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edge Computing -- what does it mean

Over the past few weeks, I've begun to be bombarded with deals that refer to the next big thing:  Edge computing.  The concept is simple, lots of data is produced by all our devices from your smartphone to your car to your smart meter on your house.  All these things produce data, and the internet is a big pipe, but it's not that big.

The Verge had an interesting article about Edge Computing and one of the things they mentioned is the security camera conundrum; let's assume that you install a camera in your house, and stream that data to the cloud (eg the web -- so you can see that camera feed on your iPhone).  All is good, but let's assume that you decide that one camera is good, but 12 is a lot better.  The problem is obvious you have data clog in your system.  You either purchase much more bandwidth or your system doesn't work.  But in reality 99.999% if what on security camera is a lot of nothing.  Assume that your home server recognizes that it will not send a feed unless something happens...that my friends is the concept of edge computing.

The reason it becomes so important is that the business of large server farms is done.  Amazon has about 47% of all server farms, with Google, Apple, and Microsoft accounting for nearly all the rest.  So they need to find new growth niches.

You should also realize that your smartphone is the perfect example of edge computing.  Now, how will it change?  Let's say you own an Alexa smart speaker and you want to know the weather.  Alexa will talk to the network and get the answer...for the user it appears as latency.  To reduce latency, Google is working on a smarter chip for its Alexa speaker that will be able to find some answers locally (possibly from other nearby devices). 

That's the good stuff, but it also means that the user relinquishes control over his devices.  In the case of a DVD player, the data was on the DVD that you owned.  Even noNetflixex decides what you can and cannot see (that's why they stop VPN from working).  It also means that all your data becomes the property of someone else.

A few weeks ago there was an interesting article about smart TV, and how Samsung had made a deal with CBS so that its App would be included and non-deletable from your smart TV.  The reality is that this application interacted negatively with the view -- by killing his television.  When discussing the issue with Samsung they said it was not their problem (you want to bet).  The overall issue is that the user is no longer the owner of the data, and it may be soon that he doesn't really own the hardware since it is the vendor that updates and maintains the software.  What happens when a piece of hardware is no longer supported and all the data is on the cloud?

Anyway interesting conversation


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