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Preparing For Life After the PC
New submitter Doctor_Jest links to a recent I, Cringely column, in which Cringely "is speculating how the world will look when the 'Post-PC' era is in full swing." He makes the case that in just a few upgrade cycles, extensible phones and other devices, coupled with remotely stored data, could replace most of today's conventional PCs — but also admits he thought this transition would have already happened.
And this is my FP.
Remember what we can do with computers now, because if the industry has it's way, within a few years technology more capable than various sizes of smartphones will be unheard of.
Hmm, there is going to be a continuing and significnt need for a device that has a real keyboard for all the people who write a lot of text every day; substantial local CPU power and storage for people that do stuff like development, modeling and simulations; good screens and specialized input devices for people that do graphical design CAD and the like.
Now, that device might not be an X86 box that runs Windows, so in that sense it may well be "Post PC". But to all intents and purposes it will look and act very much like the laptop and desktop machines i have today.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
I don't see how this vision ever becomes a reality in a world where putting significant computing power on my desk and fully under my control is dirt cheap. Comparatively a tablet or phone has a klunky and imprecise interface, poor processing power and needs more external support. Also the value of having a powerful processor in the box greatly speeds compute operations in many cases.
Wake me up once one of those toys can compete with an actual 3D graphics workstation.
I wanted to write a detailed rebuttal. But I don't have the patience to enter it in my phone.
I don't see people coding on devices with inferior screen(sizes), cpu power and input devices.
I can finally take the floppy disk storage case off my desk!
How many more "the PC is dead" story's are we going to get?
People have been saying the PC is dead since the 90's
From TFA:
It takes society thirty years, more or less, to absorb a new information technology into daily life. It took about that long to turn movable type into books in the fifteenth century. Telephones were invented in the 1870s but did not change our lives until the 1900s. Motion pictures were born in the 1890s but became an important industry in the 1920s. Television, invented in the mid-1920’s, took until the mid-1950s to bind us to our sofas.
We still have books and telephones and movies and tv's so what the hell is his point?
ps--Judging by his photo in the banner, his blog ought to be called, "I, Crinkly".
As I enter this on my smart. Phone. I can't help but this.k that this demise of the PC is highly exaggerated. Keyboards and mice and the number pad are all much more efficient and less error prone, and therefore faster and more headache free ways to enter data. Until smart phones and tablets and other upcoming "smart devices" can compete in this regard (as well as screen real estate), the PC/laptop in business at the very least isn't going anywhere. I don't want someone angering any of my financial I.to on an autocorrecting tablet touch screen. And for those who might choose this argument, a ta let with a cover or keybiard accessory is really a laptop. Anyway having read the author's previous work I don't need to read thus one to k ow it should have been titled, "Cringley Jumps On The Bandwagon Again With Nothing Useful To Say Or Hasn't Already Been Said A Dozen Times Before, Or Both."
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
In 1992 he predicted the death of the pc as we know it based on the observation that it took technologies like book printing and telephony about 30 years to become absorbed in everyday life. But did society have to prepare for life after books because most books are pocket books now? They're still books. Dit we have to prepare for life after telephones when the dial was introduced, or when it was replaced with a keypad? They're still telephones. And neither telephones nor personal computers disappear now that they are merged into smartphones.
The personal computer as IBM originally made it, of course that will disappear. But if that kind of narrow definition is the norm we shouldn't call books books or telephones telephones anymore.
So, when PCs have finally solved the problem of reliably working with standard OS and data (thanks to FOSS) we scrap it all to be more dependent on external providers.
It's not like prices will go up when the cloud becomes the only choice, oh no.
I said "we" but in truth, it's "they", the guys who seek more control over our computing experience (and have been doing so since they started closing the source and making a guy called Stallman have a working printer).
---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
In TFA Cringely states: "Radio was invented with the original idea that it would replace telephones and give us wireless communication. That implies two-way communication, yet how many of us own radio transmitters?"
He is apparently unaware that cellphones, tablets, etc. use radio transmitters (technically transceivers) to communicate with cell towers, WiFi access points, Bluetooth headsets, etc.
The reason is has not happened yet is sheer momentum, and the basic fact of human nature that people resist change.
Look at Slashdot readers, who you would think would be on the vanguard of this technological shift. Instead they are some of the clingiest whiniest buggy-whip holdingist resistors of change to be found, simply because post-PC devices cannot yet replace high-end CAD workstations or some other such uber-specialized nonsense that do not matter to the general trend.
The kids in grade school (at this point possibly even college), they know. They have no preconceptions to hold them back and can work in ways that supposedly modern technologists will not even try.
Another decade or so and you'll see the last remnants of the technological old guard washed away by inevitable change.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Is there anybody that has replaced the home computer completely ?
only a retard makes a post like this
only the king of retards believes it
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Whenever I see people saying this, I wonder how many people actually use their computer to do real work.
I work as a recording engineer. You can buy non-PC devices to do the actual recording if you want, but even in that case mixing and post-processing really does require a computer with vast amounts of local CPU power and storage, in addition to some highly specialised equipment (such as external audio interfaces that connect via Firewire or even PCI cards). You can't record ten simultaneous tracks of uncompressed 24-bit, 48 khz audio to the cloud. I'm sure the same is true of many other fields like video and graphics production, software development, and scientific number crunching.
