Your Learning Path
Computing technology is not only a very vast subject it is very rapidly evolving. Newer and better ways of implementing solutions provide the opportunity to innovate, but they also very quickly make the older ways less efficient and less user-friendly.
You don't have to be a techie!
Of course, there is a need for all students and professionals to get familiar with new technology but it is not necessary or practical for everyone to learn everything about everything.
Our learning content offers you just the right breadth and depth of insights you need depending on what your role is.
FOUR
technologies will make up most of the solutions of the future. Each of them has several related areas which we will cover in depth.
The Internet and the World Wide Web as we know it today are largely humans interacting with computing devices such as desktops, laptops, tablets, and mobile phones. The computing devices in turn are connected over a global network through which they exchange data and communicate with each other.
Now imagine that "things" you don't consider as computing devices - your home appliances, your car, the clothes and shoes you wear, the utility systems in your city, the machines in your factory - are also connected to the Internet and interact with humans and computing devices.
This is the Internet of Things or IoT. It allows you to monitor and control anything around you remotely. You can now have Smart Homes, Smart Cities, Smart Factories, and Smart Wearables, with all "things" connected and communicating with each other.
There are three main elements to an IoT solution: Physical Computing which involves sensors and actuators, Microcontrollers and the associated programming which act as processors, and IoT Platforms that allow data to be stored, visualized, and allow multiple IoT solutions to seamlessly connect with each other.
Physical Computing
Sensors are capable of sensing environmental parameters like light, sound, motion, humidity, and others just like humans. They can not only sense but also measure and quantify parameters. Relays and actuators can control machines and appliances with control signals, turning them on and off, opening and closing valves, and so on. This is known as Physical Computing.
Sensors and Relays
These are the input and output components for machine-to-machine solutions that require no human intervention.
Microcontrollers
Typical computing devices are large since they need screens and input devices for humans to use them. Microcontrollers are largely used to control machines and interact with other machines and hence can be much smaller. They form the basis of Physical Computing solutions.
The Arduino Ecosystem
Simple yet powerful microcontrollers, known as boards, make building and programming electronic circuits for Physical Computing solutions very easy.
IoT Platforms
With billions of things connected on the Internet of Things, communication and security becomes important. IoT Platforms provide these services.
AS YOU WILL SEE LATER, IOT PLATFORMS DEMONSTRATE THE CONVERGENCE OF IOT AND CLOUD COMPUTING
Computer devices are electronic circuits that are capable of receiving instructions to read data from multiple input sources and in multiple formats, to process that data with any kind of mathematical or logical computations, and to store or output the processed data in multiple formats. The art and science of writing these instructions to get the computing devices to perform tasks accurately are referred to as Computer Programming. The instructions are referred to as programs, software or code.
Every type of computing device requires a different approach to programming and may understand different programming languages, but the basic constructs for giving these instructions remain the same. Microcontrollers are no different and the Arduino ecosystem includes an easy way to program its boards using a simple programming language.
Traditionally, setting up an enterprise solution involved buying a physical computer to act as the server, configuring it, installing the required operating system and application software on it and hosting it in a data center for it to be accessible over the Internet.
Cloud Computing has changed this in a revolutionary manner. Cloud service providers such as AWS, Google, and Azure now offer you computing resources from hardware to software and everything in between, as on-demand, pay-per-use products. You do not have to invest money or time in procuring and setting up resources, the service provider will do that for you. All you need to do is commission the hardware or software you need, install any business-specific applications you need and you are good to go.
Hardware and software can now be made available for business within minutes as against days or even months. And there is no upfront investment, you only pay for what you use.
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
Commission all your hardware and networks on the cloud. Configure, monitor, and control all your infrastructure remotely over the Internet with user-friendly web apps.
Software as a Service (SaaS)
Commission all your software applications on the cloud. From productivity applications like email, business applications like CRM solutions, to developer tools like databases, nothing needs to be installed or configured locally.
Platform as a Service (PaaS)
To illustrate what a PaaS service can provide, let's take the example of an IoT Platform.
IoT Platforms
To build truly interoperable IoT solutions all devices on the network must be able to communicate and exchange data with each other reliably and securely. For this, we need communication protocol standards, sensor and device authentication mechanisms, data transfer and storage services, and value-added services such as data visualization, analytics and decision-making.
Rather than every solution having its own platform, it is far more practical for some service providers to build platforms with the required services, standards, and protocols and offer them for use by all IoT solution providers.
This is a perfect example where IoT and Cloud Computing converge to offer a Platform as a Service solution. As platforms are enhanced to take decisions without any human intervention, creating pure machine-to-machine interactions, they will also leverage Artificial Intelligence, making it a three-way convergence of powerful technology solutions.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is intelligence demonstrated by machines, as opposed to the intelligence displayed by animals and humans. AI as a science refers to the programming of computer systems to be able to perform tasks that normally require human intelligence, such as visual perception, speech recognition, decision-making, and translation between languages.
