What’s Next in Computing?

A lot of the excitement in AI has focused on deep learning, a machine learning technique that was popularized by a now famous 2012 Google project that used a giant cluster of computers to learn to identify cats in YouTube videos. 

Deep learning is a descendent of neural networks, a technology that dates back to the 1940s. It was brought back to life by a combination of factors, including new algorithms, cheap parallel computation, and the widespread availability of large data sets.

There are a variety of new computing platforms currently in the gestation phase that will soon get much better — and possibly enter the growth phase — as they incorporate recent advances in hardware and software. 

Although they are designed and packaged very differently, they share a common theme: they give us new and augmented abilities by embedding a smart virtualization layer on top of the world. Here is a brief overview of some of the new platforms: cars, drones, the internet of things, wearables, VR and AR.