Sure, grandma probably doesn't need a full-blown PC to look at emailed pictures of her family, and maybe the "post-PC" era will benefit her. But I do worry what will happen to the PC world if major manufacturers keep taking their focus away from people who really do require serious equipment. (Hello, Apple, selling 2010 Mac Pros for 2014 prices, with an operating system that's leading the charge towards turning your desktop computer into an iPad!)
He's just showing us how he's 29 years ahead of the curve by adopting Instagram into his "professional" work.
My sister opened a computer store in Hawaii. She sells C shells by the seashore.
You cannot put a 300W+ GPU in a smart-phone.
I can't help but think that most people are looking at this the wrong way. I definitely think that the classic pc form factor will be around for a while yet, though it will likely become more niche with time. There are jobs that will need the raw computing power of the desktop for some time yet, there is no doubt there. But I definitely think that over time form factors will get smaller, and eventually, surely within the next 20-50 years, you will generally have enough computing power to do whatever is needed in a device that sits in your pocket. Will all desktop-style input and output devices go away? probably not, at least not the keyboard. Though it may change drastically.
It seems likely that monitors will be superseded in large part by high-resolution ar glasses, once they become practical. Why have a physical monitor when you can have as many virtual ones floating in front of you? I think that they may persist for design if color accuracy and etc in glasses lags, but past that there seems little reason for them to.
I think all of this will take a bit longer than people think, but it is a definite eventuality. I just don't think we'll be going all-mobile with today's technology just yet.
The problem with such predictions is that they rely on the smartphone being a full replacement for a PC. And that's just not the case.
There's the obvious problems - typing large amounts of text, or doing things that require more processing power than a smartphone will have in the foreseeable future. These have been covered to death already; I won't bother reiterating them.
But then there's the lesser obstacles. Let me bring in some anecdotal evidence. I was feeling nostalgic, and wanted to play some of my old Game Boy Color games. I figured I should do so on my phone, rather than try to drag yet another bulky piece of electronics around. Finding an emulator was easy enough (finding one that didn't display ads was tougher, but doable). And I easily found a ROM file (just in case you're spying on me, MAFIAA, yes, I still have those games on cartridge, so bugger off).
But, every time I tried to download it, it prompted me for what program to open it in. And it only listed the ones that had registered themselves as being able to open .ZIP filesl the emulator was not among them. There was no option for "save the file locally, I'll handle opening it". None at all.
So in order to actually get it to work, I had to hook it up to my computer and copy the file over. Such a simple task, but it couldn't do it.
There are many other times I've tried to do something on my phone, but been unable to without using a PC. Here's a big one - development. You can code for Linux, on Linux. You can code for Windows, on Windows. I've even coded for freaking TI calculators, *on* the calculator. But you can't code for Android on an Android device, nor can you code for iPhone on an iPhone.
The running theme of it seems to be that smartphones and tablets are designed as consumers of data, not producers. But, given how essential producing data is to modern society, that means they will never replace the PC until that fundamental design concept is thrown out. Sure, for some, even many, uses, they're adequate, or at least capable of doing the task (if slower and more awkwardly). But so many common things remain impossible.
The more paranoid among you are probably preparing a rant about how this is $BIG_EVIL_CONGLOMERATE's wet dream, and something something 1984 something something DRM something from my cold dead hands. But that's not the case. Even *if* you posit a dystopian future where the $BEC controls everything, there will *still* be PCs, because *someone* will still have to produce data. They may become much less common, but a PC, or a PC-functional device, *will* be necessary.
Now, it could be possible that smartphones will change to have this type of functionality, and would be able, in theory, to replace PCs. But *that* seems unlikely, because the form factor itself, as well as limitations of technology, makes them very poor PC replacements.
[1] Note that, throughout, I use the term "PC" for "workstation, desktop or notebook". OS does not matter - your Mac is a PC; your Linux desktop is a PC; even that one guy still running CP/M is using a PC.
What’s keeping us using desktops and even notebook, then, are corporate buying policies, hardware replacement cycles, and inertia.
While I actually agree with the assertion that laptops are on the way out, I don't ever see a day I *won't* want to have my own dedicated box. And what's going to keep me buying (or, rather, building) desktop computers is customizability and control. I don't want Google, Amazon, HTC, Apple or anyone else telling me what my computer should be. I don't want an internet outage to prevent me from using my machine, I don't want to be told what software I can or cannot install on my machine, and I don't want to be a slave to a company's repair center whenever I need to do a simple replacement. It's in the name: Personal Computer.
I'm not saying that thin clients don't have their place, and I don't doubt that their popularity will rise, but I don't think the PC is going anywhere.
Steve Jobs used the analogy of trucks and cars; some of us need trucks for heavy lifting and special tasks, but most of us don't. The PC running Solitaire on a receptionist's desk will probably go away; the engineer's workstation will not.
Come on guy's, this is happening all over the place, my parents do 90% of their computer stuff on a tablet and when I am not at work as a storage guy I use my ipad for almost all my stuff together with a synology nas.
I see almost all my none tech friends moving to tablets after the move drom the desktop to the laptop, an ipad or android tablet can be found in most my my friends livingroom and it seems to be the perfect device for almost all tasks.
I have a 4 year old pc that will do all the video editing i can't do on on my tablet but what other tasks would I need a pc for, i can't think of any.
