Your Mobiles & Computers will not function good after year 2038

Here is a huge bug found , which will occurs problem for computing devices & Smart Systems like Smart Mobile, Computer OS & Unix based 32-bit all the applications. 

The Year 2038 problem is an issue for computing and data storage situations in which time values are stored or calculated as a signed 32-bit integer, and this number is interpreted as the number of seconds since 00:00:00 UTC on 1 January 1970 ("the epoch"). Such implementations cannot encode times after 03:14:07 UTC on 19 January 2038, a problem similar to but not entirely analogous to the "Y2K problem" (also known as the "Millennium Bug"), in which 2-digit values representing the number of years since 1900 could not encode the year 2000 or later. Most 32-bit Unix-like systems store and manipulate time in this "Unix time" format, so the year 2038 problem is sometimes referred to as the "Unix Millennium Bug" by association.

Animation showing how the date would reset, represented as a signed 32-bit integer (at 03:14:08 UTC on 19 January 2038).

Technical cause:

The latest time that can be represented in Unix's signed 32-bit integer time format is 03:14:07 UTC on Tuesday, 19 January 2038 (2,147,483,647 seconds after 1 January 1970).Times beyond that will "wrap around" and be stored internally as a negative number, which these systems will interpret as having occurred on 13 December 1901 rather than 19 January 2038. This is caused by integer overflow. The counter "runs out" of usable bits, "increments" the sign bit instead, and reports a maximally negative number (continuing to count up, toward zero). Resulting erroneous calculations on such systems are likely to cause problems for users and other relying parties.

Programs that work with future dates will begin to run into problems sooner; for example a program that works with dates 20 years in the future will have to be fixed no later than 2018.

Vulnerable Systems:

Embedded systems that use dates for either computation or diagnostic logging are most likely to be affected by the 2038 bug.

Many transportation systems from flight to automobiles use embedded systems extensively. In automotive systems, this may include anti-lock braking system (ABS), electronic stability control (ESC/ESP), traction control (TCS) and automatic four-wheel drive; aircraft may use inertial guidance systems and GPS receivers. However this does not imply that all these systems will suffer from the bug. Many such systems will not require access to dates. For those that do, those systems which only track the difference between times/dates and not absolute times/dates will, by the nature of the calculation, not experience a problem. This is the case for automotive diagnostics based on legislative standards such as CARB.

Another major use of embedded systems is in communications devices, including cell phones and Internet appliances (routers, wireless access points, etc.) which rely on storing an accurate time and date and are increasingly based on UNIX-like operating systems. For example, the bug makes some Android devices crash and not restart when the time is changed to that date.

As of 2012, most embedded systems use 8-bit or 16-bit microprocessors, even as desktop systems are transitioning to 64-bit systems.

Despite the modern 18–24-month generational update in computer systems technology, embedded systems are designed to last the lifetime of the machine in which they are a component. It is conceivable that some of these systems may still be in use in 2038. It may be impractical or, in some cases, impossible to upgrade the software running these systems, ultimately requiring replacement if 32-bit time_t limitations are to be corrected.

MySQL database's inbuilt functions like UNIX_TIMESTAMP() will return 0 after 03:14:07 UTC on 19 January 2038.

Data Structure With Time Problem:

Many data structures in use today have 32-bit time representations embedded into their structure. A full list of these data structures is virtually impossible to derive but there are well-known data structures that have the Unix time problem:

• file systems (many filesystems use only 32 bits to represent times in inodes)
• binary file formats (that use 32-bit time fields)
• databases (that have 32-bit time fields)
• database query languages, like SQL that have UNIX_TIMESTAMP() like commands
• COBOL systems of 1970s - 1990s vintage that have not been replaced by 2038-compliant systems
• embedded factory, refinery control and monitoring subsystems
• assorted medical devices
• assorted military devices

Each one of these places where data structures using 32-bit time are in place has its own risks related to failure of the product to perform as designed.

So we should try to adopt 64-bit operating systems. Like Windows new versions & avoid Linux Based operating system like Android or Mac OS.

References: Google, Wikipedia