Posts
"The computer industry is the only industry that is more fashion-driven than women's fashion. Maybe I'm an idiot, but I have no idea what anyone is talking about. What is it? It's complete gibberish. It's insane. When is this idiocy going to stop? We'll make cloud computing announcements. I'm not going to fight this thing. But I don't understand what we would do differently in the light of cloud." - Larry Ellison, as quoted at http://www.techno-pulse.com/2011/02/memorable-cloud-computing-quotes.html
This one is a little out there, but humor me for a moment. I want to take a walk down a road that is possible, though potentially not currently feasible.
With the explosion of cloud computing, there are now several things that may be possible which we haven't considered. This is one of those which may in ten years paint me as a sage, or as a fool, but I want to put a theoretical foot in the door about cellular cloud networks.
I'm not talking about large things here, I'm talking about smaller ones. A few years ago a program was begun that used spare computing cycles to assist the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) in their search for meaning in the random radio signals received from space. People could let their computers help out while they weren't using them. I believe even though they found nothing, it went well.
Imagine that the cell phones within an area were able to be used for similar things. Maybe for better weather prediction, taking more readings, crunching numbers for predictions, whatever. The cell tower would have to direct traffic, but with bans on cell phone use while within a car it should be easy to determine the speed of a phone and either switch it to process a bit if it is moving slowly, or not use it if it is moving at traffic speeds.
They could also be used for data storage. You wouldn't want to necessarily store your bank account numbers on someone's cell phone (though to be fair, if your bank is using cloud computing, you don't REALLY know where the data is being hosted, you just assume due diligence is enough to avoid calamity, said the Board of Directors at Enron...), but there is lots of data that could be stored in the cloud, and 'demoted' to the relatively slower and less-reliable cell phone network, duplicating on as many as three phones if needed so that the data is available if it is needed.
Move it to another step. We live in an internet of things. Suppose your cell phone were able to use cloud-type processing to store information on refrigerators, can openers, whatever has memory it can share and a connection to WiFi. Would you be able to save a little on your cell bill by offsetting processing and storing web-based requests for insurance quotes using your cell phone and/or coffeemaker, selling processing back to the company in the same way that you can sell power back to the power company when you install windmills? You cell phone can likely already provide a hotspot for others, so what if one of those hotspot ports were set so that this capability could be used?
We already are working on near-field communication, where your cell phone can receive an in-store coupon when it is detected to be inside a store, so this is just an extrapolation of a type of process that is already happening.
I could even see a business case constructed where you get a pay as you go cell phone that you actually save money on the more processing you do for the cloud. Call it something like Talking Cloud Cellular, or Yak Yak Money Back Cellular, and begin building out from there. Of course there would need to be a primary data center for the important cloud-based work, but the lower-need/chump processing could be done via the cell. Your cell phone already sends location information back and forth to the tower, so a little augmentation of that signal and the data could be flowing. You are already sending WAY more information than you realize, and downloading apps you have no idea the size of, nor how much space they'll take up, so why wouldn't that be 'found processing'?
As usual, if anyone takes this idea and runs with it, I want a nice percentage, plus a T-shirt (preferably from ThinkGeek - I love their stuff), and also an iPad for this one, since it started out as something I wasn't sure would work and evolved into more of a functional one. There would be a lot to sort out, but then again, there was to establish the internet, and it was time and effort well-spent, as far as I can tell.
This one is a little out there, but humor me for a moment. I want to take a walk down a road that is possible, though potentially not currently feasible.
With the explosion of cloud computing, there are now several things that may be possible which we haven't considered. This is one of those which may in ten years paint me as a sage, or as a fool, but I want to put a theoretical foot in the door about cellular cloud networks.
I'm not talking about large things here, I'm talking about smaller ones. A few years ago a program was begun that used spare computing cycles to assist the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) in their search for meaning in the random radio signals received from space. People could let their computers help out while they weren't using them. I believe even though they found nothing, it went well.
Imagine that the cell phones within an area were able to be used for similar things. Maybe for better weather prediction, taking more readings, crunching numbers for predictions, whatever. The cell tower would have to direct traffic, but with bans on cell phone use while within a car it should be easy to determine the speed of a phone and either switch it to process a bit if it is moving slowly, or not use it if it is moving at traffic speeds.
They could also be used for data storage. You wouldn't want to necessarily store your bank account numbers on someone's cell phone (though to be fair, if your bank is using cloud computing, you don't REALLY know where the data is being hosted, you just assume due diligence is enough to avoid calamity, said the Board of Directors at Enron...), but there is lots of data that could be stored in the cloud, and 'demoted' to the relatively slower and less-reliable cell phone network, duplicating on as many as three phones if needed so that the data is available if it is needed.
Move it to another step. We live in an internet of things. Suppose your cell phone were able to use cloud-type processing to store information on refrigerators, can openers, whatever has memory it can share and a connection to WiFi. Would you be able to save a little on your cell bill by offsetting processing and storing web-based requests for insurance quotes using your cell phone and/or coffeemaker, selling processing back to the company in the same way that you can sell power back to the power company when you install windmills? You cell phone can likely already provide a hotspot for others, so what if one of those hotspot ports were set so that this capability could be used?
We already are working on near-field communication, where your cell phone can receive an in-store coupon when it is detected to be inside a store, so this is just an extrapolation of a type of process that is already happening.
I could even see a business case constructed where you get a pay as you go cell phone that you actually save money on the more processing you do for the cloud. Call it something like Talking Cloud Cellular, or Yak Yak Money Back Cellular, and begin building out from there. Of course there would need to be a primary data center for the important cloud-based work, but the lower-need/chump processing could be done via the cell. Your cell phone already sends location information back and forth to the tower, so a little augmentation of that signal and the data could be flowing. You are already sending WAY more information than you realize, and downloading apps you have no idea the size of, nor how much space they'll take up, so why wouldn't that be 'found processing'?
As usual, if anyone takes this idea and runs with it, I want a nice percentage, plus a T-shirt (preferably from ThinkGeek - I love their stuff), and also an iPad for this one, since it started out as something I wasn't sure would work and evolved into more of a functional one. There would be a lot to sort out, but then again, there was to establish the internet, and it was time and effort well-spent, as far as I can tell.
