“You” - on the cloud
In most recent sci-fi movies, transparent screens are widely used: Iron Man 2, Minority Report, Avatar…These glass phone concepts you see around the internet, is something you will be holding in your hand sooner than you think.
The only way for this to be possible is if all your processing needs are fulfilled by the Internet. No hardware, no more Core I7s in your laptop, no more snapdragon in your phones. All the processing would happen in real-time, on the cloud.
Cloud computing is a term we all have become familiar with, but it’s still not a part of our daily lives to the extent it is going to be.
The day and age when people like you and me would be using a device which is literally ‘streaming’ android on your device, is right around the corner. How does this effect the landscape of product design, mobile tech, is going to of great interest.
Let’s take the example of Storage, connected to the cloud,would work like how Google Drive works or your google photos for the sake of simplicity, you clear your device’s storage by deleting the pictures which have already been uploaded to the cloud so now when you access them again, it’s loading from the internet. Similarly, when we have optic fibre speeds of 100mbps+ not only will your pictures be on the cloud but every bit of calculation your device does will be on the internet and if your internet is down this time, you are literally just standing with a piece of glass.
“I don’t need a hard disk in my computer if I can get to the server faster… carrying around these non-connected computers is byzantine by comparison.” ~ Steve Jobs, Co-founder, CEO and Chairman of Apple Inc.
Making it possible for your devices to have nothing but the bare minimal, a transparent display with a battery and a camera that’s it.
One great example of cloud computing that you might have used or maybe using right now is the famous photo editing app Prisma, if you have used it, you must have noticed it takes some time to apply the filter to your pictures and if you are not on the internet you can’t get these filters up, ever wondered why? It’s because prisma is editing your pictures to make them look like pieces of art which needs calculations your phone probably can’t perform, So it sends the picture on to it’s servers, The server shares it with their massive systems optimised for such performance, after editing the pic it sends it back to you, for you to download, this whole process is quite complicated but takes merely 5 seconds for you to get the result.
Another great eg. of cloud computing for the consumer is NVIDIA grid-
Streaming video and music to TVs, PCs and tablets using cloud services like Netflix, YouTube, Pandora and Spotify has become the predominant way to enjoy content for connected devices. The convenience of large cloud-managed libraries of content with stream-anywhere capability is impossible to resist.
Now with revolutionary NVIDIA GRID cloud gaming technology, you’ll soon be able to stream video games from the web just like any other streaming media. GRID renders 3D games in cloud servers, encodes each frame instantly and streams the result to any device with a wired or wireless broadband connection.
FREEDOM FROM THE CONSOLE
The result of NVIDIA GRID is nirvana for the gamer. When service operators use NVIDIA GRID as the foundation for their on-demand Gaming as a Service (GaaS) solution, you can experience tremendous advantages over traditional console gaming systems.
- Any-device gaming: High-quality, low-latency, multi device gaming on any PC, Mac, tablet, smartphone or TV.
- Click-to-play simplicity: Anytime access to a library of gaming titles and saved games in the cloud. Play or continue games from any device, anywhere.
- Less hassle: No new hardware. No complicated setup.
Transparent OLED screens are a stunning new development in digital signage and display technology that is used to communicate dynamic or interactive content via a transparent surface. Viewers can see what is shown on the screen whilst still being able to see through it. This display solution allows designers to overlay digital content such as images, text and video onto to real-life objects placed behind the transparent screen.
Cloud computing has very many implications-
“Cloud computing is a great euphemism for centralization of computer services under one server.” ~ Evgeny Morozov, author and technology skeptic
Our ever so internet dependent society, becomes even more so. Now everything you need is on the phone, your wallet, your social Identity, your mailbox…everything, agree or not if you loose your phone say while you are travelling for example, you will PANIC.
But now with your phone (you) being on the cloud, just buy another piece of glass sign in with say your Google ID and everything is recovered, But doesn’t it also make it easy for someone you don’t want having access to your digital identity to just hack in and figure your life out.
Going even further with Elon Musk’s Neuralink, itis one such technology that scares the living shit out of me, our brains being chipped would be the complete end of freedom, gradual increment from social security numbers or Aadhar cards here in India to now this, the best way to have a society in control is to be in their heads, If you are on the cloud, your thoughts even parts of you that you are not fully aware of the subconsciousness, implications are very very many.
Imagine a system where you are connected to your vehicle through the neural link and it recognises you are under the influence of some sort of future alcohol, now the vehicle would not give you any control of itself and go into auto-drive. This isn’t necessarily a positive example, or is it?
What do you feel? Our dependance on the Internet is going beyond our control, or is it just a natural play of events?
