Current Trends
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.
Advantages:
- On-demand
- Cost effective for users
Disadvantages:
- Possible downtime
- Security & Privacy concerns
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
Future Trends
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 makes direct use of quantum-mechanical phenomena, such as superposition and entanglement, to perform operations on data. Quantum computation uses qubits (quantum bits), which can be in a superposition of states. A theoretical model is the quantum Turing machine, also known as the universal quantum computer.