Researchers from North Carolina State University and the University of Oregon have found a new way of performing large scale computing tasks through cloud based browsers.
The researchers claimed that the cloud based browser could allow mobile devices like smartphones with limited computing power to perform large scale computing tasks.
Cloud browser can create a web interface in cloud though which computing tasks can be performed in the cloud instead of performing it on the devices.
The researchers claimed that cloud-computing paradigm pools the computational power and storage of multiple computers, allowing it to be used by the devices for multiple users.
NC State University assistant professor of computer science and co-author of the research paper Dr. William Enck said: "Think of a cloud browser as being just like the browser on your desktop computer, but working entirely in the cloud and providing only the resulting image to your screen,"
Since the cloud browsers are designed to perform complex functions, the researchers experimented with them to perform a series of large-scale computing tasks that had nothing to do with browsing.
The researchers tried to ascertain whether the computing tasks can be performed using the "MapReduce" technique developed by Google, which allows coordinated computation involving parallel efforts by multiple machines.
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During the trial, the researchers used the technique to perform standard computation functions with data packets 1, 10 and 100 megabytes.
"It could have been much larger, but we did not want to be an undue burden on any of the free services we were using," Enck said,
"And one of the broader ramifications of this is that it could be done anonymously. For instance, a third party could easily abuse these systems, taking the free computational power and using it to crack passwords."
