In the last few years, the market has seen an explosion of new technologies. These technologies have a huge impact on the way we work, have fun and communicate. We can communicate 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:
Tablets/iPads.
If there was one device that could radically change the way we use computers and electronic devices, it would be the Apple iPad. But before an 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 least for the moment) is the use of a touch screen.
The iPad has the potential to support multipoint input in the future, and then maybe completely abandon the familiar mouse-oriented interface, which has been in use for decades.
What else to do is to prove that iPad is not a specialized product that is used only by fans or wanting to be ahead of the whole planet. iPad also has to overcome the problem of its inferiority – it lacks many familiar features, such as a physical keyboard, USB ports and a webcam.
Cloud computing
In a simple sense, when it comes to cloud computing, it means providing hardware and application services on demand over the Internet. Clouds are an alternative option for hosting and maintaining your own servers and application software.
By using cloud computing, an enterprise only pays for the resources it consumes, just as by paying for power you only pay for what you use. Enterprises that host their services and applications in the cloud improve overall computer efficiency, as the cloud distributes the load on remote client servers more optimally.
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.
- Utility calculations – When storage resources and server capacity are available on demand.
- Platforms and Web Services – Provides a platform on which developers can create applications available to customers over the Internet. It does not use your server infrastructure, but remote servers in the cloud. Microsoft’s Azure platform provides such an environment.
We live in a world with many connections (perhaps too many at times) with the many communication technologies that are fighting for our attention. All these different communication technologies have been developed and have become universally recognized independently of each other.
In order to use these technologies, we need to have many accounts: one for conferences, one for e-mail, one for instant messaging, and one for voice mail, etc. This means that we are likely to have a separate username and password in each of these systems, which we should remember (or write down somewhere).
And network and telephony administrators need to keep these systems up and running, often with great difficulty, but not always with great success.
Virtualization
Virtualization is both science and the art of making one physical server perform multiple virtual server roles. Server virtualization is becoming increasingly popular as IT managers understand the economic benefits of reducing the number of physical servers (and thus the cost of electricity, cooling, deployment, ecology and software development). The range of virtualization products is wide enough and includes, in particular, Microsoft Hyper-V and VMware.
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI).
Virtual workstation infrastructure (or interface) is another way to centralize management and deploy user workstations. With constant connection to the network, users can work the same way as on a regular personal computer, but in a remote mode.
This increases flexibility in the use of workstations, gives IT staff the ability to integrate management and helps ensure business continuity. The entire IT infrastructure is of course linked to virtualization and cloud platforms.
E-books
Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble Nook, Sony Reader… – You can choose. They can all hold hundreds, and even thousands, of books and documents. The average user mainly reads books, newspapers and other periodicals. Big-screen e-books can also be used as technical reference books.
These wonderful devices have earned the right to be included in this list for their memory size, battery life and modest size. At business meetings, it is no longer possible to pass on a pile of paper documents, but rather an e-book, and the product description 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
Currently, there are three smartphone platforms that have taken up most of the market: Apple iPhone, BlackBerry and Google Android. Smartphones represent the fastest growing type of mobile devices – everyone wants to have a smartphone (and whether they will use it to its full potential or applications is another issue).
What is crucial when users choose a smartphone is its ease of use, flexibility and applications. The deployment and use of smartphones in an enterprise environment is determined by factors such as security, ease of messaging and email, document management, navigation and web conferencing. Smartphones are evolving and continue to change the way we view communication and communication.
Social networks and online life – or power on Twitter.
One should not underestimate the potential of social networks (be it chat, twitter or schoolmates’ correspondence). Social networks were needed to help people who were separated by distance, to organize large-scale social or musical events, or even not to lose touch with friends and family.
Social networks have enormous power and influence – much more than many people understand. A traditional workplace is changing rapidly – more and more people are working from home or outside the office and want or even need to be contacted. This does not mean that communication in a traditional work environment is a thing of the past – no, it has just changed. If you want to, chirp a friend and ask him or her.
People connect on Facebook or social media and blur the line between work and society. Using Microsoft Office Communicator, users will be able to communicate with both work and personal contacts in one interface. Business and IT executives have yet to learn how to use this to speed up decision-making and maintain unity with employees.
Touch screens.
What comes to mind when talking about a computer with a touch screen? Of course, the iPad. However, this year other manufacturers will start competing with the iPad and a number of similar devices will be released. In some implementations, gestures, rather than touching or moving the mouse, will control computers. In autumn, new game consoles will appear (Microsoft Kinetic, for which you will be the controller).
They don’t focus 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 you to compress all the computer equipment in a smaller physical space.
Solid state drives
Familiar hard drives (as well as other storage devices) are undergoing radical changes today. The capacity of hard disks is increasing, but the principle of operation does not change; they are essentially the same motors and magnetic disks.
But today, solid state drives achieve a capacity that is suitable for most laptop users. A solid state drive is a device with a large amount of flash memory and no moving parts. As a result, these devices consume much less power, get less heat, weigh less and work faster.