Forget 'the Cloud'; 'the Fog' Is Tech's Future

Why else do you think Google Inc. and Facebook Inc. are talking about alternate means of Internet access, including via balloons and drones? Existing carriers aren’t getting the job done. Until the U.S. gets the fast wireless and wired Internet it deserves, computing things as close to the user as possible is going to be critical to making the Internet of Things responsive enough to be usable. The future of much enterprise computing remains in the cloud, but the really transformative computing of the future? It’s going to happen right here, in the objects that surround us—in the fog.