2.TECHNOLOGIES OF 2020’s

By Published Uncategorized

In points, following are the technologies which will be ruling the world as impacting everyone’s life in 2020s and further (coming years)

  • Artificial Intelligence
  • 5G
  • Blockchain
  • Augmented Reality
  • Autonomous System
  • IoT Sensors
  • Quantum Computing
  • Automation
  • Cybersecurity
  • Cloud Computing
  • Computer Network
  • Edge Computing
  • Privacy
  • Robotics

From last day

Before 1970, computers were already there bringing a huge revolution in human’s life around the world. However, computers were not in the look as we see today (laptop/desktop). They used to be big in size. It was only part of the stream of individual or small establishment firms, houses, a store. 1980s was a major breakthrough for computer with the world got better feature of the computer.

PC (personal computer) which used to be much smaller in size, similar to how it looks today & affordable to many individuals & small establishment.

  • Atari was first PC made in 1974. Commercial appeal was limited.
  • Apple Computer, TRS-80 & PET were next. These PCs in the line.
  • By 1980s, IBM introduced their PC which soon became world’s most popular PC.
  • During this period only, Oracle also had its beginning phase. Larry Ellison along with 2 his partners founded it to turn the theory of relational database which he had read in a research paper into a sellable product. As PC was ready to move and more people during this period, Oracle saw the business opportunities in this that more and more data will need to be handled efficiently.

1990s Till this time PCs were all of them but each working in solitude. There was a need to connect these PCs to each other. And this necessity brought the birth of WWW. (World Wide Web). With this one PC could share information it had with any other PC in the world through website. Similarly, one PC could send message to one or more PCs through e-mail.

2000s Then came the new millennium. By this time, many people from middle class in India too could afford a PC. WWW was accessible to common man. A person could go to cyberspace to access internet. A person having PC at home could connect to internet through Internet Service Provider (ISPs) like BSNL & MTNL in India. However, you could not carry thin PC anywhere. So to access internet, you will have to go to the device (PC). Device will not come with you. Hence, mobile revolution came to meet this necessity. Mobile was no more a device to just talk. It was a mini PC through which we could access internet (GPRS) or do some simple tasks offline. The internet speed used to be limited during this period on mobile.

2010s It was the period when internet bandwidth increased while speed cost got on reducing. This led to birth of cloud computing. It was the time when internet has always been with you. So why do you need to download song on your device & store it? The same set of songs everyday. Instead much more songs are stored in cloud than your device can provide storage. You get save it your choice. With this example, now slowly all the data from your local storage are moving to the cloud, creating less space requirement. Chromebook is an example of device where most of the data and operation you work with is on the cloud.

What’s Next?

We covered a journey of 20 years & now the changes happened in the field of IT in brief. However you will be surprised to know that you can expect more change in the next 10 years than you have seen in the last 40 years. Let’s have a look at some of the fields which are in infant or teenage state but definitely the future is theirs –

1) BLOCKCHAIN

Each txn is stored in a block which cannot be altered

2.111
  • stored in a multiple computers in a network
  • stored in database
  • Each block is encrypted & can’t be altered

ANALOGY

Ram is travelling in a train. He feels hungry. He orders food on an app. At the relevant station. The food vendor enters the coach with many parcels for many passengers in this coach. The vendor is hurriedly handing over the food parcel to passengers going on their seats. When he comes to Ram, he hands over the parcel to Ram and moves ahead. Ram hands over the price as cash to the vendor. Because the vendor is in hurry, he does not realize that Ram had given the money. His plan was to first handover the parcel from one end of coach to the other & then start collecting the payment. When he approaches Ram for payment, Ram said that I gave you the money in cash. He said that I have just started taking the payment. This could ultimately lead to dispute. Ram said that he gave the money Vendor said that he can’t obtain the money. To avoid such situation, blockchain comes to rescue. Blockchain in theory happens like –

  • A block will be created. Think of the block as a box. It will store the transaction. Think of transaction as paper containing the details of give-take that happened above. Vendor gives the \ food parcel. This first must be approved & signed by both Vendor and Ram.
  • Ram gives money to the vendor. This fact/transaction must also be approved & signed by both vendor and Ram.
  • 1 & 2 form the txn to be contained in the block. Once done, this box is closed & locked. It is locked in such a way that neither Ram nor vendor can open it & distort the info without the knowledge of the other person. Think of it like this. It is the box & usually two keys together to open it. However, only key is with the vendor & other one is with Ram. Also, assume two boxes are created- one is with Ram and other is with vendor both having info of same txn. Similarly, another block is created for the transaction between the food vendor & another passenger. Somehow these boxes are interconnected with each other through a chain. Hence, it becomes a block chain.
2.1 bc
Now, blockchain theory says, two things should be very very difficult to do:
  1. Distorting any information in any of the blocks. Eg: Vendor opens Ram’s block and distorts the approval of “Ram gives money to the vendor.”

