1 Social Networking
Social Networking connects people on the Internet. Social networking is very popular, with Facebook and Google frequently switching places as the first and the second most visited websites on the entire Internet. Social networking websites have their roots in early online communities like Geocities, Tripod and Theglobe. In the late 1990s and the early 2000s, these were followed by the modern genre of social networking where the identity of users is identified through user-maintained profiles. Friendster, came out in 2002 was followed by MySpace, LinkedIn, Bebo and finally Facebook in 2004. Privacy of social networking has been a concern as most of these applications encourage users to share more. Many users find that their information once published, remains on the Internet for ever. Snapchat is an application for sending snaps of information (image, video, text, etc.) that is available for viewing by the receiver only for a few seconds after which they are deleted. The privacy concerns of using social networks will grow. It is likely that social networks may be used for targeting advertisements to market product and services.
2 Mobile Computing
When we hear the word mobile computing, we generally think of Smartphones. However, Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) like the Palm Pilot, mobile ticketing machines like the ones used in Railways, Global Positioning system (GPS) devices, Internet tablets like the iPad and any other computing devices which can compute and interact with human users while being transported are all examples of mobile computing. Wearable computing is an important example of mobile computing and can be used in aircraft wiring, to overcome physical disabilities or just to provide mobility to computing. Smart watches enable you to wear a whole computer on your wrist! Ubiquitous computing takes another step ahead and uses everyday objects instead of desktops as the computing environments. Pranav Mistry's Sixth Sense is a technology that allows us to view digital information in the physical world around us with the help of small wearable components like a projector and a camera. Mobile based payment systems will grow (e.g., Applepay) in the coming few years and would eventually supersede credit cards and other payment methods.
3 Connectivity
Modern computing devices feature a greater ease of connectivity via the use of USB cables, Bluetooth, Infrared, Wi-Fi, 4G networks etc. Advances in connectivity have integrated computing devices with a number of other devices like music players and televisions. Samsung's experimental 5G network is reported to provide 150 Mbps. Mobile telecommunications are faster and more efficient than ever.
4 E-Business
Your computer is your bank and online store but it wasn't that way a few decades back. E-business pioneer websites like EBay and Amazon let people shop without physically commuting to stores. E-stores were a big hit and new models such as E-auctions were introduced. Transferring money from one account to another became very easy because of E-banking and related services like PayPal. Although E-business has been hugely successful, it still continues to face authentication, availability and other security concerns.
5 Human-Computer Interaction
A computer is of no use if it is hard to operate. Human- computer interaction focuses on overcoming the drawbacks of a computer's user interface in order to make it more usable and receptive to the user's behavior. A great example of human-computer interaction is the use of touch screen in cell phones, ATMs, Tablet PCs, GPS devices etc. 6 Mass Information Sharing - Information sharing allows easy access to unrealistically large amount of data. Project Gutenberg is the oldest digital library and provides eBooks free of cost. Wikipedia, co-founded by Jimmy Wales is a website that can be thought of as a free encyclopaedia of everything.
7 Computer Controlled Infrastructure
Computers can also be used to decrease the cost or risk of using humans to control infrastructure. An easily understood example of computer controlled infrastructure is the autopilot feature found in warfare vehicles, Unmanned Arial Vehicles (UAV), aeroplanes, trams, railways and concept cars. Using computers instead of humans to control infrastructure reduces the cost, effort, possibility of error while enhancing the ease of deployment, efficiency and safety. In a war torn country, an unmanned vehicle can save many lives.
8 Cloud Computing
Cloud computing makes computing power and storage available on demand. Old mail services like Outlook allowed you to store mails on your computer only. However, cloud computing services like Gmail let you access the data without any constraints of location. Cloud computing has helped reduce cost and difficulty of storing data on local computers. Microsoft, Adobe and others have launched applications on the cloud, charging subscription for using them. So the software is no longer licensed for a particular computer, but can be used from anywhere with network access.
Mobile Cloud: mobile cloud supports mobile computing by making data and services available on demand. Smart phones may be used to access mobile cloud from anywhere.
9 Intelligent Computing
The ability of a computer system or network to take its own decisions is what we refer to as intelligent computing. The computer creates and operates applications, as per need without any human interventions. Intelligent computing has helped beef up security and reliability of networks and systems.
10 Web of things
In the early phase of computing, users were few and the software was generally free. However, when most people started using computers and the cost of software went up and the idea of free software caught the world's fantasy. Wordpress, VLC media player and Linux are some examples of the most widely used open source software.
That brings us to the end of our list.
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