> This front-layer of computing power is also referred to as "fog computing" or "dew computing".
The bit about self-driving cars talking to a server to make split-second decisions is laughable but this right here just makes you want to flip the table.
If you're requirements are so extreme that you need to be on "the edge" you can do that today, it's called client-side development.
People have been doing client-side development for millennia. That's ancient. Who wants boring offline technology that's locked down from communication with the cloud where hundreds - no, thousands of servers are using algorithms that are constantly improved with machine learning?!
I kid. Mostly. Most sane people would agree with you. However some people can't see the forest for the trees. Has "buzzword-driven development" become a phrase yet?
What separates fog from client-side is the concept of hierarchical fog nodes. You could imagine the car's sensors as the edge devices and the car itself as a fog node. The whole fog hierarchy would be something like: edge devices - cars - intersections - ... - cloud. At the intersection level collisions could be avoided by processing data from local sensors and warning incoming cars.
The bit about self-driving cars talking to a server to make split-second decisions is laughable but this right here just makes you want to flip the table.
If you're requirements are so extreme that you need to be on "the edge" you can do that today, it's called client-side development.