2) Adding or removing any block from the blockchain. Eg: Vendor creates a new block & inserts somewhere in between for the customer who didn’t even requested for food parcel. Similarly, Vendor deletes his blocks just to claim that he didn’t take the food or ordered the parcel.

This was one simple example to understand blockchain. Blockchain is a theory & it can be implemented across different sectors & areas through computers. Just the same way that OOP is real world concept which has been implemented by far PL like Java & etc. we can use Java to create classes & objects across different sectors.

What is the unique thing we observe here? In the above example, the txn transmits to decentralized. The block is locked & the keys are distributed between two people. This provides more security & safety of data.

An example of centralized transaction could be that Ram would be paid through a UPI. In this case, the proof of payment would have been at the central level – UPI system crashes. If the UPI system creates the proof is gone.

Hence, the most striking feature of blockchain is decentralised transaction. We can consider the above example to understand the key concepts of blockchain.

  1. Decentralization: As in the above eg., two identical block (box) are created for the same txn – one is retained with Ram & other with vendor. Both needing two keys to open it. This decentralization ensures no single point of failure. If Ram’s copy of the block is lost or damaged, vendor’s copy of the block is still there. Vice versa. It is like 2 engines are put in a plane so that if one goes down other can still land the plane safely.
  2. Distributed – Based on the setting of the blockchain, it is possible that Ram as well as vendor can see his co-passenger’s txn as well. So every txn is transparent & available to all to view (but not modify) & hence it is a distributed system.
  3. Immutability – As we saw in the above eg., the txn stored in the block cannot be modified by either vendor or Ram or any other co-passenger. Secondly, suppose Ram’s txn & his Co-passengers (who also purchased food parcel from the vendor) txn are next to each other in the formed blockchain, then no individual person can insert another block or delete any block. This fulfills the principle of immutability.
  4. Consensus Mechanism – Any block which needs to be added to the end of a blockchain must have with most approval from all the involved stakeholders (vendor, new customer & other passengers (rounds little useful)). It all depends on the setting/set up the blockchain architecture.
  5. Cryptography – We saw that each block of the txn is secured (encrypted) by two keys.

Remember, this is very plain vanilla way of explaining the blockchain through a real life example. However, since blockchain is implemented on computers, we will understand it at more from computers perspective involving of related terminologies as used in the real application of blockchain in IT world.

The characteristics of blockchain we saw above shows that blockchain has striking features. Thus, blockchain can be implemented across multiple industries and sectors.

A simple example could be the cooking oil you use in your kitchen. Blockchain will help you to know that the oil is how much pure. It is because blockchain will have blocks of transaction giving information right from the field of palm to the end lines.

One block may give the transaction info of the txn that happened between the farmer who produced some material in this farm and the mill which purchased the crop. So the block may give info what variety of the seeds crop is but where is the field/farm situated? How much did he received? etc.

Another block may give the txn info of the txn that happened between mill and a wholesale distributor.

Another block may be dedicated to the txn that happened between bottle manufacturer & the oil company and so on.

So at the end, as the end consumer you would be more judgemental to decide if this oil is suitable for you having known the entire journey of the oil.

Think little technical in this eg. Farmer, bottle provider, different departments of the company, wholesale distributor, Retail seller Etc. each one would be maintaining their system (computer with database) & each transaction is recorded in everyone’s database in encrypted format

Cryptocurrency

Although blockchain is getting implemented across various sectors of the one of the most interesting & striking application of blockchain is in the field of crypto digital currency. We all know about the currency that is implemented in our respective country issued by Govt. of the country. This is traditional currency. It is not digital but physical. You keep physical currency notes & coins in your wallet & pay the same to merchants to buy stuff. Even if your bank internet banking app is showing an amount. You can approach your bank branch & get the amount in physical form. And how is the traditional currency made? Well people are printed by Govt. Printed on private economic system. Similarly coins are minted by Govt. following some economic equation.

Cryptocurrency is different due to the points we discussed

1) Cryptocurrency do not have physical form. They are only available digitally in electronic form
2) The way they are minted is different. They don’t have relation to gold. That like Dollar, Pound, Euro, Rupees the cryptocurrencies which exist namely in the world are Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Binance, Coinbase etc.

