Slashdot Mirror
The Future of the P.C.
scarcrowman writes "This is an interesting article on the projected future of what we call the 'P.C.' It is becoming more 'Personal' than ever."
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
Almost like the Truman Show. But when he says "every conversation," does he mean in audio or in text?
I guess this will be good for biographies. But who would want their life recorded?
Surely no one actually puts periods in PC, as in "P.C."?
Take off every sig. For great justice.
The thin-client/application-server model that scott mcnealy evangelized can't give me the privacy, immediate availability and control I must have. Don't get me wrong, I use lots of online applications and lots of computers which act essentially as mere terminals, but I'll always have a personal computer. I expect I'll be wearing an all-purpose computer in the future. On a side note: Anne Coulter has a Giant Hyena Clitorus
Bush was a load Barbara should've swallowed.
Brain implants! Finally, a terrabyte of storage in our brains. Now I can actually pass the calculus 2 final.
Is it just me who finds the article to be a tad strange? Perhaps it's the mulled wine but all it does is mumble about how we have technology that stores data, and we can buy things that store lots of data. What would be interesting is an analysis of what computer businesses are actually aiming at. I mean, we can see Apple are going for the digital lifestyle (iPod photo, iTunes, AirTunes etc.) but where are we actually going in terms of technology coming to the average user? I for one think that the bottleneck has to be our internet connections. Roll on household OC 48.
Before we get into a holy war over operating systems, set-top boxes, and other things that most of us probably don't want to argue about tonight, and for those of you who didn't RTFA, it basically looks at the possibilities of decentralising, if you will, certain functions of a PC.
I still believe, however, that the PC itself lacks a certain combination of features that other devices lack. A Tivo or XBox may be simpler to operate, but a PC is expandable and upgradable, simply does much more, and does those things better. A PC is more flexible, and that's what I believe counts. You can word-process or play games, browse the internet, whatever. But if you buy a bunch of 'appliances' to do those things, it really makes life MORE complicated, not less. I yield the floor.
Take off every sig. For great justice.
Disclaimer: I work for a company, but I don't speak for them.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I'm not sure how that makes me feel about supporting this company.. I wonder how much of what I spend on electronics already ends up there.
Which is worse: ignorance or apathy? Who knows? Who cares?
It is becoming more 'Personal' than ever." eventually it will become so personal that it will soon be called the personal computer, or PC. oh wait...
I thought what I'd do was, I'd pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes. - Catcher in the Rye
Coming from an Amiga background, I bought my first PC in 1994. Man was I dissapointed when I tried learning how to code for this thing (in assembly language). The whole memory management and real/protected modes are a travesty other archs didn't get encumbered with. The stupid (as in not very capable) BIOS doesn't help matters either, especially when you have to dink around with IRQs (which shouldn't be a problem anymore but can be, as I recently found myself trying to cram 4 PCI network cards in a i386 router). Plug and pray, indeed! Perhaps not coincidentally, quite a few PC BIOS's have had "interesting" bugs.
Things have gotten slightly better over the last decade, but damn if it doesn't feel like a big waste of time, considering there were better archs available 10 years ago.
With ideal compression, they are technically the same. Add some metadata that explains tone of voice, pacing, rhythum, cadence... 100 megs worth of samples of your voice. Why record the actual waveforms when they could be synthesized with a decent level of fidelity to the original?
I guess the only limiting factor at all, would be whether cpu performance increases more than storage in the coming years.
I think the "PC" as we know it is bound for a destiny as little more than a file server. I mean, let's look at some common uses of Joe six-pack's PC:
Playing songs and movies
Chatting with an IM, checking e-mail
Writing documents (letters, resumes)
Playing games
Let's start with the first one. Songs sound better through a full stereo set, we can all acknowledge that. Stereos right now are very good at playing audio: they aren't that great at holding the songs they play. Clunky 600 CD changers aren't really the answer. A PC can hold, index, categorize and search more songs in a smaller space than a CD changer ever could. With the advent of set-top boxes, playing and storing movies and videos is now almost practical in a non-PC device. However, a PC is still a more extensible platform for storing and retrieving video data. For display of video, a properly sized television is simply larger than my 17" monitor, and better suited for viewing from a distance. So playing your audio through your stereo and your video through your TV are both better options than just using your PC, but using your PC for storage and retrieval is the best way to look after data.
For chatting/e-mail, the PC is still the premiere platform. However, increasing numbers of people want to take their e-mail with them. Also, people may tend to both chat (IM) with a person they also call on their cell phone. Currently, synchronizing the data between your PDA, cell and computer on who can be contacted where is a pain in the butt. The PC is best suited to storing contact information, but a cell phone is better suited for phoning somebody, a Blackberry can check your e-mail anywhere and hopefully someday will be able to use IM as well (if it doesn't already?).
Although it's a long way off yet, e-paper is still being actively pursued as a better way of entering data. The modern PC, with it's QWERTY keyboard (a design meant to hinder speed, not help it) isn't the premiere choice for entering data. The e-paper with a clipboard could go more places than your PC ever could, but probably won't have the storage capacities that modern *cough*MS Office*cough* document formats require. So having a PC act to save and retrieve all the documents for your e-paper is probably the right combination of technologies.
As for game playing, we all know that both the console and PC games market aren't dying (haven't heard a peep out of Netcraft), but costs for a modern gaming PC are continuing to climb (look back at the pricing for a "budget" GeForce 2 card, now look at the price for a "budget" GeForce 6600 card). At the current rate, the "PC" that you play games on will be a completely different beast than the "PC" that is targeted towards the mass consumer market.