While web browsing and all that jazz might be relegated to phones and whatnot, even simple things like word processing (things "real people" do) become frustrating without a decent amount of screen real estate and stable input methods. While something like Surface answers (barely) this, it's really "just" a laptop with a flexible keyboard and a touchscreen. Even the most technologically inept person realises that a keyboard is pretty useful for fast typing. I use "the cloud" all the time for personal things, but there have been a few times ( my wifi decides to stop working or my ISP decides to stop working or Dropbox decides to stop working) where I've welcomed my local fallback. Imagining that we're going towards a no-storage future ignores the problems our current infrastructure has.
Much easier to get at your stuff that way
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
In my tech support job, I still deal on a daily basis with people for whom the personal computer is a hateful thing they want to have nothing to do with. This technology is not yet fully integrated into our society.
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Calling for the end of the PC forgets the definition of a personal computer. I'd say that, far from being the end, Smart phones and tablets are more the "personal" part of the PC than a Desktop. Besides, until you can have the graphics and cooling that a PC has, handhelds will never meet the gaming or graphics design requirements of PC's. The traditional desktop is becoming a niche type of PC, not disappearing.
I would argue, however, that the laptop IS threatened. Wedged between the portability of a smartphone and the expandability and durability of a desktop, the laptop, even in ultra form, is fast becoming obsolete. If others go the way of Apple, and do away with the ability to even fix them or expand them, in five years laptops may go the way of netbooks.
Yes, small mobile devices have as much, or more, compute power (including display processing) as PC's of a few years ago. And yes, solid state storage is cheap enough to make a mobile device a practical platform for most uses, but for one thing - the user interface. Just try to get real work done on a tablet. Sure, if you're "work" is a single task, with a UI that is suited to small displays, and if your input doesn't involve much typing at all, that will work. But if you run multiple apps at once, and have to actually type any significant number of characters like say, a paragraph on a /. post, tiny touch screens suck, hard. So Cringe has it right, partly. I'm willing to allow that "the PC" will look quite different in 10 or 15 years. I expect that it will involve a wearable heads-up display of some type. If we don't get that, the screens on my desk will still be there.
All these arguments here over input devices and 3D capable workstations and "powerful" processors vs. "weak" tablets and smartphones. Give me a break.
We're talking about the FUTURE here. Rewind 10 years and tell me you EVER thought you would be sitting around with 3 terabytes and 32GB of RAM inside your "personal" computer at home for less than $1000. Now go ahead and TRY and predict what kind of computing power we're going to be literally holding in the palm of our hands in another 10 years as you complain about 3D capability and resolution (ironically while you hold your 2048 x 1536 iPad in your hand) .
As far as keyboards go, we're only beginning to see what interfaces like Siri can do. Yes, I love my keyboard and can type with speed. But it is still no match for my voice, and I would much rather use THE most efficient method of input. The average person can speak MUCH faster than they can type (250 - 300WPM), and as long as that statistic rings true (along with increasing levels of car accidents due to texting instead of looking at the damn road), we WILL have many reasons to move away from a box of keys.
Sorry, but considering what computing power has done in the last 10 - 20 years, I've given up on trying to predict the wonders of tomorrow, but I'm sure not going to simply dismiss them based on archaic mentality.
we would like to think that everyone uses the pc/mac the way we geeks and nerds do ... but they don't! probably because they don't know how.. ;-P
in my podcast this week we talk about how the surface cold change the IT world if Microsoft does not screw it up!
but the real question that the Podcast tries to evoke is ... How long before all computing is done from your phone... to a monitor and BT keyboard?
is that not the real ask of the computing gods
About four years ago, I built a nifty little system for under a thousand bucks, overclocked it to 3.6 gigs, put a $200 graphics card in it, and discovered that it was the fastest computer (that someone could actually use) on one of the more prestigious college campuses in the nation. Faster than any computer an employee could regularly use, and more alarming, faster than any computer any student built in that time (apparently rich kids don't build their own).
The university in question has subsequently skipped every replacement cycle since then, and at least two cycles before that. They're pushing cloud computing, tablets and smartphones on the employees (because employees have to pay for those last two themselves). The higher-ups of course violated their own policy, but they all bought laptops--so they're still slower than I was.
The university's rankings are dropping like a stone and it will soon be out of the top 25 in part because US News creates its rankings based upon student access to powerful computing. The cloud computing scheme doesn't work and never will because the U's thin clients and shitty Dell integrated graphics on their shitty Pentium IV computers do not have the bandwidth to display a remotely-generated screen at 30 fps.
In four years, the campus notices posted on billboards by students have gone from elaborate photoshops to phone-generated text printouts in Arial and Times New Roman. Most of the IT department trundles around campus all day long on shitty Gem EVs (purchased "because they looked cool") that are broken six months out of every year, spending most of each day repairing Dell computers that weren't worth a damn new but which are now irreplaceable to my shitty former University.
And I'm right there with them in computing hell, because I killed my rig--which would STILL be the best computer that place ever had.
Many of us, specifically the ones that create or are techies, will have a "PC" always. the Post PC era is for the appliance operators, the ones that treat the PC as a toaster, and it's about time this happened. I have always said that a computer is NOT what most people need, they need something that is like a game machine. Fixed OS they cant write to, and software as read only. Give them a space they can write to for storage and call it done. An Xbox360 or PS3 kind of device that is a home computer.