BITCOIN – Bitcoin is most popular cryptocurrency in the world. It was developed in 2009 by an anonymous individual or group of individuals under the name Satoshi Nakamoto. Bitcoin, being the blockchain technology, follows the blockchain architecture.

2.1 bc

In blockchain there are blocks. Each block has the reference of its previous block. Each block has details of one or more txn. txn is the exchange of bitcoin between two persons or partners.

While understanding bitcoin, keep thinking it as your normal coin.

Similarly:
Your coin is minted in some mines operated by your country’s government. Similarly, the bitcoin is also minted within a computer. The bitcoin is born in computer in digital form and it remains digital throughout its life. (So, exciting, isn’t it?)

Let us tell you an interesting thing. The advent of information technology brought more equality than before. Best example coming to my mind is cinema. Cinema is an industry just like any other industry. It tells us our fraternity. A little downside of this is that the people from the fraternity get better chance and opportunity than any person who has not involved with the cinema fraternity but willing to showcase his talent. It solved the problem to much extent. IT giants created platform like YouTube, Facebook, Instagram etc. where any common man can showcase his talents without needing much capital or networking with cinema fraternity. This is clearly visible that many common people gained fame with the help of these platforms. Next example is that AI softwares is accessible to every common man. Gone are the days when knowledge of information was accessed to few privileged ones. Now, every common man has a smart bitcouch in his hand as constant. So it talks to AI, discuss with AI & do some anything big in the world.

Coming to bitcoin, you, me and any common man can be a miner in it. Contrast to the physical coin which can be minted by only Governments. You just need to have a strong powerful computer, & super fast internet connection. We will understand soon how mining works in bitcoin.

Bitcoin is already in enormous form with close to 8 digits blocks in its blockchain. Let us try to understand how a new block is added to the bitcoin blockchain. With that, it will be easy to view the macro picture of bitcoin’s blockchain. First, all understand that all the stakeholders in the bitcoin blockchain have their computers interconnected to each other through internet. These stakeholders could be an individual or a firm. Stakeholders could be someone who own bitcoin or they could be miners. In physical coin case, you are stakeholder also who own the coin. The government is another stakeholder who owns the coin. You go to market to buy a coffee with that coin. The shopkeeper also becomes a stakeholder who will accept your coin & give you coffee & change. You can give your surplus coin value.

ANALOGY

Let’s assume Sam is a person who is already having bitcoins in his digital wallet. What is this digital wallet can will be explained later. Suppose he wishes to buy a T-shirt from an e-commerce website. The transaction happens to accept bitcoin as the mode of payment. As soon as Sam makes the payment on T-kart’s portal to buy T-shirt, two things happen in the backend:

  1. The reqd. no. of bitcoins equivalent to the value of T-shirt is deducted from Sam’s wallet.
  2. Same no. of bitcoins are added into T-kart’s account/wallet.
  3. As soon as the amount is received by T-kart, they start processing Sam’s order.

Let’s go little more in-depth to see what has happened.

(1) First & foremost thing is that a transaction has happened.

Debit from Sam
Credit to T-kart

This transaction is also called Bitcoin txn. Bitcoin wallet software on Sam’s side creates this txn. Txn would look something like this:

Txn 6789
Input: Txn 12345 [1.5 BTC]
Output: T-Kart [1 BTC]
        Sam [0.49]
Txn Fees: 0.01 BTC
Digital Signature: Sam's Signature

This is a rough visualization of txn created by Sam’s machine.

  • Txn 6789 is the name of this txn.
  • Txn 12345 is the pointer of the txn which was added to the blockchain. In the past, this 1.5 BTC was mined using the basis of that txn.

Imp Pt. to note: Each bitcoin is mined on the basis of a txn. So, all txn go to a waiting area for all pending txn called mempool. Miner pick the txn from mempool in order to validate, verify, & mine new bitcoins.

1.5 BTC (bitcoin) is the amount which Sam is paying to T-Kart. This information goes as inputs.

Output shows the outcome of the txn – 1.5 BTC spent by Sam. What will happen to it? We got the answer in this section that 1.5 BTC goes to T-Kart. 0.49 goes back to Sam as change.

Next is the txn fees. This is a fee which will go to the miners for their hard work of including this txn into a block to add into bitcoin blockchain.

Imp pt. to Note! As all the txns go into mempool, it is obvious that the txn having more txn fees is likely to draw attention of miners so they would have opportunity to earn more.

