Ten information technologies that changed the world
In the past few years there has been an explosion of new technologies in the market. These technologies have a huge impact on how we work, have fun and communicate. We can connect with other people and interact with computers in ways we couldn’t imagine just a few years ago. Let's look at some of the most famous new technologies that have already changed the world.
If there was one such device that could radically change our style of using computers and electronic devices, it would be an Apple iPad. But before the iPad can claim this title, it must first prove that it can be an effective replacement for laptops, netbooks and tablets. One of the unique features of the iPad (at the moment, at least) is the use of the touch screen. The iPad has the potential to support multi-point input in the future, and then, perhaps, completely abandon the familiar mouse-oriented interface that has been used for more than a decade.
What else the iPad has to do is to prove that it is not a specialized product, which is used only by fans or who want to be ahead of the rest. iPad also has to overcome the problem of its inferiority - it lacks many of the usual features, for example, a physical keyboard, USB ports and a webcam. If Apple can do this, then the iPad will truly become an IT product that has changed the world. Nowadays, however, many people see it as a rather exalted iPhone or a replacement for the Amazon Kindle, but not a full-fledged replacement for a laptop.
In the simplest sense, when people talk about cloud computing, they imply the provision of equipment and application services on demand over the Internet. Clouds are an alternative way to host and maintain your own servers and application software. Using cloud computing, an enterprise only pays for the resources it consumes, just as by paying for electricity, you only pay for what you use. Businesses hosting their services and applications in the “cloud” improve the overall efficiency of computer use, because in the “cloud” the load on servers working with remote clients is more optimally distributed. Cloud computing is implemented in several models:
We live in a world with a lot of connections (at times, perhaps even too large) with numerous communication technologies that fight for our attention. All of these diverse communication technologies were developed and became recognized independently of each other. In order to use these technologies, we need to have multiple accounts: one for conferencing, another for e-mail, one for instant messaging, and another for voice mail, etc. So, most likely in each of these systems we will have a separate username and password that we need to remember (or write somewhere). And the network and telephony administrators must maintain these systems in working condition, often with great difficulty, but not always with great success.
The unified communications system unites all these disparate systems into a single communication platform. Now your telephony system can not only process your voice mail, but also send by mail a notification of a new voice message. You can establish a conference call just by clicking on the contact address in the email. You can see if your colleague is busy or online. You can also receive messages from external chat directly in your internal instant messaging system. A single communication platform helps users connect with each other and makes life easier for administrators.
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Virtualization is both a science and an art of forcing a single physical server to perform several virtual server roles. Server-side virtualization is becoming increasingly popular as IT executives understand the economic benefits of reducing the number of physical servers (and therefore the cost of electricity, cooling, deployment, environment and software development). The range of virtualization products is quite wide and includes, in particular, Microsoft Hyper-V and VMware.
The infrastructure (or interface) of virtual workstations is another way to centralize the management and deployment of user workstations. Having a permanent connection to the network, users can work the same way as on a regular personal computer, but in remote mode. This increases the flexibility of using workstations, enables IT staff to have integrated management and helps ensure business continuity. All this IT infrastructure is of course connected with virtualization and cloud platforms.
Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble Nook, Sony Reader, ... - choose for yourself. They can save hundreds, even thousands of books and documents. An ordinary user with their help mainly reads books, newspapers and other periodicals. Electronic books with large screens can also be used as technical reference books. These wonderful devices have earned the right to be included in this list for the amount of memory, battery life and modest size. At business meetings, you can now transfer not a pile of paper documents, but such an e-book, and a description of the product in the store can also be read on it. Although they do not yet portend the emergence of "paperless companies", they have changed the way we read and store documents and books.
At the moment there are three platforms of smartphones, which occupied most of the market: Apple iPhone, BlackBerry and Google Android. Smartphones are the fastest growing variety of mobile devices - everyone wants to have a smartphone (and whether they will fully use its capabilities or applications is another question). What is a decisive factor when users choose a smartphone is ease of use, flexibility, and applications (programs downloaded and installed on the phone to improve its functionality or settings). The introduction and use of smartphones in the corporate environment is determined by such factors as security, ease of messaging and e-mail, document management, navigation, and web conferencing. Smartphones are evolving and continue to change our view of communication and communication. In many countries, they are exempted from the wires (if they were) and only use smartphones.