Luckily it's coming to pass. and all people that have done IT support in their life will rejoice.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
...where retards don't post bullshit like this as "news" and "fact", when in reality,
there are two use cases: Consumertards who just consume,
and people who actually use computers as computers. You know: To 1. *automate* 2. *your work* away. (Hint: They all use Linux, because OS X and Windows, being consumer/toy/gadget operating systems, lack the capabilities for that. [They also don’t use any "desktop environment" for the actual computer using part.])
Seriously... *facepalm*
The key is that the screen size is largely proportional to the amount and type of content being consumed or created.
Small screens are great for basic consumption of small games, music, messages, phone calls; but they are terrible for say editing a word doc, or editing a video. Larger, say iPad screens are great for more complicated consumption like movies or more complicated games. They are also good for basic data entry like say simple form entry; they are still terrible for any content creation beyond a very short document. A laptop is good for some programming, accounting, and a sweet spot for typing documents (probably as they are nearly the same size as a typewriter.) Gaming is better on laptops but still not that great. Keep in mind that gaming in a weird way is content creation as your inputs are as important as what happens on screen. Think of how many "key strokes" in a common game.
The single monitor PC is better for programming, video editing, accounting, and gaming. But it is when you get to the multi monitor setup that content creation is king. There is nothing better when programming, video editing, even editing.
Post-PC is a terrible term, what has been terrible is having Joe-surfs-alot using powerhouse of a machine to watch people puking on each other on YouTube. He should have had an iPad. The professionals will use PCs and the mass-consumers will use more locked in devices.
This also circles around to how the OS will be configured. For joe-surfs-alot the device is best locked up tight as any flexibility will result in misconfigurations and breakage. But a programmer or business user has to be able to tailor the machine to the exact configuration needed for maximum efficiency. As a programmer I have my machine set up in ways that would just be annoying and stupid for most of my non-programming family. The terminal in my dock would be the smallest example of this.
The simple question is what device will be used to create iPad applications? Or the iPad OS?
Make him type that article on a tablet and see if he still thinks that. I'm getting REALLY sick of this bullshit.
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I know that smartphones are rapidly evolving, but I think that it's going to take more than 3 or 4 years before they have enough memory, storage, and CPU power to take over the duties of a desktop PC.
At the rate they are progressing, a smartphone plugged into a docking station should by able to handle web surfing, e-mail, and light office work in a few years. Something more intensive like PC gaming or video editing? Give it another decade or so.
For the average Joe/Jane Doe, having a home PC isn't really necessary anymore. Smartphones and tablets have given the average people access to what they really want tech for. Phone/texting, camera/video, internet/email access, social and other apps written for home/business. Youtube &movies, games, gps navigation... It's all there for them in their 'pocket computer'. At best, one home pc/router for wi-fi and that's it, the entire household shares that. PC's will be becoming something that a hard-core tech person will use to write the programs that consumers will pay money for, and that's the natural evolution of technology happening today, and in the future. It's not a bad thing. The smart tech people who survive and prosper will be the ones who are able to adapt to change and take advantage of said change. No worries. It'll still mean coding jobs, 1's and 0's and knowledge of math, that will always be needed.
The 'post PC' era is nothing to do with tablets, phones, and touchscreens
It's the 'post open-platform era' - where all software is censored and taxed by each platform's monopolistic App Store.
This is a human factors issue. Look, the form factor for tablets and phones is just wrong for most *work*. WORK. Remember that stuff? Sure, I can watch videos or play games on my phone, but I'm not going to be editing a spreadsheet, editing an engineering drawing, or typing a novel on my tablet any time soon. Servers and portables with keyboards are going to be around until we get practically useful direct neural I/O.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
This makes the assumption that the network and remote data store is always available. That is not the case. It is simply not there in many locations, slow in others, unreliable even where it does exist. I want my data in my 'hands'. I backup to my home and business servers. I don't want to be backing up or remotely using my data over someone else's network or storage.
An often ignored issue is that the police, and bad guys, can simply take your data if it is stored in the cloud. You have no data security over the net, even with encryption. The courts have said the police don't need warrants for that but they do need a warrant to invade your house. Keep your data at home.
Wake me up, when my phone can be customized and automated as much as Maya!
EVERYTHING you see should be just a frontend, rendered from the script/CLI backend. And EVERYTHING you do, should result in a CLI command and hence part of a script.
The only thing that comes close, is things like Firefox and Eclipse. But they are not nearly as comfortable to extend and modify as Maya.
The problem is, that consumertards don't understand the concept of a computer at all. They have never automated anything, written any scripts or changed any triggers. They have only used appliances/gadgets, that happened to be implemented on a a computer.
Hence they see no point in the computer part of the computer.
Which is why their opinion doesn't count. Period.
1. If you need to do grunt work: typing, coding, spreadsheets, etc .... then you will probably need a PC or at the very least a really powerful laptop.
2. If you are the guy calling the shots: the leader or at least the manager; then a smart phone, tablet or some other portable device that handles communication is all you need - and even then it's a second choice because the most important communication is going to be face to face. That is why the decision makers and strategists are the ones schlepping to the airport every other day and for them, even a laptop is too bulky and over-powered. A tablet and a cell phone are all that's really needed and it saves the company a bit of money. If there really needs something to be typed and a spreadsheet to be done, the assistant does it and emails for approval.
We're at a point where the hardware isn't the issue, which is where this guy seems to be focused. We HAVE wireless keyboards and mice now. Even wireless monitors exists. The smartphones we carry are quite powerful hardware-wise. We're THERE as far as hardware goes. It'll continue to evolve of course, but it's not what's lacking.