It is also possible that if Sam is not giving enough txn fees, this txn might be overlooked by miners & ultimately his txn get expired & T-Kart will have to cancel his order. Txn must be confirmed & added to the blockchain in order to get the T-shirt order captured.

At the end, Sam will put his digital signature affirming that the above information is true as per his

(3) Txn 6789 is broadcasted to the Bitcoin network where it propagates to the nodes/computers of bitcoin stakeholders such as miners

(4) Now, the information present in Txn 6789 is just stated by Sam. But what is the guarantee that Sam’s input in this txn is correct?

Is it not possible that Sam being a foul buyer already bought another item from another e-commerce website using the same 1.5 BTC (originated from Txn 12345)

So once the txn goes into mempool & it is considered by Bitcoin network all validation take place

  • Txn adheres to Bitcoin rule
  • Sam is actually having more than or equal to 1.5 BTC in his digital wallet
  • Txn 12345 is valid txn
  • Txn 12345’s 1.5 BTC has not been spent anywhere else
  • Digital Signature indeed belongs to Sam

(5) Once verified that Txn 6789 is all correct, all the miners in the bitcoin network compete to solve a difficult puzzle. What is the puzzle?

The challenge is to find a number (nonce) which when combined with the block data & hashed produces a result within a certain range. This range is provided/decided by system administrators of Bitcoin network. The miner which happens the following equation ultimately win the race.

<Txn data + nonce> = Hash where Hash lies in the range

A block has size limited to 1 MB, so number of thousands of txn are aggregated in one block.

Points to note are here so that the miners as a human need not to apply their brains to find out this nonce. Their computer run complex algorithm software which does the task of finding out the nonce. Indeed these software are CPU intensive & hence powerfulf CPUs are required which draws a lot of electricity & produces lot of heat. Since computer runs per day, hence it is said that bitcoin is not environment friendly.

  1. Ok so the miner who is able to solve the puzzle (find that nonce) gets the exclusive right to add the add that block to the blockchain.
  2. On doing so, new bitcoins get minted & the miner becomes the owner of those newly minted bitcoins.
  3. That miner will also get 0.01 BTC which was added as part of Txn 6789 txn tips.
  4. The Txn 6789 is marked as confirmed & Sam can now wait for his T-shirt to arrive.
  5. The block containing txn 6789 will be joined to the last block of the bitcoin blockchain & that the former has the reference/address of the latter block. The next block which will be added will take the reference of txn 6789 in it.

How many bitcoins are rewarded to miner?

As of in 2009 when bitcoin was launched, miner were awarded 25 BTC. This is halved every 4 years & hence it is 3.125 bitcoins as of 2024. Moreover the puzzle’s difficult level is adjusted every 2016 blocks. To ensure that each new block are added every 10 min, not less than that.

  1. Although the winner miner becomes the owner of the newly minted bitcoin, this bitcoins also becomes the part of blockchain. In the same block while to be added to the blockchain in (7) another txn called “coinbase transaction” is recorded which has the info of these new bitcoins. This is how txn 12345 would be “coinbase txn” having the info of these 1.5 BTC.

Once it is added in “coinbase txn”, then coins become the official part of bitcoin network.

  • The Owner Can Spend this bitcoin, transfer them to someone else or holders

12. The newly added block is added to blockchain, is replicated to all the nodes (computers) in bitcoin network. Each node update their copy of the blockchain.

    Bitcoin is one implementation of the blockchain theory. Nevertheless it will follow the key concepts of blockchain.

    i) Decentralization: As we saw in (12), each node has the copy of blockchain in their DB & hence updated to other. The info is any block.

    ii) Distributed: All the activities happening so much to all the stakeholders in the bitcoin network.

    iii) Immutability: Once the block is added to the blockchain, its successor has to reference. Modifying any data in a block will change its hash value leading to data corruption. Hence, it is very difficult to modify data in a block. It can be done but with great effort – with mutual agreement of all the stakeholders.

    iv) Consensus – Agreement of all stakeholders is required here too.

    v) Cryptography – All blocks are encrypted to protect from any hacking attempts

    Conclusion Blockchain theory is compressive, robust & useful for the mankind.

    It can be implemented across various sectors which can be very useful to human kind.We can be more assured that we get that we are paying for. We saw the application of blockchain in cryptocurrency & bitcoin is one of the most popular crypto currency in the world later this has also provided blockchain solution to a company which uses fishes from sea as one of the first blocks are created & added to blockchain world plan that sea when fishes are caught & purchased to the end retailer will deliver the edible item to the common. Certainly blockchain has bright future with lots several advantages.

    Previous Article
    Next Article