerging. It'd be a shame if these techologies, or the innevitable innovations upon them, never find their way to the home market, simply because we're shackled to silicon.