The Next 25 Years in Tech

PCWMike writes "PCs may disappear from your desk by 2033. But with digital technology showing up everywhere else — including inside your body — computing will only get more personal, reports Dan Tynan for PC World's 25th Anniversary. While convenience will be increased by leaps and bounds, it will come at a profound loss in our sense of what privacy means. 'Technology will become firmly embedded in advanced devices that deliver information and entertainment to our homes and our hip pockets, in sensors that monitor our environment from within the walls and floors of our homes, and in chips that deliver medicine and augment reality inside our bodies. This shiny happy future world will come at a cost, though: Think security and privacy concerns. So let's hope that our jetpacks come with seat belts, because it's going to be a wild ride.'"

Comments

southland tales

[jameseyjamesey]

scientists say the future will be 33% more futuristic

WTF?

[mrbcs]

What is this? Bullshit day on Slashdot?
First they took away our lan,
then the internet infrastructure stateside needs $100 million,
now they want to take away my computer.. shit. give it up already.

These guys can barely forecast seasons and they're going to tell us what's going to happen in 25 years? As the tag says, "Where's my flying car?"

PCs may disappear from your desk by 2033.

[verbalcontract]

PCs may disappear from your desk by 2033 when the superintelligent robots vaporize your desk and everything underneath it.

there, fixed that for you.

Re:Disappear from the desk?

[blindd0t]

Only if it becomes part of the desk...there will always be a place for desks and tables...

Yep! Big ass tables are the next big thing!

We are living through history, folks

[Pojut]

Seriously. Think about it. I'm 23 years old. My generation has lived through:

-Multiple, world-influencing major conflicts.
-The introduction, widespread distribution, and near-anywhere access of the Internet (which, in my opinion, is one of our greatest achievements as humans.)
-The rise of wireless mobile devices that have the potential to function anywhere in the world.
-Computers moving from universities and government orgs, taking up entire rooms, to becoming nearly universal in our homes, cars, and pockets.
-The rise of communication to the point where an actor can die in New York, and within ONE HOUR the entire world knowing of it (those parts of the world that has access to the net, radio, and/or TV of course)
-9/11 (one of the most world-changing events in modern history)

And many more. Seriously folks. We are living through one of the most exciting and important parts of history in the entire time-line of our species.

Centuries from now, people will be wondering "Imagine what it was like to live through the era where in roughly one century we went from taking weeks to get a message across a country and taking literally MONTHS to travel across the sea... to the point where you could talk to someone on the other side of the world using a device no bigger than your fist, and could travel from New York to Australia in a matter of hours."

And you know what? We are lucky enough to experience it first hand. Be grateful, folks. Someday, all of us will be the stuff of history and legend.

Re:We are living through history, folks

[Stanistani]

Pish. My dad was born in 1924. He experienced the Great Depression, served in WWII, Korea, lived through Vietnam, riots, a massive increase in crime, saw technology enable us to break the sound barrier, vaporize cities, shrink a building-sized computer to a twelve-inch box, and land on the moon.

We're dwarfs.

Re:We are living through history, folks

[bigstrat2003]

That's a pretty broad assumption. I'm 23 as well. I've used a rotary phone plenty, definitely used a record player, I know what leaded gas and carburetors are (even if they haven't exactly been every day fixtures for me, that doesn't mean I'm unaware of them), and I've definitely seen a TV without a remote.

Being young doesn't mean you lack knowledge of recent history.

Re:We are living through history, folks

[RobBebop]

"Imagine what it was like to live through the era where in roughly one century we went from taking weeks to get a message across a country and taking literally MONTHS to travel across the sea... to the point where you could talk to someone on the other side of the world using a device no bigger than your fist, and could travel from New York to Australia in a matter of hours."

Imagine what it was like to live through the era when Iron was being developed that could slice right through the Bronze that protected inferior armies... to the point where you could rape and pillage an entire village in under a week. You could march from Cairo to Rome in a matter of years and being conquering and conquering all along the way!

No, seriously. Technology in the future is going to be *way* cooler than it is now. You never reflect on what life was like for your grandparents before the automobile or refrigerators were standards for every family. Your grandchildren won't reflect on what life was like for you without the internet or the cell phone...

Re:We are living through history, folks

[fontkick]

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.

2033

[hawks5999]

The Year of Linux on the Desktop!

Re:In the future there will be more lame predictio

[Ashtead]

We'll be oke for food, but busy worrying about and fixing the Year 2038 bug which is due in another 5 years, when old 32-bit unix-family systems will set their clocks back to 1901.