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Trends in Computing

Cloud Computing

Cloud computing is a subscription-based service which provides a pool of configurable computer resources: storage, networks, servers, applications, and services, over the internet.

For an example, suppose a company that wants to have an additional 100 computers only for a week to process a large set of data. Instead of buying 100 computers, it can subscribe to a cloud service and use computers at service provider’s end through the internet during the week. Then they only have to pay for the week they used those computers. It’s cost-effective.

Characteristics of cloud computing:

  • On demand service: The users can change the service according to their requirements. They will be charged according to that.
  • Broad network access: Cloud computing resources can be accessed using any usual computer over the network.
  • Rapid Elasticity: Cloud resources can be provisioned or released at any time based on demand, enabling the application to have exact amount of resources that it needs.
  • Pool of Computing Resources: Service providers serve multiple consumers with a pool computing resources by dynamically allocating and de-allocating resources.
  • Measured Service: Cloud resources usage is monitored and measured by both service user and service provider and billed appropriately. Therefore, businesses have to pay only for what they use.

Cloud computing can bring some disadvantages: possible downtime, security and privacy concerns, etc.

Augmented Reality

Augments / supplements user’s physical, real-world environment with computer generated sensory inputs such as video, sound, graphics, or location (E.g.: GPS) data. Users can visualize information about the environment and its objects which are laid on top the real world.

Applicable for many fields including architecture, art, commerce, education, gaming, medical, etc.

Ubiquitous Computing

The concept of enabling computing everywhere at any time. Aka. pervasive computing.

Examples: smart phones, PDA (Personal Digital Assist), smart glasses, digital watches, and interactive white boards.

Characteristics

  • Very tiny in physical size
  • Being integrated into any shape of device and displacing services of desktop systems
  • Augment the original use-value of devices they are embedded
  • Communicating through increasing interconnected networks

GPU-Accelerated Computing

GPU-accelerated computing is the use of a graphics processing unit (GPU) together with a CPU to accelerate scientific, engineering, and enterprise applications. Compute-intensive work is offloaded to a GPU while the remaining work is carried out by CPU. Enables applications to run significantly faster.

Reconfigurable Computing

Reconfigurable computing is a computer architecture combining some of the flexibility of software with the high performance of hardware by processing with very flexible, high speed, computing fabrics like field- programmable gate arrays (FPGAs).

The principal difference when compared to using ordinary microprocessors is the ability to make substantial changes to the data path and to the control flow. On the other hand, the main difference with custom hardware, i.e., application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) is the possibility to adapt the hardware during runtime by “loading” a new circuit on the reconfigurable fabric.

Quantum Computing

A quantum computer, aka. a quantum supercomputer, is a computation device that makes direct use of quantum-mechanical phenomena, such as superposition and entanglement, to perform operations on data.

Digital computers require data to be encoded into bits, each of which is always in one of two definite states 0 or 1, quantum computation uses qubits (quantum bits), which can be a superposition of states. A theoretical model is the quantum Turing machine, also known as the universal quantum computer.

Both practical and theoretical research continues, and many national governments and military funding agencies support quantum computing research to develop quantum computers for both civilian and national security purposes, such as cryptanalysis. Large-scale quantum computers will be able to solve certain problems much more quickly than any classical computer using the best currently known algorithms.