Do not underestimate the potential of social networks (be it a chat, twitter or correspondence classmates). Social networks were needed to help people separated by distances, to organize large-scale social or musical events, or even simply not to lose touch with friends and family. Social networks have tremendous power and influence - much more than many people understand (or want to accept). The traditional workplace is changing rapidly - more and more people work at home or outside the office and want or even need contacts. This does not mean that communication in the traditional working environment is a thing of the past - no, it just changed. If you want, tweet a friend and ask him.
People connect on Facebook or social networks and blur the line between work and society. Using Microsoft Office Communicator, users will be able to communicate with both workers and personal contacts in the same interface. Business and IT executives have yet to learn how to use it to speed up the decision-making process and maintain unity with employees. Clients will then expect immediate answers to their questions, and your employees can give them using these means of communication.
What comes to mind when they talk about a computer with a touch screen? Of course, iPad. However, already this year, other manufacturers will begin to compete with the iPad, and a number of similar devices will be released. In some implementations, gestures, rather than touch or mouse movement, will control computers. In the autumn there will be new game consoles (Microsoft Kinetic, for which you will be the controller). They are not focused on the movement of the device in your hand, but on your gestures and movement in front of the sensor. Such technologies will help people with physical disabilities, as well as allow to compress all computer equipment in a smaller physical space.
Habitual hard drives (as well as other storage devices) are undergoing radical changes today. The capacity of the hard drives increases, but the principle of operation does not change; they are essentially the same motors and magnetic disks. But today, SSDs reach capacity with which they are quite suitable for most laptop users. A solid-state drive is a device with a large amount of flash memory that has no moving parts. Due to this, such devices consume much less energy, heat less, weigh less and work faster.
Tablet / iPad.
If there was one such device that could radically change our style of using computers and electronic devices, it would be an Apple iPad. But before the iPad can claim this title, it must first prove that it can be an effective replacement for laptops, netbooks and tablets. One of the unique features of the iPad (at the moment, at least) is the use of the touch screen. The iPad has the potential to support multi-point input in the future, and then, perhaps, completely abandon the familiar mouse-oriented interface that has been used for more than a decade.
What else the iPad has to do is to prove that it is not a specialized product, which is used only by fans or who want to be ahead of the rest. iPad also has to overcome the problem of its inferiority - it lacks many of the usual features, for example, a physical keyboard, USB ports and a webcam. If Apple can do this, then the iPad will truly become an IT product that has changed the world. Nowadays, however, many people see it as a rather exalted iPhone or a replacement for the Amazon Kindle, but not a full-fledged replacement for a laptop.
Cloud computing.
In the simplest sense, when people talk about cloud computing, they imply the provision of equipment and application services on demand over the Internet. Clouds are an alternative way to host and maintain your own servers and application software. Using cloud computing, an enterprise only pays for the resources it consumes, just as by paying for electricity, you only pay for what you use. Businesses hosting their services and applications in the “cloud” improve the overall efficiency of computer use, because in the “cloud” the load on servers working with remote clients is more optimally distributed. Cloud computing is implemented in several models:
- Software as a Service (Software as a Service = SaaS) - Providing applications that customers can use over the Internet.
- Utilitarian calculations — When storage resources and server capacity are available on demand.
- Platforms and Web Services - Providing a platform on which developers can create applications that are available to customers via the Internet. It does not use your server infrastructure, and remote servers in the "cloud". Microsoft's Azure platform provides just such an environment.
Unified communications.
We live in a world with a lot of connections (at times, perhaps even too large) with numerous communication technologies that fight for our attention. All of these diverse communication technologies were developed and became recognized independently of each other. In order to use these technologies, we need to have multiple accounts: one for conferencing, another for e-mail, one for instant messaging, and another for voice mail, etc. So, most likely in each of these systems we will have a separate username and password that we need to remember (or write somewhere). And the network and telephony administrators must maintain these systems in working condition, often with great difficulty, but not always with great success.