What's lacking now is software. NOBODY has quite managed to get it right yet.
What I mean is this... in my ideal world, and I suspect what would wind up being ideal for everyone else too, is a docking station that I can plop my phone into, connect it to my 1-n monitors, keyboard and mouse, and work on it as I do my desktop today. Now, a few companies have some of this available today of course. The Atrix goes to laptop, as does the Transformer.
But what none of them yet do is present me with a PROPER desktop operating system. What exists today simply brings up Android again, more or less the same as on the phone alone, just enlarged to fill the screen. That's not good enough. I need an operating system tailored to the desktop environment, just like I need one tailored to the smartphone form factor. They need to adjust much better than they do today (laptops sit in the middle I think, where you could go either way).
When on my desktop I NEED multiple monitors and I DON'T need a touch-based interface. When I'm on my laptop I need something that's probably a bit of a mixture. And on my phone I need that truly mobile-oriented design.
Microsoft is MAYBE thinking along these lines a little with Windows 8 and Surface, but for me Windows 8 is an abortion that needs to be killed, killed with fire, as quickly as humanly possible. But, they may at least have this concept in their minds. I think Asus and their Transformer line is probably closest to making it happen (they are coming out with a monitor docking station for example) but until they (a) can tailor Android to be more appropriate for a desktop and (b) allow for multiple monitors, it's probably not going to be ideal either.
It really doesn't even SEEM all that hard really... how about something the size of a Mac Mini with a slot for your phone? The chassis is really nothing but a USB hub, maybe some PCIe slots for graphics cards and whatnot, and some video outs. When you plug the phone in that's your CPU and memory (maybe the chassis augments it?) and all your apps are there, on multiple monitors if you wish, but the OS now tailors itself (and the apps it runs) to that environment rather than the phone. I don't mean to imply this is a piece of cake to pull off, but come on, it's also not THAT big a deal, is it?
That's what I want, and that's what I think someone is going to pull off in the not-too-distant future, and that's what will be the big hit and the real paradigm-shifting creation. Even "data in the cloud" would seem less important at that point really.
If a pion (n-) collides with a proton in the woods & noone is there to hear it, does lamdba decay into the source pa
All you gotta do is read the weekly stories of company X shutting down service Y. And it isn't the small companies going out of business. Kodak, Google, etc .... companies years ago you'd say would have been safe bets.
Said as one who lost a series of web pages built up over 5 years when some cloud computing's execs decided to terminate a platform and their "move and translate" process wouldn't handle a file name with a "?" in it.
I want more control over my own destiny than the cloud gives me. Better I blame myself for a screwup and have some profit motive decide for (or is it against) me.
In five years you'll only have Apple. And the world will be a better place.
This isn't going to happen on Windows. Could finally be the year of Linux on the desktop, though. Windows EULA specifically prohibits one shared computer with multiple users without a license for each user. Run any microsoft app, like Office, and you are doubly screwed. If a person wanted to be legal, this setup would cost a fortune, because you are really getting into Windows Server territory.
I've set up a desktop Linux (Ubuntu) with FreeNX. Holy cow, we are just a Linux-based Quickbook client away from taking over the corporate world. All the licensing issues go right out the er....Window(s).
I could easily see a Linux version of your plan taking over the world, though. No matter how powerful PCs get, Microsoft isn't going to just let one copy of Windows work where it used to take 4.
Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, religion destroys spirituality
Home PCs have pushed back game consoles. Home PCs are now the platform of choice for gaming. There's going to be lots of mobile computing, but people will keep using one computer at their main work desk, and one at home that more powerful with all those less mobile accessories that make a home pc more comfortable to use for long periods of time.
The post-PC world will look much like the post-paper office does... how long ago did they predict the paperless office again?
There are certain things that aren't possible on IOS/Android/WebOS whatever, but all of these OS's work fine as a thin client to some other OS. Given a fast and fully functional remote desktop application, mouse, keyboard, and large display there's a full environment.. The drawbacks are bandwidth/latency and quality of remote application.
So carriers are back-pedaling out of offering unlimited data packages for phones -- yet the "cloud is the future". Right.
The technology that we've grown accustom to over the past few decades won't simply be uprooted by a mobile competitor. Phones haven't replaced PCs; they compliment them. They work perfectly for the social side of things because they can be used when a computer is out-of-reach and slightly impractical.
But don't fool yourself -- no one is going to write a paper on a phone or a touch pad. Someone who wants to watch a movie or really do anything outside of the practical limits of mobile technology is going to continue to turn towards its antiquated uncle, precisely because it can still do these things, cheaply and much easier.
Actually, he makes one really crucial mistake - that it always takes 30 years. Every major shift has halved the amount of time used, and was down to 18 months. Charlie Stross, the SF author, lamented several years ago that the rate is now so fast, that there will be some ubiquitous item by the time his book was published, that _didnt_ _even_ _exist_ when he started writing it (and sure enough, in that case it was the iphone).
I've been exceptionally busy with the remodel of our house over the last few weeks. My office area has been completely unusable as boxes, mountain bikes, another computer desk and a tv were somehow mashed in there, blocking any sort of usability of my desktop system... so... I've been married to a 13 inch laptop lately.
Last night I dug everything out, cleaned up my desk, and fired up my desktop again. To say I was a little kid in a candy store would be an understatement. I had a weird excitement as my widescreen monitors lit up as Ubuntu presented me with my Pink Floyd desktop. Things operated fast, smooth, and before I knew it I had another web site created while my large stereo pumped my ears full of Bon Jovi.
