Technological Landscape for the next 10 Years: New Generation Operating System Platform Services

Follow-up with the previous post, we now shift our focus to the New Generation Operating System Platform Services .

The new generation OS platform services are designed to facilitate application developers to build cloud-based lifestyle-aware applications efficiently. The primary reason to design a new generation OS is for efficiency purpose. Although cloud-based applications can build lifestyle logics on top of a general purpose operating system, building a specialized operating system primarily for cloud-based lifestyle-aware application will help to manage local-to-cloud resources much more efficiently. Similar to real-time embedded systems, they require specialized OS to meet their specific application requirements. Lifestyle-aware applications that make use of Unified Computing Hardware Infrastructure will demand the same level of specializations in which the general purpose OS is difficult to satisfy.

In my opinion, the New Generation OS Platform Services is composed of 3 building blocks namely Urban Sensing Technology, Augmented Reality Technology and Social Networking Technology. Urban Sensing Technology and Augmented Reality Technology are designed to describe and understand the environment in which a particular individual is living, whereas the Social Network Technology is designed to enrich the interactions and connectivities between people. As a whole, they provide some good indications about an individual lifestyle.

This is my speculation of the development trend for the operating system that is specifically designed for the unified computing hardware infrastructure. Although, it is far away from be a solid idea but I just can't stop to imagine that will happen some days. :)

Technological Landscape for the next 10 Years: Unified Computing Hardware Infrastructure

Follow up to the previous post, the first and the most important element I would like to elaborate is the unified computing hardware infrastructure. It is composed of 3 building blocks: Cloud Computing, Sophisticated Network, and Mobile Device. This infrastructure allows a more efficient usage of computing power since the intensive computation is now centralized and shared.

Cloud Computing promises to provide a cost-effective computing experience for everyone to use. It hides some complexities of scalability, elasticity, availability and manageability in the cloud infrastructure providers (e.g. Amazon EC2). It facilitates the development and deployment of new applications. Since resources are shared among applications, it could bring a lot of saving in terms of heat generated, electricity and space.

If the responsibility of computing is centralized in the Cloud, there is an urgent need to upgrade to a more sophisticated network (wired and wireless) in order to take advantage of the computing resources available in the cloud. Particularly, the security of the network becomes one of the most important aspects in which ,I think, there is a need to separate two networks: public network and private network. The public network is what we currently have namely the Internet. The private network is secured and it is used to transmit important information such as your bank account information. It also serves as a medium to transmit and maintain identity of each individual. The efficiency and QoS of the Internet might determine the feasibility of the idea of Unified Computing Hardware Infrastructure.

Lastly, the mobile device which includes the latest generation of smartphones and netbooks can augment the interaction between the individuals through the usage of the cloud computing and sophisticated network. Mobile applications that require a lot of computation power will be processed in the Cloud and the results of the computation will be transmitted to the mobile devices without draining the precious battery power in the mobile device. The usage of cloud computing with the mobile device is possible only if there is a sophisticated network which can act as a medium to transmit information between the Cloud and the mobile device in near real-time.

This is a summary of what I believe will be future of computing infrastructure. Hopefully, the summary conveys enough information so that you can understand my point of view and enjoy it. :)