Are you a computer science student? If yes, then you must be wondering what will be the next big thing in computer science? In this article, you will learn the working quantum computer or how blockchain can change the world. I am a software developer and I understand these topics very well and I’ll try to explain them to you in the simplest way possible.
Is it AI, Machine Learning, or something else? In today’s article, I will share you with some popular branches of Computer science which are growing and might have a big breakthrough that will change the world!
Quantum Computing
Most of us know about supercomputers, they are very fast. Just imagine something faster? How far can you imagine? Thousand times, a million times, a billion times?
Recently, Chinese scientists claimed they created a Quantum computer that is 100 trillion times faster than a supercomputer. Google also developed a prototype that can perform computation in 200 seconds which will take a supercomputer 10,000 years to compute.
What kind of computation are these? I will make it simple for you to understand. Imagine an image of 1080×720 pixels. When an AI reads the image, it reads every pixel separately. One pixel is a matrix let’s say 2000×2000. Can you imagine performing arithmetic calculations on these matrices? It would take a lot of time, but our computer can do this in seconds. We are talking about one pixel here. There are billions of images that are processed by Google, Facebook every day. Those are handled by supercomputers pretty easily. But with the discovery of Qubit Google managed to reach Quantum Supremacy. Though they are still prototypes and might take a decade to reach their full potential, supercomputers will look like Abacus in front of Quantum Computers. Science and technology will speed up.
How does quantum computing work?
Unlike classical computers which work or binary system i.e., either 0 or 1, quantum computers work on qubits i.e. superposition of very small particles. Let me make it easy for you to understand.
A classical computer will need 2 bits 0 and 1 to represent information. Where if we use qubit we can represent exactly the same information in 1 bit i.e qubit, and n*qubits are equal to 2N for classical computers. For example, if a quantum computer is using 10 bits to perform an operation on data, it will take 210 i.e 1024 bits for a normal classical computer to perform the same operation.
Artificial Intelligence
Gaming, Chatbots, Marketing, Automatic vehicles, Airplanes, AI can be seen everywhere nowadays. Though AI is a 40-year-old technology, it started blooming 5-10 years ago, because back then we didn’t have powerful computers that can reveal the true potential of Artificial Intelligence. Machine Learning, Neural networks, Natural Language processing, etc., are different branches of Artificial Intelligence.
Still, we can’t use the full potential of AI, but with the development of Quantum Computers, it will grow even more. And soon we might witness a breakthrough in the field of AI. Some fields where AI might affect in future are teaching, driving, call centers, small retail stores, etc.
Robotic Process Automation
RPA is a software robot that mimics human actions, whereas AI is the simulation of human intelligence by machines. RPA robots interpret trigger responses and communicate with other systems in order to perform a vast variety of repetitive tasks. An RPA software robot never sleeps and makes zero mistakes. RPA provides better accuracy, improved compliance, fast cost-saving, super scalability, increased speed and productivity, and much more.
Alibaba, one of the E-Commerce giants of China has replaced humans with robots for some tasks like handling customer queries, packing, delivering, etc. Alibaba is planning to completely replace humans with Robots. Many other companies like IBM, HCL, TCS are using RPA.
Visual Programming
Text-based programming will be soon replaced by visual programming. Instead of typing, you will draw. Cool, isn’t it? Visual programming came into existence in the 1990s. You can say it is a modern version of UML, where UML is just designing with no implementation, Visual programming is the solution to that.
Have you seen an advertisement for some application maker that claims, you can create an Android app without even coding? Websites like Andromo allow you to create a native Android application without coding in languages like Java or Kotlin. For iOS, Appy Pie is an awesome platform to develop an iOS application without knowing swift or any other programming language.
Brain-Computer Interface
Controlling a computer by your brain without even touching it. This will be very helpful for those with physical disabilities. Although this technology is in its initial state so it’s not available for public use but soon we will see these technologies in our daily use.
Scientists already discovered a way to read neuronal firings to reproduce images seen by eyes. Also in some studies, scientists discovered a way to control robotic arms by our brain. These researches are only done on animals but soon they will be developed for humans that will change society.
Blockchain
Blockchain is a specific type of database, similar to a linked list. One of the biggest applications of blockchain is cryptocurrency. Blockchains can be used either in a centralized way or a decentralized way. Every node(computer/server) stores a full record of the data that has been stored in the blockchain. Some applications of blockchain are Cloud Storage, Cryptocurrency, Electronic voting, etc.
There is a network of computers that stores the transactions done using bitcoin. A single computer is referred to as a node. Every node has information about the transactions done in bitcoin. If someone changes data about a transaction in one node, other nodes will fix that problem. You can also turn your computer into a backup center for Bitcoin by installing a bitcoin core.
How will blockchain change the world?
This is a very interesting question. Blockchain is known for its transparent nature. Anything that you want to have transparent nature can implement blockchain. For example, you like to donate money to charity, but you don’t know whether it is getting spent. If some charity will implement blockchain to their platform you will know exactly to whom your money was sent. Blockchain can also be implemented in the voting system providing a guarantee that it cannot be altered later.
Augmented Reality
Pokémon Go is something that shook the world 2-3 years ago. Many accidents happened because people were playing Pokémon Go while walking on the roads. Some people trespass property of others while playing this game. Many countries even banned this game.
The gaming industry is using AR to develop games. AR games try to connect the virtual world to the real world (in a way). Nowadays almost every smartphone supports AR. Shopping apps are using AR to let you try clothes at home, IKEA offers an AR app (called IKEA Place) that lets you see how a piece of furniture will look and fit in your space, Neurosurgeons sometimes use an AR projection of a 3-D brain to aid them in surgeries.
AR will become more advance, and we will start looking to a new world with this technology.
Also Read: Can you get a virus by visiting a website?
Conclusion for trends in computer science
So these fields are growing fast in computer science and could do something amazing in the future that would change the current way of looking at the world. Here I wrote a small summary of these topics but I will explain them properly in a separate post. There are other topics that I didn’t cover like Meta Programming, Distributed Systems, Parallel networking they are also blooming and might give something new and amazing in the future.
If you think of any other things or information, please comment down below and have a fair discussion.
