Week 13: Group Presentations Part 2

Monday, November 14, 2011 | 0 Comments

We started the web group presentations this week. The topics covered this week were:

1. Epidemic Management
2. Sports and Technology
3. The Crowd Platform
4. Green Technology

Epidemic Management: (http://www.wix.com/epidemicmanagement/2011)
The solutions proposed were really interesting on how to improve epidemic management as a whole through the use of technology, especially through social media and cloud computing services. However, I wonder if enough will be done to ensure that the information spread will be reliable enough. The internet has been growing so rapidly that more and more users now have access to it. Will there be an information overload, so much so that the reliability of such information is questioned?

Sports and technology: (http://www.wix.com/twcgroupf/technologyandsports)
The groups future perspective on the sports industry is certainly intriguing. With the help of nanotechnology, it seems like sports can be enhanced to a higher level of enjoyment, both to the athletes and the spectators. Again this comes with the question on whether ethics will play a bigger part in sporting events, as the technology seems to be enhancing the athlete's performance more and more. Where lies the threshold? Will this be a quest for who has the best sporting equipment, over the true capability of each athlete?

Crowd platforms: (http://www.wix.com/jessiechoo2010/crowdplatforms)
My team got to present on the crowd platform, and I enjoyed our presentation to share our insights into the crowd platform. Crowdsourcing is indeed a rising star in many many industries to source for better and cost-saving solutions. Despite its pros and cons, we should be looking out for this trend, and leverage on any positive opportunities that come out of it. I believe smart-sourcing would be a possible solution to the epidemic management solutions in terms of information reliability.

Also, I've gained alot of insights through the feedback about the crowdfunding platform. It seems like it will still take awhile for society to gain trust in investing through such platforms, and I can't wait to see how crowdfunding will turn out to be in the future, especially in conservative markets like Asia.

Green technology: (http://www.wix.com/thekingofcontroversy/masterpage-of-wigup)
The team has introduced a lot of ideas of green technology that are used all over the world, and talked about the possible implementations in Singapore. Despite its costs, I feel that we need to act now before it's too late. I do hope that green technologies will grow rapidly, and be sustainable enough with low costs so that more countries can utilize this for the benefit of the world's environment.

Week 12: Group Presentations Part 1

Saturday, November 05, 2011 | 0 Comments

We started the web group presentations this week. The topics covered this week were:

1. Designer babies
2. Nanomedicine
3. Space Travel and Tourism
4. The Plastic Vortex

Designer babies: (http://www.wix.com/designerbabies/twc-group-blog)
It was interesting how there were so many different ways of employing the designer baby technologies. Despite its controversies, I look at this positively, as it could possibly evolve to genetic modifications to prevent birth defects / diseases even before the baby is born.

Nanomedicine: (http://www.wix.com/zhipengd89/nanomedicine)
The technologies shown were amazing! It was really interesting how these nanobots could possibly be the solutions to many of the diseases that currently exists. If this technology were to pull through, I hope that the less fortunate people will also have access to such technology. It would be quite sad if such technology would not be able to benefit all due to the income disparities that's happening between developed and developing countries.

Space Travel: (http://www.wix.com/g12space/spacetravel)
Space travel seemed to be so impossible 10 years ago, and many were in awe of the lucky astronauts who were able to fly up in rockets. Through space tourism could possibly be the next rising star in the travel industry, I cannot help but wonder if we as a society is ready to explore such unfamiliar territory. Also, will we all be responsible enough so that we would not cause a epidemic of space junk problems?

Plastic Vortex: (http://www.wix.com/piratehook/the-plastic-vortex)
I think the presentation did its objectives of raising awareness, at least in the class. It was fascinating yet scary how rubbish from land could travel so far into the middle of the sea. Again this leads me back to my concern in the space travel, on how we as a society are ready and responsible enough to do space travel. I feel raising awareness is not enough, and there should be harsher laws set to deter people from throwing rubbish without thinking of the consequences.

Week 11: Technology Assessment and Forecasting: Developing a Framework for Understanding What Comes Next

Sunday, October 30, 2011 | 0 Comments

This week, we looked deeper into the impacts of various technologies, and how they might be benefiting or harming us in the future.
Various frameworks were also introduced and discussed which could be implemented for forecasting the future, as well as assessing our current state of technology.

Brief Overview of Week 11 class

Siemens: Mastering the megatrends


The class was first introduced to the topic through the case of Siemens mastering the megatrends in urbanisation, healthcare as well as energy. It was interesting how Siemens was able to juggle the balance between innovation and its commitment to green technology.

Vision of the Future (parody)


This video was eye-opening yet witty at the same time, talking about how technology can be so awesome in the future, but yet there is no point anticipating it as we are so far away from it (498 years!). How true is it? Only time will tell.

Top 3 Inventions for the future


Another video that highlighted the possibilities of the futures, naming the Nokia Morph, Google Maps 2020, and salt water fuel. I found the salt water fuel particularly interesting, as it could be a viable solution to our finite resources. The only concern would be the possible after effects of overexposure to radiation which stimulates burning of the salt water.

Future, Technology & the next 50 years Megatrends


This video gives a quick overview of all the future realistic technologies that are coming into our lives very very soon. Things such as biometric scanners, v-commerce, augmented reality, laptops being obsolete,  etc.

We then discussed about some drivers that caused the emergence of technology assessment and forecasting. Most of it was focused on how technology is evolving so rapidly, so much that we need to think on a higher level to look into the changes it may bring into various factors like economic, social, environmental etc.

Tracking the Future – Global Trends


This video further illustrated how our future might be: Fast, Urban, Tribal, Universal, Radical, Ethical. These are the key trends to take note of, and we should take notice and tackle them before it’s too late.

The first presentation of the day introduced the first framework, which is technology assessment in a social context. This examines the social impacts and changes of a given technology. We then discussed about certain measures to be implemented so as to give a more tangible result that will be derived from this framework.

The second presentation talked about shaping the future, and highlighted the difference between predicting it, and shaping it. The key point was to move away from predictions on our outcomes and instead understand our current problems and act upon it.

The third presentation talked about assessing the nutritional value in African Villages, which introduced us to the concept of Think Tanks. It was interesting how grouping like-minded people together can come out with impactful solutions to solve many problems that the world is facing in different aspects.

The last presentation offered another perspective on how people view the future, mainly extrapolators, pattern analysts, goal analysts, counter punchers, and intuitors. It was interesting how many of the viewpoints of these 5 could be easily mapped to each and every one of us, and generated a healthy discussion on which views are better to create a better future.


Interesting Observations

It was interesting how in one class, we’re already introduced to 5 different types of frameworks/viewpoints on how we should look at our future.

Different researches for different type of technological advancement requires different funding, and garners support from different sectors of people. There are bound to be people who would object to such advancements, probably due to a different framework belief.

To me, the varying frameworks, despite its objective to properly assess technological impacts, may ironically dilute our efforts to assess such technology instead. Which one do we follow? Who decides which framework is the most suitable to assess a particular technology breakthrough?

Further Discussion

Following the dilemma of differing frameworks, perhaps what could be discussed is the possibility of a holistic framework that considers all aspects of society and the world.

Would a unified framework be more effective? Would there ever be a time where the world would be united to strive towards the same goals that will be placed within the framework? It might sound a little idealistic, but I think such a framework would help improve society on a global basis.

Key Takeaways

Technology is indeed important to make our lives more comfortable. However, I think our society has grown to a point where we understand the dire consequences if we keep progressing like the way we do. As habitants of Mother Earth, we have to evaluate if a current technology is only created for the sake of convenience in our lives, or whether it will have other positive impacts in other areas.

The scarce resources that we now have makes this evaluation all the more important, to ensure that we’re doing the right technology for the benefit for all, and not for an easier life and corporate gains.

Rating: 7/10

Week 10: Emerging and Future Technologies

Saturday, October 22, 2011 | 0 Comments

This week, we went into looking at the recent technologies that has sprouted in recent years, as well as their possible evolutions in their future. It was interesting to see how many innovators have envisioned the technologies of the future, and how it integrates with our lives that easily.

Brief Overview of Week 10 class

Many videos were shown today, as graphics could better illustrate the visions of budding innovators of technology.

Claytronics


This first video first showed the idea of claytronics where models could be built fast from scratched due to the molecular structures of the material. Interesting concept, which could have a very big potential in the design market as the brainstorming processes for prototyping will be so much faster!

The quote by Albert Einstein was then introduced (Imagination is more important than knowledge) and a short discussion was made about that.

Plastic Electronics


This video showed the possible future in plastics being malleable for gadgets to be folded. Interesting concept, which could revolutionize our storage spaces for technology.
 We then talked about certain drivers for the development of such technologies. Things like knowledge of our society as well as how mass media has paved the way for such developments were brought up for discussion.

AI Robotics


This was an example of artificial intelligence that was created to satify the wants of men. The resemblance life-like qualities are actually quite freaky and scary, truth to be told.  She may be “perfect”, but I don’t think anything will ever replace a real person.

Augmented Reality


This video is a good introduction for people who are still not exposed to the wonders of augmented reality, where information can be obtained just through a image capture of a place, item or location.

Nanotechnology


Another video that gives a brief introduction of how nanotechnology works, and highlights the potential of such technology, despite its ages in the technological field.

Transmitting electricity wirelessly


Another interesting look on emerging technologies, this time on how electricity is transmitted wirelessly.  Though this will help improve the face of the Earth aesthetically, I wonder if this idea is going to be accepted within the society. This is due to the lack of safety tests that have been done on it, in terms of harming us through unseen radiation.

Powering electric cars through the smart Grid


This last video shows the future of cars, through electrical powering over the conventional fossil fuels. I really am thankful for these revolutions and breakthroughs, as I personally believe that transportation in general is one of the major pollutants on our environment, yet many of us can’t do without it in our daily lives. Electricity will solve our problems of dwindling natural resources, as they can be generated through many ways that does not involve our finite resources.

Moving on to the first presentation, it introduced an emerging technology called the sixth sense.


It was fascinating how we were able to combine many aspects of technology from other gadgets all into one. It’s like having the entire realm of technology and information, literally at your fingertips. Though it looks like a very popular idea, I wonder if people would be used to pointing randomly in the air. Would society accept that? The more disturbing thing is how your personal information will display immediately (at the end of the video). Are we ready for such a stage where information of ourselves is readily released?

The second presentation was on virtual reality. The discussion was again brought back to when we talked about Microsoft’s Project Natal, where it brings possible degradation of our social skills, while providing a companion for those who are alone. What was interesting was this virtual concert that was shared…


It really made me wonder if virtual reality can be a good thing. Piracy is already ruining the music industries for artistes, would such virtual ‘artistes’ make things worse? Really don’t understand how the crowd is enjoying such concerts though, as it just doesn’t feel the same from a real person singing from the soul.

The third presentation was on spaced based solar power, which was launching satellites into space to obtain a steady amount of solar power supply to be transmitted back to Earth. Another idea that can help make the face of Earth aesthetically nicer, but as some students brought up, are we then polluting outer space then? Not sure if such solutions would turn out to be financially friendly, guess we’ll just have to wait and see

The fourth presentation showcased 3D printers. It was interesting to see how this technology has already existed for almost a decade, but yet its presence is still not felt. However I think with the rapid developments, this will help bring down prices very very soon, and who knows how fast we will come to the stage where we will all be able to own one at home. The possibilities of printing is endless!

The last presentation talked about singularity and how the evolution of self-aware AI may affect us all. The presentation seemed to be directed towards people who are creating these technologies and how it may not seen as a benefit to society.

Interesting Observations

Albert Einstein’s take on how imagination is more important than knowledge stirred a little dilemma in me. I used to believe that this was true, but over the years, I became a more pessimistic and pragmatic on life. Perhaps that is what the government’s education system has done to all of us. How can realistic imaginations be made without a proper basis of knowledge? Without the know-hows of how things work on Earth, would ridiculous imaginations be useful?

Also, I personally feel that the emerging technologies, despite its benefits to the society, seems to be infringing more and more into our private lives (like SixthSense). It also seems to help us in so many ways, that I feel that we are getting more and more lazy due to our dependence and reliance on such gadgets. Will this lead to an increase in obesity rates in developed countries?

Key Takeaways

Despite the wonderful benefits these emerging technology can bring to us, I believe it is still important to separate the needs and wants of technology usages. It cannot be denied that most technology will help speed up certain processes. However, over dependency can cause technology to turn around and bite us back.

That being said, we shouldn’t hamper our boundaries of imagination to help further develop the potential of technology. I think it is all about having a balance, which is not an easy to achieve as a whole.

Further discussion

I felt that more could have been discussed on the issue of AI. The discussion based on the last presentation seemed to be very baised, and there was not a clear discussion on the very definition of AI. Instead, the whole discussion seemed  to base on the fact that AI is a self-learning evolutionary technology, without giving the credit to the programmers behind it.

The discussion was biased in the sense that the idea of consciousness seemed to be defined clearly by the prof without further opinions, when this was actually a grey issue between science and religion. Respect should be duly given to both believers of science and god, instead of a biased stand of consciousness evolving from a scientific point of view.

Furthermore, due to such unclear consensus of definitions, the presentation seem to indirectly target IT professionals as the culprit of self-aware AI, which may be the cause of degradation of society in the future. No one seemed to understand that the AI will always be as smart as the programmer behind it, and that the self-awareness function comes from a learning process from  data collected from the PAST, rather than a real time analysis of the situation.

Conclusion

This week’s lesson was interesting as there were many videos that introduced us into the new technologies that I believe many in the class have yet to seen. However, the class ended kind of sour for me and some of my friends as we were a little offended on how there is a biased stand on the topic of consciousness, and how the issue of self-aware AI seem to be indirectly blamed on the IT professionals, being the creators of such technology.

Rating: 6/10

Week 9: Energy and World Change (Past, Present and Future)

Saturday, October 15, 2011 | 0 Comments

After recess week (which was probably the hell week for most IS students anyway), we were back on track for TWC, covering on the various ways we harness energy available on our planet. Some of these are actually quite scary, as calculations show that most of our reserves will be depleted if we continue with our way of consumption.

Brief Overview of Week 9 class

“Conserve the planet. It’s the only one you’ve got”


This video depicts on how we are ruining our ecosystem and environment through the harmful gas emissions from various technologies. It then shows some interesting new ideas on ways we can salvage our situation, such as using public transport as an alternative, solar energies, wind power, and “green” light bulbs.

I feel that these suggestions will really bring benefits, however I question the success of influencing the society to make such changes. Until costs are lowered down for such technologies, or possibly incentives provided by the government, it would be hard for many to find motivation to switch to such technologies, until they feel the consequences of these problems. This has been the “selfish” human mindset that has been brought up constantly during class.

Sources of energy



We were first introduced to the possible sources of energy, be it above or below ground.  Even with that many sources, figures still show that the world is consuming the resources at an alarmingly high rates, which may deplete them much faster than we think.

Sustainable Energy: 20% Renewable Energy


Despite pessimistic views on our finite resources, this video highlighted the efforts made by EU, to commit to reaching 20% renewable energy, to help salvage our current situation. Specifically, they are exploring into solar, hydraulic, wind, geothermal and biomass energy.

Germany’s solar experiment

http://videos.howstuffworks.com/wgbh-nova/13626-germanys-solar-experiment-video.htm

This video was showed a specific example of how Germany is contributing towards the adoption of renewable energy. Solar panels are highly encouraged by the government, and they are willing to subsidize electricity bills to encourage households to make use of such technology. Banks have even been supportive to farmers who would like to utilize their big farm spaces to generate energy, despite the high loans and risks from funding such acts.

Desertec: Investment in solar power in deserts


This last video shows an organization called Desertec that is investing billions of dollars to solar panels to be placed in North Africa where most of the deserts are, and transit the power back to Europe, able to provide 15% of Europe’s demand. If proven successful, they plan to expand this to help out the African nations as well.

The first presentation highlighted the possibilities of alternative energy to help reduce gender inequality. This is done so by providing new job opportunities for females.

The second presentation introduced the idea of free energy, which is energy that can be produced at a very fast rate with low costs involved. The presentation highlighted the four forces that are preventing this technology to be spread, which is the wealthy community, governments, existence of conmen, and all of us with selfish and narrow motivations.

The third presentation introduced the idea of shale gas as a possible alternative source of energy over coal. The adoption of shale gas may be more widespread as it is less damaging than coal in terms of gas emissions, despite its possible dangers of water contamination. Should this problem be solved, shale gas consumption is expected to increase.

The fourth presentation talked about an interesting idea about how our mindset is wrong that we should be looking into alternative sources, but instead should be looking into stretching our current supply of resources instead. The idea of using magic was creative, though was a little bit distractive from helping to bring across the point of natural capitalism.

The last presentation looks into trash energy, which is to convert emissions from burning trash into useful energy. The presentation highlights the people for such technology, and the sceptics that the others have that recycling is still the way to go. The discussion was on how regulations can better help countries such as Britian to be more environmental conscious.

Interesting Observations

I was really enlightened by this week’s presentation on how alternative sources can not only be used to solve our supply and demand problem, but also to tackle societal and environmental issues that hasn’t been previously thought of.

It is interesting to see how in the case of Germany, monetary incentives are needed to spur households to adopt the technology of solar energy. Is it really hard to highlight the problems and consequences of our rampant resource usage?

It is quite depressing to see that incentives have to be given to encourage people to adopt technologies that might save our planet, despite the higher costs. Wouldn’t the higher costs be balanced out with a better environment to live In, in the future?

Key Takeaways

I think that humans have to work hand in hand together with the growth of technology to solve our problems of depleting resources. Technology can help us stretch our resources, or find alternative sources. However if we as consumers blatantly waste it rampantly, or not putting effort to reduce consumption, no amount of technology will salvage the current situation we’re in.

This was clearly highlighted in the fourth presentation this week, which mentioned on how we should change our mindset of searching for alternative sources, as this does not tackle the root of our problem of excessive consumption.

Further discussion

Perhaps the class could have discussed on the way on inculcating such changes in mindset. Would education alone be suffice to illustrate the importance of conserving our planet? Or would drastic measures be needed to wake up the entire human race?

Extreme measures are probably an idealistic way of tackling the problem, as it might infringe on basic human rights. But without putting ignorant humans into a real situation where all resources are depleted, they might not be aware of how drastic the consequences are if we do not start acting now.

Conclusion

This session was quite intriguing as I was exposed to the various types of energy sources and how we can harness them for different reasons apart from environmental conservation. Sadly due to the lack of sleep, I wasn’t really able to concentrate well, and found the content a little dry this week. Nevertheless, I was happy to be still able to have certain takeaways from this lesson, much of which I have agreed on being a silent supporter of environmental protection.

Rating  : 7/10

Individual Topical Paper

Saturday, October 15, 2011 | 0 Comments

Hi all, below is my draft of my topical paper. Feel free to give any comments about it, thank you so much! =)



I.       Executive Summary
This paper will examine the impacts of the emergence of cloud computing, particularly on the IT industry. This paper aims to identify the potential of transformation it brings, as well as the new concepts it develops for the industry. The impacts and influences to businesses and consumers will also be discussed briefly.
The paper focuses on these key points:
1.      Issues at hand before such technology existed, challenges in adopting such technology, and the opportunities brought about from this technology.
2.      New concepts that are brought upon the IT industry.
3.      Impacts and influences to general business processes and consumers.
With the rapid developments and adoptions of this technology, it is important to look forward towards the future, and identify the possible technologies that will soon turn obsolete. This is crucial especially for businesses to strive for a more effective information system platform to drive their business processes towards effective productivity. Future concerns of legal issues should also be taken into consideration with the disadvantages of cloud computing in mind.
The paper will then conclude on the possible attitudes and mindsets businesses should adopt so as to embrace such technology more effectively. The balance between the risks and advantages of adopting any technology, especially for cloud computing, should be evaluated very carefully before any implementation.

1.      Introduction
Cloud computing is the new concept of changing computing into a service rather than a product. This happens by providing resources such as software and information, through technological devices, being shared across a network, of which the Internet is a great example. These resources are stored in data servers, where their physical location may not be known to end-users.

The idea of “cloud” was evolved from the drawing of clouds that used to represent the Internet in various diagrams. The concept already sprouted in the 1960s, when opinions were raised about how computation may evolve into a public utility as well.

There are mainly 4 different avenues where cloud computing can be applied to, for easier access and sharing of information and services regardless of your location.

1. Client
A cloud client would be the most familiar for the majority, as most electronic gadgets that are part of our lives make use of cloud computing to deliver applications locally on your hard drive. The iPhone app store or the Android market is a clear example of delivering applications to phones.

2. Application
Cloud application services, otherwise known as Software as a Service (SaaS), provides the application services through the internet, without the need of installation packages on user’s own hardware. This helps to cut down complications of maintenance and support by the service provider. Google Docs is a perfect example of SaaS.

 3. Platform
Platform as a service (PaaS) would be the deliverance of a computing platform that helps sustain applications that are being submitted to the service provider. This would help reduce the costs and complexity significantly, in terms of purchasing and management of hardware and software issues in-house. Google App Engine is one example of such platform to provide an avenue for the public to upload their applications for the world to use.

4. Infrastructure
The last type of cloud computing would be infrastructure as a service (IaaS), where the entire computer and network infrastructure for an organization could be outsourced to a service provider. Such services would usually be billed according to the utilization of the service, which may serve a better purpose for start-up organizations. One example of this would be Amazon web services, where the company provides all the hardware required for hosting a website.

One of the obvious features of cloud computing is its ability to reduce operational costs. Cloud computing services are considered as a viable option for outsourcing when technological infrastructure will not be utilized fully in an organization. With cloud computing, resources can be shared across large pool of users, allowing the centralization of the hardware infrastructure and remove the problems of full utilization of such resources.

2.      Evolution of Cloud Computing
Storage in the past …

Even before the emergence of cloud computing, data storage was of a major concern, as many needed devices to store their personal files as backup. Things were mostly backed up by manual hard copies, which were hard to manage due to tedious paper work and physical storage space constraints.

The floppy disk was the first invention by IBM to help answer these problems of data storage. This then slowly evolved to the usage of diskettes, CD-ROMs, and finally at our current stage of using thumb drives and portable hard disks.

Despite vast improvements over the years that helped increase storage space in CD-ROMs, and decrease physical sizes of thumb drives, the problem still exists where a physical object is still needed to be carried around. This may harbor certain inconveniences as people have to keep a conscious effort to bring it along for important events, as well as creating extra weight for baggage.

This lack of convenience has driven the rise of cloud computing, where an internet connection is all one needs to have, to be able to access your files.

Cloud Computing as a Dominant Player

With cloud computing technologies and services growing at a phenomenal rate, it is apparent that such technologies are slowly integrating into our personal and working lives.

The appearance of cloud computing has increased rapidly for businesses, with more adoption of SaaS and PaaS as an outsourced solution to support their technology infrastructure. Such features could help optimize business processes as they can better allocate resources towards other areas, especially if IT is not under their core functions.

Consumers have also benefited hugely from the evolution of cloud computing. Many services have sprouted for consumers for free usage, with the most widely used DropBox and Google Docs. This has helped eradicate the need to bring physical hard disks/ thumb drives to enable file sharing m a totally new manner. Files are now stored in a server at a remote location, which its utilization is at an optimum level to justify its costs.

With such an increasing demand and usage of such services, this has spurt the growth of the IT industry, by revolutionizing the services provided by the IT professionals, as well as creating a bigger job markets for them.

3.      Challenges
Adoption of any emerging technologies would of course, come with its fair share of problems. With cloud computing, the main challenges lie within the technical and legal aspects that arise from the efforts in keeping such technology as sustainable as possible.

Obstacles to the growth of Cloud Computing

As cloud computing is a service that needs to be run continuously and provided throughout the world, there is a need to provide 24/7 support services to cater to the time zones of various consumers and businesses due to geographical locations. Furthermore, huge amounts of data will be pouring in from everywhere, increasing the difficulty in sustaining the continuous support services and managing the stored data safely and efficiently. This may very well shape the future of IT jobs, whereby majority will turn into shift allocated jobs to cater to such evolved demands.

Secondly, to be able to gain decent and sustainable profits from providing such a service, one must be enough physical space to have the data centre. Not only should it be big enough, its location risks should also be considered to prevent any possible accidents. The various factors intermesh to create a difficult situation to start-up such a service provision.

Obstacles to the adoption of Cloud Computing

One common concern most businesses first think of when considering the adoption of cloud computing would be its performance. With cloud computing providing services over the internet, latency could very well be a very big issue that could instead lower efficiency and productivity. A proper weighing of these cons over lowering costs through technological outsourcing would then take place to assess the real feasibility of engaging such services.

With cloud computing being relatively new in the world, many companies would also consider the costs of migrating existing data over to the cloud. For bigger organizations, such costs may not be ideal, as there are the hidden risks of lost or corrupted data during the migration phase.

Policy and business obstacles to the adoption of Cloud Computing

With files now being stored on the internet on a remote server at unknown locations, trust issues would definitely be of concern, especially for businesses with sensitive and confidential data. The privacy of the data is one key factor that deters businesses away from cloud services, despite significant cost savings. This is due to the importance placed on having the control over their own data in-house.

 Legal issues would also be another grey area arising from the adoption of cloud computing, when dispute arises. The jurisdiction from the conflict can be very vague when the location of your cloud service provider is in another continent, which may then incur unnecessary costs for you to settle the conflict in another nation instead.

4.      Opportunities

Widespread of mobile applications for cloud clients

With cloud computing, this has help spur the growth of smart phones, with respects to mobile applications. This has created a new market platform for many aspiring programmers. With the clear benefits of portable applications on smart phones, demand for such applications rise rapidly due to the conveniences such technology has brought about. These two phenomenons work hand in hand together to bring the IT industry to a status of higher quality and diversity of technology products.

Rise of demand for business analytics

With the rise cloud computing, many enterprises have turned to this alternative for database solutions. This has caused the demand for transaction processing in the database industry to slowly dwindle in growth. On the other hand, decisional roles in IT are growing in numbers, where a better understanding of customer requirements is needed for application development. This frees up much human resources away from transactional processes, and slowly shifts towards a demand of analytical skill sets.

New business ideas of providing data integration

With cloud platforms on the rise, complications may arise during data migration from an organization’s legacy application into the cloud platform. This can be due to the complexity and out-datedness of the software, which can lead to significant efforts and costs in migrating. As such, this has also brought about new changes to the IT industry, where business opportunities are generated by companies that provided such services of data integration.


5.      Observations from past and current trends

Rise in adoption rates of the cloud platforms

1. Economies of scales
As explained in the introduction, cloud computing provides various technological services that will be shared across its clients. With such resources pooled together into one centralized location, this helps achieve greater economies of scales by service providers, largely through the more efficient use of hardware. It is said that increasing in scale would save these providers up to five to seven times more compared to a smaller scale. This allows them to push selling prices even lower to attract businesses to adopt such services.

With lowered costs, this makes great incentive for many companies to jump on the bandwagon of cloud computing. This is especially so when their network infrastructure is highly under-utilized. Furthermore, the remote location of these data centres would also equate to significant power utility savings for organizations.

2. “Pay-as-you-go” model
“Pay-as-you-go” is a term that refers to consumers paying for what you use, and stopping payment when the services are not required. One such example would be the mobile phone services that most people are subscribed to.

This concept has proven to be popular especially amongst start-up businesses with little capital to invest in advanced systems. With such a model, businesses can start small, and slowly increase their capacity of hardware resources. Small and medium enterprises also stand to gain from this, especially when their core competency does not lie in IT. This model would allow them pay for such resources only when it is required, saving huge costs in the long-run.

3. Shifting risks through elasticity of resource utilization
The key idea of elasticity benefits would be the transference of risks of under utilization of purchased hardware away from the company. Cloud applications would be able to help serve fluctuating demands of user services for web applications, as hardware resources and be re-allocated with much more flexibility as compared with in-house purchased. This addresses the problem of under-provisioning of resources during peak periods of user traffic, as well as over-provisioning during lull periods, thus eradicating the loss of potential revenues from constant new user counts throughout the year.

Shifts in demand for IT administrators to IT business analysts

With the emergence of cloud computing, much of the job demand for on-site maintenance has been reduced for many organizations. Thus, these jobs are slowly shifting towards the cloud service providers instead. With popularity dwindling for these jobs that mainly require hard skills, the trend now shifts towards soft skills of business analytics. Based on the Global Knowledge/TechRepublic 2010 Salary Survey, business analysis was one of the top 10 skills employers are now looking for again, especially when it comes to the integration of information systems to bring about positive changes to business processes. This revolutionizes the job market for IT professionals, creating both opportunities and disadvantages for fresh graduates and working professionals.

With such changes in demand for jobs, this trend may well affect the way educational institutions will deal with their syllabuses for IT courses. Gone were the times where an impressive array of technical skills will get you the job. Hiring managers now want more of a graduate, which has to equip themselves with the business know-how so as to reduce the amount of human resources required, together with the provision of efficient solutions to the company through the use of information systems.


 Increase in dependency on the cloud: A cause for concern?

With the trend of adopting cloud technologies spreading on the worldwide scale, this places additional stress on service providers to sustain quality service with little downtime. With such huge dependencies, it is crucial that service providers do detailed risk assessments with regards to the location of data centers.

Proximity to areas prone to natural disasters is the first factor for consideration for choice location, as recovery costs will burn out profits fast for service providers. Frequent downtime caused by such disasters will only decrease consumer satisfaction, which will only decrease the company’s sustainability in the long run. The second factor would be the primary customer base, as latency issues is of another concern when it comes to consumer satisfaction.

With such unpredictable factors in place when careful considerations are to be made during the adoption of cloud services, it is eminent that organizations should not place all their eggs in one basket. A full dependency on cloud services increases the risk of serve downtime, or loss of important data, due to the absence of self-control over such issues.

Therefore, organizations need to be more aware on the importance of business continuity plans, so as to recover fast from such setbacks. This is especially so when more and more companies are increasingly reliant on technology to provide their services.

However, without a fully dependent model, organizations may feel the contradiction of redundancy by keeping part of the IT infrastructure in-house.  It is therefore necessary to invest in risk assessment professionals to clearly evaluate the impacts of a technical failure, and make decisions on how much finances to allocate to business continuity plans.

6.      Taking things forward

Phasing out of PCs

With the popularity for cloud services going up, not just for businesses but public consumers as well. This could slowly drive conventional PC producers out of business. Typical desktops in every household would soon find themselves obsolete, when SaaS and PaaS take a more dominant share of the IT product market. Furthermore, the emergence of portable mobile smart phones has set the pathway for many simple applications to convert to the mobile phone application market, and therefore driving a cyclic effect on both the supply of IT products for desktop use, and demand for desktop hardware itself.

Change in product prices for technological products.

Due to a more efficient utilization of technological resources, this could help bring demands of such products to a more justifiable level to reduce resource wastage. Working together with the rapid technological advancements in our current era, prices of IT products may very well decrease to a more favourable level where such products will be more accessible to a wider range of people. This once again creates a cyclic effect on the demand for portable devices that adopt cloud services, and the lower costs of technological gadgets derived from a better utilization hardware resources.

Possibility of cyber warfare

With an increased worldwide dependency on cloud services, this makes it a very potential target by cyber terrorists. One example of such cases was the cyber attack on Google in April 2010, where it was revealed that certain information has been stolen from their data centres. Although the intruders did not appear to have stolen vital user information, this occurrence has sprouted debates on security and privacy issues, especially for companies like Google that are so established with millions of personal and corporate information.

With much of our private information plastered all over the web (Facebook, Google, Blogs etc.), who knows what cyber terrorists can use to leverage on. Constant security has to be enforced on such systems to sustain continuity and trust by consumers and businesses.

Improvement of privacy issues for increased adoption

In accordance to the cyber terrorist problems, the issue of privacy should always be of utmost concern to service providers as consumer expectation rises. This is not only to gain trust, but to deter possible attacks on systems by cyber terrorists. One way to address that is to revise on the legal aspects of cloud computing, to tackle problems of personal data privacy, and deterrence through harsh punishments for cyber offenders.

7.      Conclusion

Based on the detailed discussion of the emergence of cloud computing in this paper, it is evident that the world should embrace the conveniences that technology advancements have brought about.

Through the benefits and issues raised throughout the paper about the emergence of cloud computing, it can be concluded that businesses should strike a balance during the adoption of cloud services.  Companies should treat such adoptions like any other, and recognize the need to do a proper risk assessment to determine the viability of such services. In other words, companies should identify non-core business processes, and evaluate the consequences of outsourcing such processes into the cloud.

8.       References

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Amit, A., (Jul 2010). The Legal Issues Around Cloud Computing. Retrieved from http://www.labnol.org/internet/cloud-computing-legal-issues/14120/


Ivan (Aug 2011). The Future of Cloud Computing for Business. Retrieved from http://www.cloudbusinessreview.com/2011/08/01/the-future-of-cloud-computing-for-business.html

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