Computer Basics
Future IT Trends
Artificial intelligence is described as thinking and acting rationally. It is the ability to take actions that maximise the chance of success.
• Machine learning is a part of Artificial intelligence where computers learn from data without explicitly being programmed. Machine learning algorithms called models are built and tested to make predictions
• Deep learning is part of machine learning based on Artificial neural networks. It is a set of algorithms which use multiple layers to get higher level features from the input
• Natural language processing is part of Artificial intelligence which deals with human language and computer interaction. It deals with the programming of computers to deal with language data. Spell checking and speech recognition are examples
• Robotics is part of Artificial intelligence that deals with design, manufacture and use of robots. Robots are programmable machines that performs tasks automatically
Big data
• It is the data that is large and complex
• It is the data that cannot be processed and analysed by traditional tools
• Some of the sources of big data are emails, WhatsApp messages, YouTube data, Instagram data etc.
• Some of the challenges are storage, processing, analysis, integration etc.
Types of big data
• Unstructured data which lacks format and it can be heterogeneous. Examples are images, videos, web pages etc
• Semi-structured data has got some sort of structure but cannot be defined in relational DBMS. Examples are emails, xml data etc
• Structured data is data that is in fixed format and can be easily accessed. Examples are databases, spreadsheets etc.
Characteristics of big data
• Volume
Size of data is huge
Data is in terabytes or petabytes
It is the amount of data that cannot be processed by traditional tools
• Velocity
The speed of generation of data
• Variety
Data can be unstructured, semi-structured or structured
• Veracity
It refers to the trustworthiness or quality of data
High veracity data is valuable to analyse, for example data from medical research
• Value
The usefulness of the information from the data. Big data can be processed and analysed if the information is useful
Benefits of big data
• In the health care it helps in providing personalized medicines to the patients and in research
• In the marketing in finding the target market
• In the retail in processing huge number of transactions
• In sports training
• In government sector with respect to governmental processes
• In international development
Cloud computing
• makes available computer system resources on-demand.
• Available over the internet on pay-as-you-go basis.
• The user can just use the utilities without managing them.
• The services are infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS) and software as a service (SaaS)
• Cloud can be public, private or hybrid
Blockchain
A blockchain is a shared and decentralised database with digital ledger having records called “blocks”. All the computers have a copy of the database. A block cannot be altered with past date without changing all subsequent blocks. The header of the block is visible to everyone while private data of block accessed by the owner. The chain of all such blocks is called blockchain. Example is digital currency, prominently cryptocurrency.