CRDT's looks interesting and are new enough, that there will be more to learn about them. Seems like an important component in distributed systems (almost all new systems)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict-free_replicated_data_...
Ask HN: What are the most interesting emerging fields in computer science?
121–130 of 183 posts
Re: Ask HN: What are the most interesting emerging fields in computer science?
#122I think most interesting computer science fields are actually application of CS in other domains. Science changed a lot in the last decades, moving from a genius in a room looking at the data and coming up with grand theory to have vast amounts of data that no single human can make sense of. The work of the computer scientist is to quickly understand problems from various fields then solve it using tailor-made algori…
One field where CS might be put to interesting use is history. Utilizing machine learning to process and analyze historical texts could shine a light on patterns that have gone unnoticed thus far.
I was looking for a MS in CS (looked in EU; as that's where I want to go for my MS) that would've help me with application of CS in liberal arts. I am specifically interested in fields like literature, history, and archaeology. Couldn't find anything.
I would want something where it doesn't just enabled me use CS tools and algo to apply to works in those fields (a crude example would be: use of some ML also on Shakespeare's works) but also lets me study both that field and CS.
Re: Ask HN: What are the most interesting emerging fields in computer science?
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can you elaborate why solar roof tiles need such intelligence, especially the secure part? I don't see what data they would need to hide.
Distributed power electronics are inherently dangerous. If you have a surplus of power and your neighbor has a deficit, it is desirable for the two systems to communicate to send power from you to the neighbor. If a bad actor can leverage this system to tell everyone to send all of their power to the grid, they could easily damage the infrastructure in a very costly way.
I'm imagining a world where all the solar roofs have a "Tron Tile" to protect the system.
Re: Ask HN: What are the most interesting emerging fields in computer science?
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can you elaborate why solar roof tiles need such intelligence, especially the secure part? I don't see what data they would need to hide.
Distributed power electronics are inherently dangerous. If you have a surplus of power and your neighbor has a deficit, it is desirable for the two systems to communicate to send power from you to the neighbor. If a bad actor can leverage this system to tell everyone to send all of their power to the grid, they could easily damage the infrastructure in a very costly way.
Ok so the grid (that knows everything already) commands every house what to do, using a pinned certificate to authenticate. What part of this needs to be zero knowledge?
Re: Ask HN: What are the most interesting emerging fields in computer science?
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm gonna go one step further with the off-topicness. Do you get much of an opportunity working within law to focus on technology? I'm about to go back to University to study law but I would love to be able to combine Law with technology. Seems like an interesting area.
Possible jobs include: - Working as a lawyer in a law firm and being the expert/contact person for any tech stuff. - Working as project mananger for Legal Tech in a law firm (Magic Circle law firms are already having these jobs) - Being a lawyer specialised in IT/tech/IP laws, which require a domain understanding. - Working for or founding a Legal Tech start-up. - Owning a law firm that is having an automated workflo…
It's good to hear that there are plenty of technology focused opportunities in the legal profession. The only one I had thought about prior to your comment was specialising in IP and technology, so I will definitely look into those other avenues.
Re: Ask HN: What are the most interesting emerging fields in computer science?
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a big deal. If we can find ways to perform secure, multi-party computation, we could develop fully distributed computational, networking, and power delivery systems. Your solar roof tiles could be, basically, CPUs or GPUs with embedded wireless networking.
Can you elaborate why solar roof tiles need such intelligence, especially the secure part? I don't see what data they would need to hide.
It would create a truly distributed compute utility that was accessible to anyone within range of the network.
Individual tiles could store and compute and cooperate in a mesh network.
To make something like that feasible, it needs to be secure and reliable. In the privately-owned case, I want to ensure that an adversary who gains access to the “grid” can’t exploit it against me. Think of it as having a raspberrypi on the outside of your house where anyone could tamper with it.
In the public scenario, you would want users to be able to offload computational tasks to an ambiantly available computational resource. Some of that computation will need to be local, and for disaster planning reasons, would be helpful if distributed in nature. But, in order for Joe and Jane Schmoe to rely on such a resource, they would want to know that their data isn’t being stolen or shared with others.
Re: Ask HN: What are the most interesting emerging fields in computer science?
#127The use of Lattice Boltzmann Equations to parelleize computation. It’s alreadg being used in doing dynamic fluid simulations but it’s applications are pretty endless. I wouldn’t be surprised to see LBM translated for use in Machine Learning, Cognitive AI, NLP, Computational Biology, etc, etc.
Re: Ask HN: What are the most interesting emerging fields in computer science?
#128Almost all of the answers on this list are not fields that are "emerging" but fields that "have already emerged". The ideal emerging field is one that's so obscure we haven't heard of it yet, but so important that we will. If there are widely disseminated books on Amazon about your field, it's not emerging. If there are hundreds of professionals cranking out papers about your field, it's also not emerging. Emerging f…
I disagree. It depends on where you draw the line and that is entirely subjective. For you, its when no textbooks are written, but for the purposes of this discussion I think it would be more useful to talk about fields that are not so mainstream yet but that we have enough material to discuss.
Its just a catch phrase, there is no real objective boundary
Re: Ask HN: What are the most interesting emerging fields in computer science?
#129Secure Multi-party Computation. The basic idea is developing methods for two (or more) parties with sensitive data to be able to compute some function of their data without having to reveal the data to one another. The classic example is developing an algorithm that allows two people to figure out who is paid more without either revealing what their salary is. Such algorithms get significantly more complicated if the…
This is a big deal. If we can find ways to perform secure, multi-party computation, we could develop fully distributed computational, networking, and power delivery systems. Your solar roof tiles could be, basically, CPUs or GPUs with embedded wireless networking.
Is secure multi-party computation efficient enough for such use-cases, i.e. shared compute ?
Re: Ask HN: What are the most interesting emerging fields in computer science?
#130Help me create a field of human programming that's informed by computer science? Below is a simplified description of some ideas informing what I do. These days I'm more focused on language and behaviors in myself and primary relationship in preparation for our first child, so it'd be nice if someone else started working on the theoretical stuff. I'm also down for informally experimenting with things anyone comes up with from this.
Here's the basis:
Start with a category theoretical model connecting neuroanatomy and thought (MENS, category theory and the hippocampus). Combine with the concepts of universal embedding and fully abstract languages. Replace computers in the previous sentence with computational model of human; I'm playing with modified versions of differentiable neural computers and perceptual sets comprised of beliefs, emotions, intentions, and behavior/thought patterns. Choose a human language to mathematically hack into a strict subset of itself so it meets the requirements for a target language in universal embedding. I suspect some form of type theory might be needed for that; coeffects seem like they could be useful, as well as quantitative type theory. Use yourself as the primary experimental subject (ie. the test machine) to help guide things and don't worry about reproducible results...trust that you're an ordinary human with essentially the same cognitive functions as everyone else, for now. Explore how this can impact human relationships. Discover ways to organize the self in such a way as to more effectively organize at scale.
Teach the world how to program itself at an individual level.