New technologies - Evolving current computing system

In the late 20^th century the technology has evolved a lot that if we compare today’s world with the world of 1990s we will found a huge differences. The main reason of these revolutionary changes was computer and internet. Nowadays the computer and internet developer are trying best to evolve the technology more. Nanotechnology, grid computing, quantum computing, semantic web are the latest thought of the innovators in order to boost the computing facilities.

Nanotechnology refers to the functional system at the molecular scale. According to the US National Nanotechnology Initiative definition “nanotech includes anything that is smaller than 100 nanometers with novel properties.” (http://crnano.org/whatis.htm) The benefit of nanotech will be a mass productivity power in industrial sectors and also a powerful weapon in military sectors. So there is a probability of disadvantage as well.   

Nowadays the classical computer that we use work based on binary system and there are some limitation that binary system cannot do. That is why the experts came up with an idea of quantum computing system. A quantum computer can do an arbiter reversible classical computation on all the numbers simultaneously. Therefore quantum computer has the potential to be much more powerful than a classical one. This computing system is ideal for modeling, indexing and very large database. (http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/Q/quantum_computing.html)

Grid computing system applies many computer network to a single problem in order to solve that complicated problems faster. Normally scientific problems which need a vast processing to be solved can be done by grid computing. A well-known grid computing project is SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) (http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/G/grid_computing.html)

The internet system that we are using which is World Wide Web is trying to be converted to a semantic web system. Sen“The main purpose of the semantic Web is driving the evolution of current Web by enabling users to find, share and combine information more easily.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_Web)

It will be a dramatic changes in the technological world if these technologies are being implemented. Thw world is eagerly waiting to embrace the new technology as like as me.

Dillema in Complexity Solving

Entrepreneurship is full of risk and tough decisions.  The complexity refers to a situation that creates an impediment in the growth of business. It is very common to have complexity in business. However in an IT business complexity can be from three perspectives such as technical, organizational and social. Technical complexity may occur due to lack of technology, the change in technology or some probable error in the system.  Due to the change in market demand, workforce diversity, the organizational complexity might occur. Social complexity is more towards the external problem that lessens down the growth of the company such as revolution, protest and so on.  

“For CEOs and their organizations, avoiding complexity is not an option — the choice comes in how they respond to it. Will they allow complexity to become a stifling force that slows responsiveness, overwhelms employees and customers, or threatens profits?”

From my point of view I believe that dealing with complexity is a common feature in any business. But the arising matter is how effective management can a company do in order to sustain the business. Different kinds of complexities appeared in different time and some time the CEOs ignore the problem if it is simple. But it becomes a dilemma when a big complexity appeared and the management get confuse either solve the complexity or take the risk to continue as it was before or change. The choices are dependent to the CEOs. But, if they simply ignore the complexity there is a high probability that the employee and the customers would face problems and that might affect the company negatively. Moreover, without the enterprise architecture changing anything by trial and error in business is highly risk which is needed to be avoided. So it is better to analyze the facts deeply and take decision as it depends on the situation the company facing.  

User Centerdness and its importance

User centerdness is a term that detects the future of a software development project. In my opinion, Facebook has the most user centered software design. If we observe our friends and relatives, we find that almost all of them are using Facebook. Even, it is a very common phenomenon that the children who are around 5 years old have already account in Facebook. The easiest part of Facebook is, it is so convenient to use that no one required a teacher for understanding the using process. A 5 years older child can use the Facebook very easily. Uploading picture, chatting with friends, massaging them privately, making group studies by having group massages and the usefulness go on and on.

According to Wikipedia, “ISO defines usability as "The extent to which a product can be used by specified users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction in a specified context of use.” That means usability is the measurement of easiness to use any products. When it comes to software usability it refers to the easiness of using that particular software.

There are two reasons for having user centerdness in software or web design and they are concerning about the user/customer, and also the concern of benefit. Firstly, the software engineers make different software depending on user need. For example, consider that the software designed make software like MODDLE and the target users are the students and the lecturer. So in order to achieve the expectation of user, the software designer should plan the software according to the skills of the students and the lecturer. Otherwise it will fail to achieve its goal in designing software. Moreover, as the user will be using the software not the developer or the programmer, it should in simplex way so that they can understand it easily. Another reason is the benefit of the company. Normally organization buys those kinds of software that are convenient to use and therefore if any software company wants to make a good business, it should be very concerned about user centerdness.

References: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usability

Different Computing System

In order to make the skills deeper the horizon of the knowledge need to be specified very thoroughly and computing discipline is maintaining that by categorizing in different context.  There are five major computing disciplines that diverted the computer specialist in different ways and those five disciplines are Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Systems, Cognitive Science and Computer Engineering. 

Computer Science is the mother of all disciplines. This is a theoretical part of computation that develops new ideas and design computing system according to the concept of computation.

Software Engineering is about process of making or developing software. The software designers think about the requirement of the software and then come up with the efficient qualified design. This discipline is more towards large scale system and project where it manages the large scale technological projects.

