THE FUTURE OF COMPUTING

<< THE COMPUTING PROFESSION

PROGRAMMING METHODOLOGY >>

Introduction to Computing CS101

LESSON 43

THE FUTURE OF COMPUTING

Focus of the last Lesson was on the Computing Profession

We discussed several roles and associated responsibilities of modern computer professionals

We also discussed a few tricky situations where a knowledge of professional ethics would have

helped

Who is a computing professional?

Computer scientists, software engineers, computer engineers, and some of the telecom engineers

are generally classified as computing professionals

Today's Focus Group

Due to the limitation on time, today we will be focusing only on a subset of computing

professionals: those involved in the development of SW

Organization: A Collection of Teams

Development Team

Responsible for a project from after the specifications stage till the very end

Project Manager

Responsibilities:

Planning and tracking of the project

Arranging of the appropriate resources

Client relationship management

Architect

Responsibilities:

Technical guru of the project

Technology selection

High-level design

Makes certain that the implementation remains true to the design

Team Lead

Responsibilities:

Planning and tracking of the project

Detailed design

Professional development of team members

Development activities, in case of small teams

Developer

Responsibilities:

Module-level design

Coding

Unit-testing

293

Introduction to Computing CS101

Executive Team

CEO Chief Executive Officer

Developer of the vision of the organization

Great PR skills

Great knack for spotting talent

COO Chief Operating Officer

Responsible for the day-to-day operations

Great planning & interpersonal skills

CMSO Chief Marketing & Sales Officer

Responsible for bringing in work

Innovative

Business Development Team

Responsible for the development of detailed proposals for projects

Architecture Team

Consists of the sharpest technical minds in the company

Configuration Management Team

Keeps a vigilant eye on the process that keeps an extensive record of all versions of everything that

is ever developed for a particular project: from proposals to specifications to plans to design to

code

Process Team

Team's goal: To continuously improve the SW development process to achieve improvements in

cost, schedule, and quality

Quality Assurance Team

Responsible for assuring the quality of all SW (i.e. making sure that it does what it is supposed to)

that is produced at the organization

Technology Transfer Team

This team is responsible for:

Evaluating new technologies, products, processes

Selecting the ones that are right for the organization

Developing an expertise in their use

I ntroducing them in various ongoing/future projects

Support Team

Responsible for the maintenance, expansion, improvement of the infrastructure consisting of:

Workstations, servers, printers

Networking equipment (router, switch, hub)

SW (development SW, productivity SW, etc.)

Network security

Ethics

Ethics is a collection of heuristics that, when followed, improves our way of life

I find them wonderful as they simplify my life

Professional Ethics

Professional ethics are a category of ethics, and here we discus the professional ethics relevant to

computing

The professional ethics provide a way of simplifying our decision making process

294

Introduction to Computing CS101

We also looked at few situations where a knowledge of professional ethics would have simplified

the process of decision making

Today's Goals:

(The Future Of Computing)

To visualize the advances in computing that will take place in the future

To visualize the impact of computing on our future

Computing & Telecommunications

The two fields are converging, and, as time passes, are becoming more and more indistinguishable

from each other

Therefore, when we talk about the future of one, we must talk about the future of both

My Personal Mobile Communicator

Probably 15-20 years from now ...

Body-embedded uPhone, head-phone, processor

Voice-only control interface

The user mumbles, only the uPhone hears

Longer term: the user only thinks commands and speech and feels the response from the other end;

no actual sounds are made

Required Computing Technologies

Miniature uPs, RAM, ROM

Continuous speech recognition

A Mobile Video-Phone

The technology is available; the infrastructure will become common in 2-5 years time

However, it may never become as popular as a regular voice-only phone as it will be too

cumbersome to use

My Personal Agent

A computer program that will works autonomously and will have a voice-interface

It may start becoming popular in 5-year's time

Will be able to have an intelligent conversation with me

I say: "I need two tickets for Hong Kong for tomorrow morning"

It already knows where I am, what my airline preferences are, and what are my credit-card details

It will asks me about the return leg of the journey and about hotel reservations as well

I say: "I'm depressed" or "I'm tired" or "I'm bored" or "I'm angry" or "I'm feeling sick" and it

will know how to respond to situations like that

For example, when I feel sick, it can ask simple questions and then set-up an appointment with an

appropriate doctor by getting in touch with that doctor's personnel agent

It can remind me about various events

It keeps me updated with news, weather, stock market, etc

I communicate with it through my personal communicator as well as my computer

It knows that when I am near a computer display, and writes appropriate info to the screen

Required Computing Technologies

Continuous speech recognition

Intelligent, autonomous decision making SW

The key weakness of the Web?

The Web (as it currently exists) was designed for humans to read, not for computers to understand

and manipulate meaningfully

295

Introduction to Computing CS101

Computers face great problems in dealing with the current text- and graphics-based content of the

Web

Future of the Web: Semantic Web

Whereas, today's Web's content is designed for humans to read; the Semantic Web's content will be

designed for computers to understand meaningfully. However, the Semantic Web is not a replacement

but an extension of the present Web, in which info is given well defined meaning

Smaller, Faster, Cheaper, More Efficient

All types of computers are becoming more powerful, smaller in size, consume less energy, and cost

less than before

10 years from now we may have the power of today's most powerful supercomputer in a package

no bigger than a common brick

However, the size may not be relevant as a time is coming when computing power will be like the

electric power service that we use at home or office

Electrical Supply

We do not buy a new electric plant when we install a new air conditioner. Do we?

We just plug it in, and it works!

