An absolute truth about the world of technology is that it tends to be smaller and smaller. Many of us remember the first computers in history. Tremendous moles of cables and data whose capacity was incredibly smaller than the current ones. That means that size has never been linked to capacity, at least not in the technological field . Moore's law says that we are practically in the limits of getting a new development but reality prevails and says the opposite. On March 18 of this same year in the IBM Think 2018 , a technological event where "the tomorrow's problems they meet with minds today " , the company presented the smallest computer in history, so small that you could need glasses to see it.
How is the smallest computer in the world?
IBM has rightly called it the smallest computer in the world and despite having all the appearance of the most futuristic of technologies, it only costs a few cents to produce it. The tiny device houses several hundred thousand transistors in a size smaller than a grain of salt, but has the power of the x86 chip that is what was in computers of the 80s and 90s, according to ZDNet.
Right now you may be thinking that this is not a great capacity, especially when compared with today's computers or even with some smartphones capable of great storage, high resolution and great processing power, but we must take into account its function, which is none other than bringing the digital security of the blockchain to the real world.
What is blockchain?
Block means blocks and chain chains, so blockchain is a chain of blocks. A security system consisting of blocks housed in a shared database. That is its main characteristic and one of the reasons why it is so safe. In fact, to this day, no cyberdelicuente has been able to hack it .
According to a study conducted by IBM, fraud amounts to a whopping 600 billion euros a year. Scandalous, right? Everything is the fault of a complicated supply chain that, when passing from hand to hand, it is easy that at any moment of the process, the change occurs and counterfeit products are introduced. Blockchain serves to guarantee the security of this transaction .
And they do it because the chain of blocks is decentralized, that is, to infect with a virus and stealing information, one would have to infect, one by one, all the computers connected to the database, which is quite impossible to do.
You may have heard of blockchain through cryptocurrency as Bitcoin . This cyber-currency is characterized by being decentralized, that is, it is not backed by any government or central bank and lacks legal certainty. Bitcoins depend on technology to keep their transactions secure. These transactions do not need intermediaries and the protocol is open source.
How does it work?
Cryptography, which is responsible for studying the algorithms, protocols, and systems used to protect information and provide security to communications and to the entities that communicate, it is a type of mathematics that helps keep the "blocks" safe. The "blocks" is an open network of individual computers that have fingerprint packs and are visible to everyone, so they need a powerful security system.
Today its use is almost exclusively for online transactions. Each of these transactions has its own fingerprint but if you could give these traces to real products, you could give the supply chain the same kind of hermetic security that Bitcoin binaries currently have.
In fact, IBM has already started using it in food supply chains , but this small computer could be the reward of your efforts.
The smallest computer in the world is not ready at the moment but according to IBM engineers, the first models to see the light could do so in the next 18 months. Remember, when they go on the market, try to have your magnifying glasses at hand!
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