I do not intend to produce a reference material with this blog post. At most, I'll get 'prior art' reference and avoid a corporation to patent this. 

Definition

Yet another "new" term for IT. 

What I mean with this "drops computing" is "distributed computing involving both machines 'in the cloud' and smaller connected machines like smartphones".

My point is that global computing power has grown in an important way in the last years. I am thinking of all the smartphones that have been sold lately.
What a waste of power to have them mostly do ... phone calls.

Nowadays, smartphones have capacities that sound similar to desktop PCs available a few years ago.
Altough they have different CPU architecture and less storage, I think you'll agree.

Do you remember that those PCs were used for distributed calculations via programs like Seti@Home ?
Whether it is decrypting alien gossip or the human genome, computing power is here, in our pockets.

Limitations

Battery

Description 

Imagine continuous usage of the phone. Battery would drain quickly.

Solution

Calculations only happen when the phone is charging OR battery level higher then a percentage to be determined by user.


Complexity

Description

Smartphones cannot hold a complex model in memory.

Solution

Give "easy jobs" to smartphones.

Network

Description

Connectivity is not always available.

Solution

Be honest. Advise users without a real unlimited data plan not to join. 




Side note :
An architecture involving cloud computing machines and portable machines (drops) could be called "rain computing". But that would not be a very bankable term.