In the end, I'm trying to say that just about the only thing a PC does really well is store stuff. Playback and data entry are done much better by devices specialized for that task. So, in the long run, I think the PC will end up acting as a data server/hub for a variety of devices and server to keep them all in sync with one another. Just my $0.02
Too much repetition my too much repetition!
It seems that a similar transformation is occurring (has occurred?) in the computer industry. Instead of having one computer you use for everything, a multitude of small computerized devices now exists for fulfilling specific functions. Of course, a great deal of this is just natural, considering you wouldn't want to lug a desktop PC around with you whenever you wanted some tunes on the go. :-)
Are you airing a grievance?
Wasn't it on the 23rd?
People have been predicting the demise or decline of PCs forever. First it was the console, then PDAs, etc. But their argument usually starts out like this:
1. People generally use the PC for A, B, and C.
2. New devices are coming out that can do A, B, and C better.
3. So PC will decline or die out.
But they always forget why PCs became popular in the first place. PCs are GENERAL computing machines. With new software or upgrades they can take virutally any role. Their functions are virtually limitless. As a result they are often the nexus of different devices. They help bridge the conntection between other devices or give rise to new ones. How are you going to use your iPod without a PCs? The PC bridges the connection between Internet and iPod. The trend has been towards a convergence rather than a divergence of information and computing. A general computing device is what's going to make it happen, not individual devices that stay one way and operate apart from everything else.
EvilCON - Made Famous by
Somehow this reminds me of http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/graphics/ran d_computer.jpg/
- We have mapped out the brain and know how we can hook it up without making the victim, I mean subject, I mean Guinie Pig a vegtable.
- We can create this out of material that we know for certain will not have ill side efects. Such as the dye in the PCB on the processor.
- People (besides yourself) actually want their brains hooked into the internet. With what script kiddies do now, I know I sure as hell wouldn't be jacking in.
- You mention "who know, maybe even a TB of chemical memory". I dunno about anyone else but this sounds like you want to re-structure my biological signature and alter my electrical signals for technological advances. Sorry, but I like my brain functioning just fine.
- Lastly, you assume that "jacking in" to the brain stem with an ethernet port would work. There are upteen Million nerve endings connecting to my built in CPU (the biological one, not silicon) that I don't want f#*@ed up.
"But doesn't that make you wonder just how close we really are to a Matrix-like life?"-We're a long way off buddy. You show me an acurate map of the human brain, and CNS before you try to promote the creation of the borg.
DarkMantle I been bored, so I started a blog.
My notebook is a little too bulky and slow to start and my phone is a little too limited in input and display. My PDA attempted to cross that bridge but failed, although if I got a new high end it would come very close.
I think the best device would have a keyboard/trackball and a screen that flips up and a docking slot that the PDA plugs into. Wireless built in to the PDA for local LAN, with a slot for WAN broadband. Standard phone rechargers, docking bay has its own powersupply.
Max weight 2.5lbs.
Performance roughly equal to a low end PC.
If my computer gets any more personal, I'm getting a restraining order. My penis is just fine, dammit!
This article is nothing more than another forward looking year end article about the PC and what it may possibly become. Don't we kind of expect to read this kind of dross every year about this time. The author really has no special insight because, nobody does. The winds of change are fickle and blow at their own speed on their own terms.
Do I doubt that the PC will change? No. Do I expect that this article will be an accurate prediction of what we will see? Hell no.
I hope that the PC will remain a general device that can do many different things. To me, the versitility of the PC is the key to making it personal. Once you start integrating it with other things, it becomes less general and more specific to specialized tasks. When you integrate a PC with entertainment functions, it becomes a specific kind of tool - likely to be used for entertainment. If that is what you want, fine but I still like pulling up a spreadsheet in one window and surfing the net in another. Nobody else uses a PC exactly like I do and to me, that is what puts the "P" in PC.
I can see the value in different machines to record TV shows, play games, and to do "office work" but I see another side to it too. About the only way that I can explain it is to compare it to a collection of tools. A few years ago, when I was single living in an apartment, I kept my tools in a bucket under the sink. I had everything I needed, a hammer, a crescent wrench, a couple of screw drivers and a couple of pairs of pliers. Today, I own a home. I own woodworking tools, mechanic tools, yard tools, an air compressor, power tools, and many other specialty tools. My investment in tools must come to thousands of dollars. Yet most of these tools sit idle until I need them. I'd rather not have a bunch of computers that sit idle until I actually need them.
I want a more general single device to call a PC! More like that simple bucket of tools that did everything I need. If I don't have that, I see a huge investment in machines that I won't use nearly as often - kinda like my tool collection I have today.
..., you can have 1 Terabyte for free!
Take off every 'ZIG' !!
like many before you, you have missed it.
the flaw in your argument is assuming applications will not take advantage of the increases in performance.
believe it or not, most people don't think dual opterons with anything but a supermodel are sexy. they just want a computer to run their software well.
I have to use microsoft products for the bulk of my work needs, and a 1.5GHz processor is painful for me to use. 10 yrs ago that would have sounded crazy. All the comments around gaming primarily pushing the envelope indicate a major shift will happen that will drive the next technology boom. The software gurus just need to think big.
How big?
What do you think will be here in the next 10yrs - full time AI and voice recognition helping me with presentations, mail, and time and project management?
I think so.
or TCPA as it's called these days.
As far as I can see, if MS et al manages to push TCPA out the door we're all screwed. As far as privacy goes we're headed for a Orwellian society if TCPA gets accepted by manufacturers - MS will decide what software we run, what ISP we use and what we type in our email. We'll be using Freedom Operating System graciously provided by MS and munching Freedom Chocolate all the while constantly having MS monitor our email to make sure that we don't write any nasty stuff about our Gracious Liberator Bill Gates.
Admittedly though I am quite the cynic about these things.
I enjoy large posteriors and I cannot prevaricate.