The PC won't ever die. That's the most laughable statement I've ever heard of. The PC may become less popular among email/facebook checkers, yes, but for anybody who wants to (comfortably) get any real degree of work done, or people like me who simply like to have the screen real estate and space, the PC won't be going anywhere.
Everyone ranting about how they can't get any work done on anything short of a PC should stop and think about the other 99%. Sales clerks at stores, office secretaries, medical personnel, doctors, mechanics, bank clerks, government clerks, police officers, middle management practically everywhere, etc. (e.g. most professionals).
They do not need PCs, they do not enter copious amounts of unique data, they do not need full size keyboards and tablets will eventually serve them better. There is no full replacement for the current PC yet but tablets will be better for 80% of the PC's current uses.
Only a screaming minority of us are programmers, CAD designers, VFX designers, etc. We will keep our PCs - everyone else doesn't need them.
Yet again I am told that I will give up my 27in PC/Mac for a phone that will do loads of different things badly. My iMac allows me to watch movies, edit documents and do substantial downloads all at the same time. The smart phone is not up to it. Neither is an ipad. This is so stunningly obvious I do not understand how journalists keep coming out with this dribble. Use the appropriate tool for the job.
I am being forced at work to move from a pc with three displays down to a 15in laptop. Productivity is going to nose dive. I spend most of the time moving windows around so I can gather and use their contents. Nuts. The PC/Mac has a long life ahead of it for as long as people want to be productive and not just play at doing proper work.
There will be one. When the Macs will take over the market. Not when the tablets will do so, as this isn’t going to happen.
This isn't going to happen on Windows. Could finally be the year of Linux on the desktop, though. Windows EULA specifically prohibits one shared computer with multiple users without a license for each user.
Citation on that please.
Windows has the capability to have multiple users, with multiple passwords, built right in. I can't remember the last home PC I've had that hasn't had a separate user profile for every person in the house (plus guest). And they've never tried to extract more money out of me. Why would they put that option in there if it were illegal?
Back when I lived with my parents, there was one desktop computer shared by four people. Maybe this is a "youth of today" attitude- where it is now practically unthinkable that people might not have at least one computer each...
The world in its completely dumbed-down state has been detailed in the movie Idiocracy.
Telephones were invented in the 1870s but did not change our lives until the 1900s. Motion pictures were born in the 1890s but became an important industry in the 1920s
This argument is forced.
The most obvious example would be all-electronic television, commercially viable no later than 1939, but deployment held back by World War Two.
Take a closer look at the history of the movies:
The Birth of a Nation began filming in 1914 and pioneered such camera techniques as the use of panoramic long shots, the iris effects, still-shots, night photography, panning camera shots, and a carefully staged battle sequence with hundreds of extras made to look like thousands. It also contains many new artistic techniques, such as color tinting for dramatic purposes, building up the plot to an exciting climax, dramatizing history alongside fiction, and featuring its own musical score written for an orchestra.
The film cost $112,000 (the equivalent of $2.41 million in 2010). A ticket to the film cost a record $2 (equal to $45.95 today).
The Birth of a Nation
I have a copy of a contemporary essay from The Saturday Evening Post which explored the social changes that could already be seen at work in the success of the nickelodeon theaters of a decade earlier --- as the writer summed it up, the nickel theater was a night out anyone could afford and a national classroom for our new immigrant population.
The response time will never get good enough for cloud rendering. It's not physically possible, the speed of light is the limiting factor. They'd have to put the compute station so close to you it may as well be in your home.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
I think people, especially industry experts, have blinders on. It's not the PC that makes the PC important. It's the room that makes the PC important.
Doing real work, in any technical industry -- be it architecture, painting, engineering, mathermatics, accounting, etc. -- requires a human being sitting down with no distractions in a room dedicated to the task. With a proper chair, and a proper set of tools.
So with the park bench and the beach chair tossed aside, you've got a professional in a room. At that point, he's not holding a tablet. Not because he couldn't be, just because as a business it's worth spending ten time the cost to have three times the power/productivity. And when the space can fit a giant PC, that's going to be more productive than any single handheld tablet.
If you want to kill the PC, you need to kill the room first. If you figure out how to kill the room, I'd love to hear it.
stupid fingers / carpal tunnel - posting to undo mod
The death of the 'PC' has been hyped quite a bit, but it seems to usually involve small parts of the computing experience changing for sections of the population. Here is a quick runthrough of the state of the 'PC' as I see it.
The definition that I have always associated with 'PC' is its distinction from centralized computing. How much of the user's experience is being computed in a 'private' processor and how much is being foisted onto a server somewhere to be processed. While talk of a thin client revolution has been around for a couple of decades now, it has failed to materialize. The web, however, has done quite a lot to slowly and steadily steal computation for some tasks, particularly for retail consumers. The amount that you can do with just a web browser is staggering, growing, and becoming steadily more popular. The other front where the PC is beginning to lose ground to servers is in high performance computing. There has always been a server component in this sector, but as distributed technologies improve, the balance between PC and servers is shifting back toward servers, although it will probably be a while before the right disruptive technology comes about to replace it.
The biggest obstacle to centralized computing over personal computing is network connections. Fast enough, reliable connections are simply too expensive (if available at all) for moderately intensive computing at this time, but as networks continue to improve, this is a limitation which is going to continue to fall away over time.
