The hot topic in technology in the past few years has been the emergence of “cloud computing”. But what exactly is this new development and how will it transform our lives?
There are two parts to understanding the platform. The first is to do with processing power and data storage, which have been moving away from individual computers into massive, centralised datacentres. This is bringing industrial scale to number-crunching – and is making it possible to unleash supercomputing power on everyday tasks: analysing a city's traffic patterns, for example, to predict where jams will crop up.
The second part lies in the billions of intelligent personal devices – think smart phones and netbooks – capable of plugging into this centralised computing resource via the internet. That means individuals (and not just companies or governments) will be able to take advantage of these information “clouds”.
So where does this lead us? Two broad predictions spring to mind. One is that making so much information and processing power available at very low cost will produce new breakthroughs. Science, for instance, could be revolutionised, as researchers gain access to previously unimaginable amounts of data and develop ways to cross-refer between disciplines.
The second prediction is that personal computing devices will become super smart as they are able to draw on the intelligence of the “cloud”. Already, Google is talking about adding instantaneous voice translation to its phones.
The big changes represented by these computing shifts may not be complete by the end of this decade – but they will be well under way.