The computer is believed to be smaller than a grain of salt.
IBM, one of the leading innovators in the technology industry, recently announced the world’s tiniest computer. The announcement, which was done at the THINK 2018 conference, revealed that the computer would cost ten cents to manufacture. It would also be able to analyze, monitor, communicate and then act on the data provided.
IBM hosts the THINK conference annually, and it is attended by notable guests. At the conference which started on the 19th of March, the company revealed their new and exciting innovations. One of those innovations included the exciting tiny computer. The company showed a prototype of the device and managed to astound those in attendance as well.
Arvind Krishna, the head of research for IBM, revealed the five most interesting devices from the IBM Labs. The company plans to at least these five products in the next five years. The products, which are diverse in their nature were excitedly welcomed by the crowd in attendance. Their diversity ranges from the Blockchain quantum computing to lattice cryptography. They also included crypto anchors in the fold. The company also noted that they were looking to find ways they could get solutions to the issues such as cyber attacks, dirty water, and product fraud.
However, the product and device that got most people talking was the tiny computer. According to the people in attendance, the computer is believed to be smaller than a grain of salt. However, it’s efficiency can be compared with that of the popularly known 1990’s x86 chip.
The computer is said to cost just a mere 10 cents and has several hundred thousand transistors inside. These allow the device to observe, compute, and then share and communicate the data it has acted upon. The computer is also said to be compatible with the blockchain applications, therefore, it would be useful as a key data source for these applications. The technology on the computer allows it to be used for tracking of shipment of goods and also to detect the non-compliance of various stakeholders. It will also detect non-compliance, fraud and any theft. It can also be used to perform some mundane tasks such as entering data and sorting it.
The computer can be used in services such as transferring of data from location to another. The IBM Research team has been working on embedding crypto anchors known as ink dots onto products and thereby creating a link with the Blockchain. When the products are on the move, the source can then be confirmed by the crypto anchors and also be cross-checked at the same time with the Blockchain data.
The company also noted that there was potential for the computer to improve gradually as they were just in the beginning phase. Krishna noted that in the next five years, the cryptographic anchors would be put into the regularly used objects. Therefore, the company noted that there would come a time when these small devices would replace all the heavyweight computer devices in use right now.
Internet crimes have risen over the past few years, and the IBM Research team has been working to tackle the issue. The losses from the cyber crimes are estimated to rise annually to $6 trillion by 2021. IBM is working to help alleviate the situation and it believes it is time the technology in use is stronger than the encryption methods being developed.
