But how much do they want all this, and does this require major improvements in computing power?
It looks to me that almost everything you listed could be done on the computers of five years ago. It's all nothing but software improvements. Existing hardware is good enough.
Two years ago, I was developing some HVAC equipment modeling software as part of a sales automation package whose worst case scenario needed to calculate the max cooling capacity, and a few other thermodynamic stats, for roughly 18 million different configurations. No matter how much I optimized it, the CPU didn't have enough juice to "instantaneously" plow through all of that math. The best I could get it down to was about 20 seconds. More CPU power would definitely be nice.
But how much did that 20 seconds delay cost you? It would have been nice to have the answer faster, but how much would you have been willing to shell out for it?
I'm talking about economics. I'm talking about what people are willing to pay for.
The customer would have loved for it to go faster, because then it would have looked like magic.
In 1998, it would have been nice if I had had photo-realistic computer games, but I patiently made do with what I had. Today, people eagerly shell-out money for hardware that can run this year's even-more-photorealistic version of Madden Football.
I think the demand for more power is definitely there.
It looks to me that almost everything you listed could be done on the computers of five years ago. It's all nothing but software improvements. Existing hardware is good enough.