Cloud Computing and Cell Phones
by Gerald Trites, FCA

The idea of cloud computing and cell phones working together makes a lot of intuitive sense. Cell phones are becoming much more powerful and therefore are relied on by users for more complex tasks. However, compared to portable computing options like laptops, the computing power of cell phones fades to insignificance. The hardware and software is just to limited for serious work. So people are using them more for computing functions, but running into the barrier of size and power.

At the same time, the cloud is becoming much more prominent as a way to offload processing to applications on the internet, and therefore use the more powerful capabilities that can be invoked there. The cloud is almost unlimited in its potential.

Bringing the two - cell phones and the cloud - together would enable people to get the best of both worlds. The trouble is there has not yet been an effective way to do that. Cloud computing is geared for conventional computer networks, and cell phones are, well, cell phones.

All of this might change if a new proposal put forward by Byung-Gon Chun, a research scientist at Intel Research Berkeley, gains traction. Chun suggestion: "create a supercharged clone of your smart phone that lives in 'the cloud' and let it do all the computational heavy lifting that your phone is too wimpy to handle." A simple idea that could work.

The idea is that the interface you hold in your hand is duplicated in the cloud. However, the difference is that the cloud duplicate is , unlike your cell, able to interact effectively with applications in the cloud, giving it the power of a full sized computer.

That still would leave issues related to input and output display, however, the idea is a start, and while there would still be limitations to cell/cloud computing, at least initially, there would also be a considerable increase in those capabilities, which would likely grow as the technology improves.