System function and system development are the two major functions of IS where it fills up the responsibility of managing IT services and also use in organizational processes. This discipline is more towards maintaining business organization in operational, tactical and strategic levels. Moreover it combines the business and technology together in order to improve both the business and technology.

Cognitive Science is about artificial intelligences that allow the computer smart to invent new process of replacing human afford. Robot in workplace is the result of cognitive science.

The last computing discipline is Computer Engineering which is more about hardware. It designs the physical part of the computer and interacts the software and hardware. Electrical Engineering and mathematics are very closely related to this computing field.

From the brief explanation given above we can differentiate the computing discipline based on some criteria such as handling organizational issues, application technologies, software technologies, System infrastructure, computer hardware and infrastructure. In term of practicality the criteria can be theoretical or applied.

Computer Science is more theoretical and it normally do not deal with organizational issues and computer hardware where software engineering is also quite similar, but it is more practical than CS.

On the other hand IT is more towards applied and it deals with al criteria except computer hardware. Information System is one of the crucial disciplines, that mainly deals with organizational issues. And CE mainly focuses on hardware and computer infrastructure.     

There is a cold conflict between IT and CS professionals. Normally CS students criticize the IT students telling that the knowledge is not deep and it more likely overall idea of everything. But on the other hand IT professional make more money than the CS professional as it related to business as well. However, my viewpoint is no matter what we learn the matter is how we apply it and how we bring out the benefit from learning. In that condition I like to say that CS professional might know deeper about computing system but it is IT professional who aplly them and who hire them for work in the company.

References:

proc.isecon.org/2010/pdf/1353.pdf

test.sigite.hosting.acm.org/wp-content/.../IT-Discipline-Summary.pdf

sprouts.aisnet.org/176/1/tr125-2.pdf

Importance of Adaptability and Interpersonal skills for IT personnel

When  a baby born, it adapt with its mother and later on it adapts with its environment while changing from baby to child, child to teenage, teenage to adult and at last adult to old. Changing is the natural norms of everything and technology change so fast that the personnel who are connected to technology need to adapt with its changes. Adaptability is very crucial to an IT professional to keep track with the latest technology. The job market of technology change very frequently and there exist elimination and recruit of the employee based on their recent knowledge on the current technological phenomenon. In this competitive world survival depends on new innovation and in order to create a technical device the innovator must have the knowledge of new technology and adapt their new technological devices according to the recent technology. For example, if any company is creating a new smartphone, the IT professionals should have the latest software that will attract the customer to buy the phones.

Secondly the IT professional should be skilled in interpersonal skills like self-awareness, effective communication, conflict management, trust building and cooperation. In business each step need to be taken very carefully and that is why IT professional should have a self-awareness so that whatever problems come, the IT personnel can be aware themselves and also other. Another factor is that make the business successful or ruin is the skills to communicate. A good communicator can communicate effectively with different classes of people and that is where the success lies on. So in order to be a good businessman and also a good employee the IT professionals must have gained the values. Moreover, it is very common to have misunderstanding and conflict within the colleague and also the external party. So in order to take care of these kinds of situations the IT professional should have the skills of managing conflicts. Furthermore, an organization can never be established by only one person that is why collaboration is crucial to maintain the stability of any company and develop the productivity. 

Education in future

Did my father (68) ever imagine of learning without books? No he did not. When I was in Bangladesh my mother used to tell me “Open the books and study, the books look so new as if you did not touch even.” But, what will I say to my next generation? May be my concerned to the next generation will be “ Hey go to online and open up the video, your lecturer is giving lecture” I might get an answer from my children like “I already put it in record mode, let me sleep now I will listen to lecture later on.” The probability is high that e-learning will boost within 2020 and the students might not go to class anymore. So what will it be in 2050? Indeed in order to imagine that we will have to think out of the box.

We can analyze the future educations in terms of two sections such as lecture and materials, Exams and Evaluation. The first section is pretty clear as we already have the opportunity of video conferencing and there has been an implementation of live e learning class. So in future, the number of physical schools will decrease and students will be able get a 24/7 class by video operations. As of now most of the developing countries are using computer only for computer studies, but in future most of the subjects will be based on computer. Nowadays, many students are using tablets, iPad and smart phones for getting information and in future the smart phone will be available to most of the students and they will be using those for learning instead of hard copies in order to be independent learners.

Retrieved from agsc.tamu.edu/.../Future%20Trends%20in%20Education... - United States

Secondly exams and evaluation system will be based on practicality rather than theoretical  There is a probability that the students will use computer for the exams and proper monitoring system will be there to trace the students attitude in the exam hall. Moreover, there is rising matter of cancelling exams as some of the scholars believe that exam cannot evaluate students skills. The evaluation will be more on skills rather than knowledge.

However, I think that the possible educational future trend will lessen down the human interaction and would create a materialistic world. First of all as there is probability of video conference learning, the students will have less a few chance to meet and interact with the lecturer physically. This might decrease the human values and lead the society in an isolated manner. Furthermore, I really love to read hard copy books rather than the soft copy and there would be a common problem of getting hard copy resources since most of the learning materials would be web based.