Featured in Five is a monthly section where we pose five questions to a Computing Reviews featured reviewer. Here are the responses from our April featured reviewer, M. Sasikumar.
Q) What is the most important thing that has happened in computing in the past 10 years?
A) Hard to pinpoint one specific event out of the huge number of strides made in the last decade. In a sense, the biggest game changer has been the phenomenal increase in computing power, including network capacity. This has enabled a lot of old ideas like deep learning to become practical.
Q) If you weren't working in the computer science field, what would you be doing instead?
A) Perhaps aeronautical engineering, which was the alternative to computer science I was given when taking admission in engineering. Of course, today, aeronautics is also full of computing!
Q) By the end of your career, where do you think computer science will have taken us? What are you working on that might contribute toward that?
A) Computing is going through a phase of rapid change, making any prediction hard. One direction I would like to see is accessible programming for ordinary people, just as computing as a technology has evolved. Programming would reach the level of human-to-human communication, with keyboard and mouse and difficult syntax a thing of the past. I have teams working in speech and language technologies, which is one of the emerging approaches to human-computer interaction (HCI). A b brain-computer interface (BCI) is another relevant technology in this direction.
Q) Who is your favorite historical figure? Why?
A) Mahatma Gandhi, the Father of the Nation in India, for having led a nation to freedom with simplicity, truth, and non-violence as the primary weapons.
Q) What is your favorite type of music?
A) Carnatic music.
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Click here to read one of Dr. Sasikumar’s reviews.