老九品茶

Cloud聽computing is part of society鈥檚 evolution into a 鈥榟eart-based鈥� society, says BBC Click journalist Kate Russell.

Russell聽is聽the tech show鈥檚 longest-running reporter, having presented for over聽12 years, and is also an author and avid gamer.

鈥淐ivilisation has evolved and gone from a tool-based society, using tools and hands, to an age of digital which went into head-based work – and now we鈥檙e evolving into a heart-based society,鈥� she told 老九品茶Cloud.

鈥淎 lot of the skills we need now are not programming. The tools we need are established and a lot is done by computers and AI, things like analysing algorithms and natural language processing.

鈥淭his allows us as humans to interface with the machines, which do the hand stuff, and computers, which do the head stuff, so now we鈥檙e evolving to do a lot of the heart stuff.

鈥淲e want passion and empathy and we ask 鈥榟ow do we use this?鈥� It鈥檚 just a part of evolution.

鈥淚n the same way humans picked up tools for the first time or created fire or the motorcar, this evolution from computers into cloud into AI into Big Data, that鈥檚 evolved us to the next level.

鈥淲hen anthropologists look back in a million years they鈥檒l say this was a step in the evolutionary process.鈥�

Russell got into gaming in 1984 when she picked up her brother鈥檚 BBC聽Micro. She was at an all-girls school and struggled to settle into an institution that was trying to teach her cooking and embroidery.

鈥淚 didn鈥檛 really get education or what they were trying to teach me and why, but when I played with my brother鈥檚 computer I just got really interested,鈥� she said.

Her life goal was to write a book though, and following several decades as a tech journalist she got the idea for Working in the Cloud 鈥� which she calls an 鈥榠nstruction manual for people who know nothing about the internet鈥� 鈥� while reviewing websites and apps for the BBC.

鈥淚鈥檇 seen such opportunities for particularly small businesses and entrepreneurs to jumpstart their business at a low cost,鈥� she said.

鈥淭hey could compete with big established companies by using cloud resources and online tools, many of which were free, or at least had flexible subscription models so they could try an expansion.

“Then if it didn鈥檛 work they aren鈥檛 lumbered with a load of legacy hardware infrastructure that then would drag them under.

鈥淭here were聽so many huge opportunities that I thought ‘this is my opportunity to get published’.

鈥淚鈥檝e still got the letter pinned up on my wall from 2012 when Crimson Publishing gave me a contract to write the book.

鈥淥f course, what was I thinking writing about cloud on paper? Because now it鈥檚 quaintly out of date! A lot of the ideas and principles and tools in it often are no longer relevant, though some are still really relevant and still work.鈥