Читать книгу Cloud Computing Solutions - Группа авторов - Страница 35

Two major developments over the last decade have revolutionized the way people use their computers. First, advances in the miniaturization of circuits and components have made it possible to pack powerful processing units into portable laptops and more recently in palmtop computers. As a result, people from all walks of life have started carrying personal computers wherever they go. The second major development concerns computer communication and wireless networking of portable computers becoming a reality. These two developments have merged portable personal computing and communication to form the discipline of mobile computing [19-25].

Figure 1.7: Mobile computing.

Mobile computing is widely described as the ability to compute and communicate while on the move. This new emerging discipline has made it possible for people to get information from anywhere and at any time. Mobile computing means two separate and distinct concepts: mobility and computing. Computing denotes the capability to automatically carry out certain processing. Mobility, on the other hand, provides the capability to change a portable location during communication and computing. The main advantage of this mobility is the flexibility that it provides to the user. The user need not necessarily sit in front of his desktop, but can either move locally or even to faraway places.