The unified communications system unites all these disparate systems into a single communication platform. Now your telephony system can not only process your voice mail, but also send by mail a notification of a new voice message. You can establish a conference call just by clicking on the contact address in the email. You can see if your colleague is busy or online. You can also receive messages from external chat directly in your internal instant messaging system. A single communication platform helps users connect with each other and makes life easier for administrators.
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Virtualization
Virtualization is both a science and an art of forcing a single physical server to perform several virtual server roles. Server-side virtualization is becoming increasingly popular as IT executives understand the economic benefits of reducing the number of physical servers (and therefore the cost of electricity, cooling, deployment, environment and software development). The range of virtualization products is quite wide and includes, in particular, Microsoft Hyper-V and VMware.
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI).
The infrastructure (or interface) of virtual workstations is another way to centralize the management and deployment of user workstations. Having a permanent connection to the network, users can work the same way as on a regular personal computer, but in remote mode. This increases the flexibility of using workstations, enables IT staff to have integrated management and helps ensure business continuity. All this IT infrastructure is of course connected with virtualization and cloud platforms.
EBooks.
Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble Nook, Sony Reader, ... - choose for yourself. They can save hundreds, even thousands of books and documents. An ordinary user with their help mainly reads books, newspapers and other periodicals. Electronic books with large screens can also be used as technical reference books. These wonderful devices have earned the right to be included in this list for the amount of memory, battery life and modest size. At business meetings, you can now transfer not a pile of paper documents, but such an e-book, and a description of the product in the store can also be read on it. Although they do not yet portend the emergence of "paperless companies", they have changed the way we read and store documents and books.
Smartphones.
At the moment there are three platforms of smartphones, which occupied most of the market: Apple iPhone, BlackBerry and Google Android. Smartphones are the fastest growing variety of mobile devices - everyone wants to have a smartphone (and whether they will fully use its capabilities or applications is another question). What is a decisive factor when users choose a smartphone is ease of use, flexibility, and applications (programs downloaded and installed on the phone to improve its functionality or settings). The introduction and use of smartphones in the corporate environment is determined by such factors as security, ease of messaging and e-mail, document management, navigation, and web conferencing. Smartphones are evolving and continue to change our view of communication and communication. In many countries, they are exempted from the wires (if they were) and only use smartphones.
Social networks and network life - or power on Twitter.
Do not underestimate the potential of social networks (be it a chat, twitter or correspondence classmates). Social networks were needed to help people separated by distances, to organize large-scale social or musical events, or even simply not to lose touch with friends and family. Social networks have tremendous power and influence - much more than many people understand (or want to accept). The traditional workplace is changing rapidly - more and more people work at home or outside the office and want or even need contacts. This does not mean that communication in the traditional working environment is a thing of the past - no, it just changed. If you want, tweet a friend and ask him.
People connect on Facebook or social networks and blur the line between work and society. Using Microsoft Office Communicator, users will be able to communicate with both workers and personal contacts in the same interface. Business and IT executives have yet to learn how to use it to speed up the decision-making process and maintain unity with employees. Clients will then expect immediate answers to their questions, and your employees can give them using these means of communication.
Touch Screens.
What comes to mind when they talk about a computer with a touch screen? Of course, iPad. However, already this year, other manufacturers will begin to compete with the iPad, and a number of similar devices will be released. In some implementations, gestures, rather than touch or mouse movement, will control computers. In the autumn there will be new game consoles (Microsoft Kinetic, for which you will be the controller). They are not focused on the movement of the device in your hand, but on your gestures and movement in front of the sensor. Such technologies will help people with physical disabilities, as well as allow to compress all computer equipment in a smaller physical space.
Solid State Drives.
Habitual hard drives (as well as other storage devices) are undergoing radical changes today. The capacity of the hard drives increases, but the principle of operation does not change; they are essentially the same motors and magnetic disks. But today, SSDs reach capacity with which they are quite suitable for most laptop users. A solid-state drive is a device with a large amount of flash memory that has no moving parts. Due to this, such devices consume much less energy, heat less, weigh less and work faster.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/99316/
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