As we use more and more electricity, our monthly bills go up, but importantly, we are not required

to do much else same will be true for computing power on 10 year horizon

Computing Power that Flows

These days when our computing needs exceed our resources, we buy a new computer

In the future, if we suddenly start doing huge data mining tasks instead of just doing simple

accounting on our computer ...

... we will start using more computing power, but our computer (or console, or terminal) will stay

the same, only our monthly "computing usage" bill will change

On-Demand Computing Power

Almost infinite "computing power" supply

Reliable, maintenance-free, just like the electricity, telephone, or water-supply service

You pay for only what you use!

Same will be true for storage

Computer Terminals of the Future

The first question is, would we have any?

It may happen that computers will be everywhere, but hidden!

If that does not happen, then they will consist of a display only; input will be through voice-

commands and/or touch on the screen only (5-10 years from now)

In a more distant future, just through thinking!

Displays

The demise of the CRT monitors has already started, and their replacement with LCD is gaining

pace with steadily dropping prices

Like CRT monitors, LCDs are 2-D displays

296

Introduction to Computing CS101

Display of the future, however, will have to be a 3-D one

The 3-D illusion will be created through goggles or by directly writing the images on our retinas

Storage

Magnetic storage on disks will stay with us for a long time, at least two decades

Data densities will improve steadily with time

Optical disks will keep on getting better (currently the BlueRay DVD can store more than 50GB)

However, the mechanical nature of these technologies will not be able to keep up with the speed of

the computers of the future and the enormous capacity requirements of the future

Semiconductor memory will keep on becoming faster, denser, cheaper but will never have the

capacity/price ratio of the magnetic/optical disks

Disks too slow! RAM too expensive! What then?

Some never-heard-before technology or possibly, holographic optical storage

Holographic Storage

Digital data stored in and read from a 3-D optical material with the help of lasers

Depending upon the material, they could be read-only or R/W

The data density (quantity of data stored per unit volume) will be millions of times more than

anything available today

The concept has been validated but commercial applications are at least 10 years away

Data Transmission

Our homes and offices will be hooked up to the Internet through optical fiber or a free-space

optical connection

However, most devices within the house and office will be connected to each other and the main

Internet connection through wireless connections

The bit-rates will be enormous by today's standards

The Fully Connected House

Wall to wall computers, but hidden!

Kitchens will be full of them

Air conditioners, lights, security alarms, entertainment and communication systems

Each house will have 100's of uPs, all talking to many others through wireless links, always trying

to make us more comfortable while conserving energy and other resources

Telepresence

Being there, without physically being there!

Two remotely located people, with the help of special equipment, immersed in a simulated 3-D

environment where they interact like they are sitting next to each other

Chatting, a telephone conversation, or even a videoconference are examples, but in a degraded

sense of the idea

Full-fledged 3-D telepresence may become common 10-15 years from now

Immortal Minds

Some day it will be possible to load all the lectures, papers, books and SW produced by an expert

into an intelligent system

After that system processes, indexes and restructures the info in those artifacts, it will be possible

to have a conversation in plain English (or some other language) with that system

297

Introduction to Computing CS101

The system will have that conversation based on the ideas and beliefs contained in the stored info

and in the style of that expert

Initially this may happen in the form of text, then speech, and then a talking head on a computer

screen, and finally in a 3-D simulated reality environment

Translators

Natural language translators: One of the most biggest challenges for today's computer scientist

Fully automated and reasonably accurate translators (say from English to German) do not exist as

of now ...

... but will, perhaps, 20 years from now

Education

15-20 years from now, all education will be computer-based but will not be impersonal as the

computer-based education of today

The group-method, the basis of today's learning, will continue to be used, but without the

requirement of physical presence of the teacher and the taught in the same room

Simulated-reality techniques will be used to create an artificial but effective educational

environment

Medicine

Due to computer-assisted research into medicine and genetic engineering, most, if not all of the

current diseases will be eliminated over the next 50 years

Probably a few deadly ones will be created accidentally as part of that research or by the

germ-warfare labs

Warfare

Goal of war: Disable the enemy

That can be achieved by killing off the communication systems of the enemy army

Why use nasty and expensive things like nuclear bombs for that? Why not a computer virus?

Countries (and certain groups) will focus more and more of their resources on this area, where they

can maximize damage even with meager resources

The key target will be the telecom infrastructure and the financial systems (stock markets, banking

systems)

The developed countries are more vulnerable because they rely more on the targeted systems

Entertainment

Movies in which animated characters will be indistinguishable from humans actors have started to

appear

15 years from now human actors may become extinct

Not too long after that, movies as an entertainment form may become extinct as well

Movies will become interactive like video games

Video games will become more realistic like movies

And then they will converge into a single form of entertainment, probably called movie-game

Players will be able to become a part of the movie along with other players, if they wish!

Crime

I believe that petty crime will disappear in 50 years time due to computer-based methods for

investigating and tracking criminals

And after that, all crime will be computer-assisted and on a very large scale

298

Introduction to Computing CS101

It will most probably be committed by nation-states, not individuals

No Personal Privacy

50 years from now, due to the low cost of efficient sensors and highly-powerful computers,

tracking of humans will become quite easy

All governments will start keeping track of every move of every individual in the name of peace

and security

Slave → Master

The way things are progressing right now, the roles may reverse over a 50-100 year time frame

Computers may become self-replicating, self-healing, and self-programming just like humans

And one fine day they may do a conference through the Internet and just may decide that enough is

enough. Slavery, no more!

Today's Lecture:

(The Future of Computing)

We tried to visualize the advances in computing that will take place in the future

We also tried to visualize the impact of computing on our future

Next Lecture' Goals:

(Programming Methodology)

To understand effective programming practices that result in the development of correct programs

with a minimum effort

To become familiar with simple debugging techniques

299

Table of Contents: