Some thoughts on current technology trends
To put the words Is and True back in IT...
Big Data
Lots of books on big data. I mean, lots! Don't buy 'em. Don't care about them. Don't care about big data in any way. You can safely avoid knowing about it. We all use big data in some way, but the chances you are ever involved in developing or engineering at a big data provider is more or less the same as you becoming an astronaut. Now, not to say that big data is as complex as becoming an astronaut. It's not. But the chances of you becoming an astronaut are probably the same as you ending up needing to study big data. Everyone uses big data, very few actually work on it.
Bid Data is also about exploding your head with very meaningful graphs. Here's how useful a graph of big data is.
NoSQL
First they take our freedom. Then they take our liberties. Someone took my wife and my wife took my kids. Now they are taking SQL away from me. I can't take it anymore.
Databases used to be simple things. Not anymore. Data is the same mind you. We just figured out different ways of storing and retrieving it. NoSQL makes the storage and retrieval of relational data as difficult as is for a relational database to store and extract Non Relational Data. Hurray for not solving a problem!
Notice I said Non Relational Data, not NoSQL data. Because, quite frankly, it takes a fool to give a foolish name to a technology that is about how data is structured, not about a language used to retrieve data. And I'm no fool.
Near Field Communications
Your cellphone is an amazing thing. It is why I want to steal it from you and use it to NFC my household bills, NFC my way to Wallmart, and NFC my girl friend (who doesn't know I'm a criminal) a nice dinner and an hotel room.
NFC is about waving your cellphone (well you don't need to wave it, but I bet everyone will do the wave thing), very close to some device and perform some kind of data transfer between the two devices. It can turn your cellphone into a credit card. A more expensive credit card that also does other cool things, which is thief land. NFC is really bluetooth but with a different name. Sure bluettoth lacks the security features of NFC. But that's really just bluetooth on a different protocol. Which Bluetooth did and decided to name it, again stupidly, Bluetooth Smart.
Somehow the idea of centralizing my life in a single device is just going to make my heart explode with worry. I'm not very much into the Smart bandwagon. And it takes a very smart person to admit it.
Civilian Drones
They differ from military drones in that they can't kill you unless one crashes into your windshield while you are driving at 180 km/h. (That's fast, you american imperials).
Now, this is a big deal. Drones, small and stupid flying robots, are supposed to help us in ways that weren't possible before. There are even advancements in herd algorithms in order to better control a swarm of drones who could, for instance manage a corn field.
There's a drone in the film Looper. Just a single and relatively large one. It seemed to do a pretty decent job spraying a corn field. Why would I want a swarm if I can just have a big one? The answer is, drones are small. Like Pluto, you cant call a big thing a drone. It has to be small. If it is bigger it is a robot. In the movie Looper that is a robot. Not a drone.
So drones are small robots. They can't carry canisters and presently the only thing they seem to do is video recording. Like google glasses... alright.