Computers can also be programmed to learn from analyzing data, just as humans learn from data and experience. This related science is referred to as Machine Learning (ML), Both are often referred to jointly as AI/ML.
In reality, work on AI/ML takes years of study and research by experts. But there is a difference between studying and writing sophisticated AI/ML algorithms and using these algorithms in your solutions. With the evolution of technology and the advent of cloud computing, scientists and engineers have now made powerful algorithms easily usable in business applications that can be developed by programmers without having the skills to write algorithms themselves.
AI/ML Algorithms-as-a-Service
THIS DEMONSTRATES THE CONVERGENCE OF AI/ML AND CLOUD COMPUTING
NATURAL LANGUAGE PROCESSING
The ability to understand human languages, including words, grammar, context and intent.
IMAGE RECOGNITION
The ability to recognize images and identify them based on defined classifications. This can be extended to video analysis.
SPEECH RECOGNITION
The ability to understand human speech, including identifying voices. This uses NLP as the next step to make sense of what was heard.
PERSONALIZATION
This uses ML to study and interpret historic and related data to personalize content or provide recommendations for users in several areas including books, music, movies and shopping.
APPLICATION PROGRAMMING INTERFACES (APIs)
Solutions today already have multiple components, each doing a small part of the whole task. Every component may be built with a different technology stack, hosted on different servers, and even have a different business owner.
APIs are the glue or the connectors that allow remote, disparate components to work together seamlessly, using services from each other and sharing data. APIs make the convergence of multiple technologies possible.
APIs are used by IoT devices to send data to IoT platforms, by apps to use AI/ML services on the cloud, by business apps to exchange data with other apps and services such as interactions between online shopping apps and payment apps, and by apps to get all kinds of specialized data from providers such as stock market data, weather data, airline reservation data, and so on.
Blockchain as a technology is most commonly understood by cryptocurrency, which is one of its very popular applications. What is interesting and important to know, however, is that cryptocurrency is only one possible application of Blockchain as a technology. Blockchain allows you to build decentralized and highly secure solutions for several other applications.
The main underlying principles of Blockchain solutions are decentralization and transparency. Applications are designed using what is known as Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) where each participant in a transactional system, such as banking, maintains their own copy of all data and algorithms to process that data. All participant copies are connected on a network and kept in sync using what is known as a consensus mechanism - in simple terms, all participants must agree to the validity of a transaction before it is updated in all systems simultaneously.
Further, the design of a Blockchain solution makes it impossible for any participant to modify any past data. This approach reduces or even eliminates disputes and reconciliation efforts which are today one of the primary hindrances to conducting business.
Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT)
A distributed ledger is replicated, shared digital data that is synchronized by consensus and geographically located across many servers, institutions, and even countries. In contrast to the traditional centralized database, a distributed ledger does not require a central administrator and consequently does not have a single point of failure. A distributed ledger requires a peer-to-peer (P2P) computer network and consensus algorithms so that the ledger is reliably replicated and synchronized.
Consensus Mechanisms
A consensus mechanism is a process that allows participants on a Blockchain network to reach an agreement on any transaction. It ensures that all, or at least a majority of, participants on the network agree on the validity of a transaction and the state of the data on the network. The three most common consensus algorithms are referred to as Proof of Work (PoW), Proof of Authority (PoA), and Proof of Stake (PoS).
Smart Contracts
Blockchain solutions offer a revolutionary approach to automating contractual obligations between transacting parties. Using a programming language such as on called Solidity, Smart Contracts can be built into blockchain networks. Actions in Smart Contracts are automatically triggered when defined conditions are met. And since all data updates to the system are done only with the consensus of all participants, there is no need for further intervention to execute the contracts.
The convergence of these technologies gives us the next generation of solutions, which is considered Web 3.0
A decentralized app (or DApp) is an application that can operate autonomously, typically through the use of Smart Contracts, that run on decentralized computing, blockchain or other distributed ledger system. It is the ultimate convergence of IoT, AI/ML, Blockchain and Cloud Computing.
There are some other really exciting technologies too.
While we will show you how they can be used in building solutions, they are highly specialized subjects for advanced learning, and we will not go too deep.
Augmented / Virtual Reality
AR and VR are complementary technologies, using which you can build solutions that bridge the digital and physical worlds. Using specialized devices you can combine digital elements with real-world elements around you. Or create a whole digital world that simulates the real world, allowing you to experience real-world elements without having to be physically present in that space.
3D Printing
3D printing, as the name suggests creates actual physical models of almost anything using specific materials based on instructions given to it by a computing device. The technology behind 3D printers is a combination of computing technology and the science of materials. 3D printers, previously very expensive and available only for specialized use, are now being made available at a lower cost for more common use.
UAVs/Drones
Airplanes have primarily been used for transporting humans and cargo and they need expensive equipment and expert handling. Today there are much simpler forms of aircraft that are meant for purposes other than transporting humans and cargo, referred to as UAVs or Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. Also commonly known as Drones, these aircraft have no human pilots on board but are controlled remotely by humans on the ground using radio signals.