Epics and the Future - A cloud without wires

Hello, I'm back into the grind after being inactive for weeks. I wouldn’t like to bore you with all the stuff which prevented me from blogging all this while. I guess we can just take this as “things came up”. Although, I promise I will overcome these hurdles and be a regular blogger from now on.

Now that we had started a good debate over the technology beast and its pros and cons, let’s look at other aspects of our association with it and how these can help. Before that, I would like to share an idea which is somewhat weird but I find it appealing. The idea is that maybe our mythological stories or tales already had the concept of a cloud envisioned. Anyone who has seen or heard about The Ramayana & The Mahabharata, could recall that many of the fantasy stuff shown in those epics could well be implemented in the future using cloud services. Going crazy over this idea already??? Read on...

Think about a wireless extension of a country wide or a Global network which hosts all those cloud services which we have talked about earlier and more. Look at all the business services related to finance, people, facilities, infrastructure management and they could all be available in future over the cloud. Now, look back at those epics.

Everytime, you saw Arjuna closing his eyes before firing up his weapon, he might have been requesting some services to be attached to his weapon from the cloud. Does it sound absurd? I'm not sure but it was something which came up and I thought I could share it. It’s not advisable to have a dose of insanity with technology but I took the risk.

Anyways, the purpose of sharing this wild idea was to take the cloud to the next level. Till now whatever things we are expecting the cloud to do for us are based on the fact that there is a service provider which is hosting these services for us and we need a computer/PC to use these services. What if we have a scenario that you really do not need to have a PC to use these services? Why can't your cellphone do this for you? We have started on 3G now; 4G would not be far away too. So if we have a network which hosts all of these services, we would use them wirelessly from our phones or other small gadgets.

Imagine going to a store where you buy some stuff and then at the payment counter, all you have do is let the cashier take your retina scan which can be embedded in your digital certificate. This digital certificate can zip across to your bank for authentication and instantly, you have an app popping up on your phone asking you to approve or reject the transaction. You approve and payment is done. No need to carry cash or cards, it’s as secure as it can be as no one can trick your retina scan without taking out your eye.

Now, for you as a consumer it is very convenient but for a bank who is also hosting its business on the cloud service provider's network, it needs a lot of work, lot of concerns about security etc. But I'm sure it all can be worked out. The real challenge will not be technology, as always. It will be the people and laws/regulations which need to be changed by none other than People. Also, for a consumer to have confidence in these kinds of services, it will take a lot of effort and money from the service providers of any of those services. Even then, it would come down to how much of your people are willing to commit to such services which is far away from the traditional way they have been using it, for instance, banking.

I know the ideas presented in this post are not easy to digest but being a technology enthusiast, I really can't adhere to any boundaries when it comes to thinking about what this friend can do for us. We will talk about many more aspects of technology (not all as wild as the ones above) which can help us make our lives better and of course we will talk more about the debate on whether technology is bad for us or vice versa. Till that time, keep your suggestions and feedback coming in. Happy Reading and Always Keep Up With Technology!

Cheers

N E O