Another definitional aspect for 'PC' seems to be terminal interfaces with a keyboard, mouse, and monitor, which I will address in order. Keyboards, by leaps and bounds, are the fastest and least error prone way of inputting language into a computer. Voice input is still clunky at best and thumb keyboards are slow and often rely on error-ridden auto-completion. There may be a few exceptional people who aren't frustrated trying to write long-form using alternative input, but those are definitely the exception. The disruption for this technology doesn't appear to be anywhere even close to the horizon.
Mice, similarly, have proven time and time again to be the best device for interacting with a two-dimensional field. Here we have gaming to thank for case studies of attempts to use other devices, only to come back to a good mouse for the best interaction. The continuing dominance of mice, however, isn't as great as keyboards, as touch-screen technology could provide better interactivity for some very common usage scenarios. The problems that touch-screens have, are still numerous, however, including slow response times, imprecision, and difficulty in indicating different types of interactions (e.g. right-clicking). The biggest obstacle to touch-screens is that they are ergonomic nightmares when used with a keyboard, with users having to have two completely different orientations for keyboard and pointing work. Touchpads frequently encroach on traditional mice in this space to allow for compact laptops without having to manage accessories and it is from laptops that mice have had their greatest competition.
Monitors provide large screens, not uncommonly in multiples. Interacting with large amounts of data or viewing entertainment usually means a big monitor. Setting aside the ubiquity of monitors in living-rooms where we call them televisions, spreadsheets, one of the most ubiquitous--if perhaps controversial--applications used in offices just don't work well on small screens. Monitors can also ride the coattails of full-size keyboards.
Probably most telling is that even in the I, Crigley article, he says that the I/O problem that mobile devices have is likely to be at least partially addressed by docking stations, which are the traditional terminal.
The 'PC' could also be partially defined as the traditional desktop operating system. In this respect, MacOS, Gnome, KDE, Windows, and many others are all on the same boat. While 'death' is probably a vast overstatement, this is
And FM radio isn't going anywhere. And we still write with pens on paper. And we still use our mouths to talk to each other. And some of us write on tablets like in old Babel, even if it's not an effective input method.
In 92 he said:
Radio was invented with the original idea that it would replace telephones and give us wireless communication. That implies two-way communication, yet how many of us own radio transmitters?
Just about everybody. It's called a cell phone. How many of us still own one of these boxes with a dial, an auricular on a hook and a cord? See, it replaced telephones.
Now he says:
For $150 today you can buy a big LCD display, keyboard, and mouse if you know where to shop. Add wireless docking equivalent to the hands-free Bluetooth device in your car and you are there.
Yes, you are there. You have a computer with a monitor, keyboard and mouse: a PC. (That is under the premise that the smartphone is able to act as a general purpose computer that runs all kinds of applications, not just "apps". Smartphones will never be able to replace PCs if they cannot act as a general purpose computer.)
Big screen, full size keyboard, and mouse, are not going to go away. I can see us eventually replacing the big desktop with a smartphone in its place, but we can't completely lose that form factor. I've tried to do real work on a little display, even a tablet gives me trouble for real work. However, I use a laptop rather than a desktop, and have for some time. The last office I was in was mostly laptops plugged into monitors as well. I could see a similar shift if phones/tablets get as beefy as laptops have.
My theory has been for some time that we're generally going to have our iPhones as our main computers, but in a specific/particular way.
It comes down to this: In the near future, we'll have enough computing power in our pockets to do most of what we need to do on a daily basis. On the other hand, it still won't have enough power to do all the things we'll want to do, and we'll still want big screens, keyboards, and mice. It does not have to be an "either/or" sort of thing. You could create a docking station with a high-speed bus, allowing access to the keyboard, mouse, monitor, and even additional computing power.
So what I imagine happening in the next few years is that you'll carry something like an smartphone or small tablet, and while you're carrying it around, it will work very much like today's smartphones. You'll get to your office and drop your phone into a docking station, and you'll get a UI that is usable as a full desktop OS. It will still run on your phone, but the docking station will be able to hook to a network, peripherals, and multiple displays. The docking station itself can have an additional processor and graphics card, and the dock will provide fast enough access to these co-processors that you'll be able to do fairly high-end work.
The phone will hold your documents, applications, and settings, so you'll get roughly the same environment wherever you dock it. The applications will work both in mobile mode and desktop mode, perhaps with some UI changes for each mode, but the codebase between desktop and mobile operating systems (e.g. iOS and OSX) will be consolidated.
There will still be special cases where people need better performance or additional computing power, but this sort of setup should work well for most people.
You've misinterpreted the problem.
Windows has support for multiple users, but we're talking about multiple simultaneous users who are actively using the computer. The kind of thing that the UNIX-likes have been doing since the Big Iron days with mainframes and terminals. Windows allows multiple user accounts, but it's not a multi-user system.
Phones won't replace PCs, phones will become PCs, which could just as well be stated as that the phones we know today will go away and be replaced by PCs. What separates a phone from a PC now is processing power, screen size, peripherals and available programs. If your portable device can dock and take on the characteristics of high processing power, large screen, can use PC peripherals and run PC programs, then what you've got is a PC in your pocket which is no less a PC than the one you've got under your desk right now.
We all know "the PC isn't going anywhere" because "they aren't toys and get work done".
