Published at LXer:

There are two revolutions going on right now in computing — occurring at opposite ends of the spectrum. At the high end, we're finding that modest systems are capable of handling so-called "Big Data" problems with the tools we're currently inventing. We're also finding that the supercomputing powers of today's servers coupled with their counterparts in the cloud provide more than enough horsepower to perform analysis that was inconceivable a few years ago. On the other end of the spectrum, smart phones are running dual-core processors; and quad-core CPUs are on their way shortly. Driven by this power, phones and tablets can easily run games at full speed, and comfortably serve as scaled-down PCs and laptops. As more cores are added, the "scaled-down" aspect will relate more to things like storage and networking, rather than processing power.

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