Mobile
devices such as smartphones and tablets have become common devices many people cannot
live without them. Compared to desktop computers from even only a decade ago their
calculating power is astonishing. It is often said we do not really have a
mobile phone with us anymore, we carry a portable computer with which we also
can call people. Many things we used to be able to do only with a desktop
computer we now do while travelling. On top of that our devices now have all
kinds of sensors on board, such as GPS and motion sensors.
But regardless
of how powerful our mobile devices have become, in terms of processing power
they still cannot compete with modern day servers and mainframes. Tasks using a
lot of calculating power are done on servers or mainframes, and those machines we
cannot take with us wherever we go.
Or can
we?
Technologies
now exist with which we can bridge the gap, both literally and as a figure of
speech. We can make a connection between our phone and a powerful computer
elsewhere called a backend. We do not even have to know where that computer is,
as long as our software does. This backend is much more powerful than the
mobile computer. Our mobile device interacts with the user as we expect from
it, while handing the heavy lifting to the backend. This way it seems to the
end user as if his smartphone suddenly became a portable mainframe with a nice
graphical interface and all kind of sensors.
After successfully
completing this minor you will be able to create such a system using Android
and Java technologies.