But thats exactly what was said about the PC itself when it came along. It was a toy, real work was still done on big iron. And the last 30 years has proved how wrong that was.
Yes, there will always be those who will need a PC, just as there are still those who need big iron. But it will more quickly become a smaller niche. The larger world out there doesn't care much about the plight of software developers or AutoCAD users who will continue to be anchored to their physical keyboards and screens. The larger world has been distancing itself from desktop PCs for years now, the signs have all been there if one chooses to look. Laptop sales overtook desktops in 205 and netbook sales took over in 2008. Smart phones outnumber PCs, and in just a few years will number 1 BILLION worldwide. People are going mobile and they are ditching the whole Windows PC paradigm. For those of us here who lived through the rise of Microsoft's dominance here we should be enjoying a bit of Schadenfreude, not moping about how they'll have to pry the IBM Model M from my cold dead hands.
Also the nature of the internet. You don't have a direct connection to your cloud server; you still have have to go through intermediate hops.
We don't want to type up long documents on something with the screen real estate of a smartphone. As long as there are triple AAA game titles and porn, there will always be a place for the PC in the home -- at least until they come up with the holodeck!
Mainframes and/or minicomputers ran everything, you connected via a terminal. One of my first *non-student* job involved using a 3270 to schedule print jobs on 4 and 6 color industrial presses (mostly peanuts and potato chips bags). That was back in 1991. In all its burned-in orange monochrome glory (yes, it was still using token-ring and line printers.) I still have nightmares about that *newer* AS/400 :)
Fast-forward to 2012, most things can be done via the browser. The browser replaced the dumb terminal, iPads and smartphones will displace PCs for most of the work. Most of the things can be done online now.
email, Facebook, Youtube, Netflix, streaming music, looking for pr0n on the intertubes, writing documents, instant messaging, video *conferencing*, about everything can be done without a desktop computer.
I can use my iPhone to control what's streaming from my iMac G5 to my 1974 Marantz setup using an Airport Express, choose if I want it to play music in the living room on the Marantz, or in the kitchen on the Grundig (even older and still works).
I'm only 41 and love old audio, now get the fuck off my lawn :)
I've got better things to do tonight than die.
Tablets, phones, etc. are a lot slower to enter and read information. Fast, reliable two-way voice communications will remedy this. It would be acceptable even with a modified language that's more acceptable to the computer and less ambiguous.
No kidding it will change, every year it changes 'as we know it'.
Never have been fond of that guy.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
My next pc will be a smartphone.
The arguments about missing large screens, mice and keyboards is silly. Bluetooth connections or a docking station would give an all powerful portable device access to keyboards, mice, screens etc. The IPad already allows Bluetooth keyboards. The BlackBerry Playbook allows an extra screen (via a wire), and Bluetooth keyboard and mouse. I expect the power of the tablet computers will eventually exist in the cell phone sized devices. I don't want to carry portable computer around, although sometimes it would be useful. If I am going to be typing a long document it would probably be done at a known location where I would have a keyboard etc.
They mean having multiple users using the same machine *simultaneously* (e.g. you have two desktops for two different users with two different mouse and keyboard setups). You cannot do this in Windows, AFAIK.
I used to set up systems like that, back when I was young, but nobody ever logged in as themselves. It'd always end up being left logged in as somebody and everybody would just use it under that account. I stopped bothering after a while.
I don't reply to ACs
Windows allows multiple user accounts, but it's not a multi-user system
Well that's going to be news to the millions of people using Terminal Services.
Y'all really should read the article before commenting.
Cringely does not say we won't need keyboards, mice, and large screens someday. He devotes several sentences about wireless docking stations. He says already it's only $150 for a decent screen, keyboard, and mouse, and that's what we'll have at the office. We'll dock our phones to it, he says.
Which is where he might be wrong. In another paragraph he talks about how the cloud is making computers disposable. So, why not just have a whole computer that you leave at the office? For only a little more money, you can have a CPU and memory, instead of just a docking station.
For a long time now, we've enjoyed exceptionally cheap equipment due to economy of scale. The problem is that the masses mostly need a device for three things: gaming, Office work and the Internet, and none of these tasks are likely to be performed with the same, tinker-friendly, extensible PC that us geeks love.
The future is cheap dumb, locked down consumer and office devices which overlap little with the increasingly expensive devices for professionals, geeks and developers.
Acutually industry are pressurising the governnment to switch of FM radio in the UK as soon as possible so that all the scum consumers have to buy a digital DAB radio as soon as possible. Of course that will mean the end of high fidelity radio transmissons as the bandwith and dynamic range of DAB channels is lower than FM. But who gives a fuck about quality, we are talking about creating more channels at lower quality and rendering 40 million car radios useless. Think of the marketing opportunities, the total available market is huge, and fuck the consumers, they dont know the difference between a mp3 and a CD wav file, morons deserve to be ripped off. Screw the suckers.
Facts are history now plebs have politics for religion on social media.
Cringely used to be over here a lot more often, but then people started to boo Jon Katz and Roland Piquepaille (for all the joy he helped to bring to those who want to know, may he be with God).
I always found Cringely somewhat thoughtful about computing and usually pleasant to read -- "food for thought" as it was once called.
Coincidentally, I'm pondering buying my parents a good tablet. Since I'm pro FLOSS, it won't be an Apple one (though it's an excellent alternative). Right now that means Android, since a Firefox based one is not available yet. All these years, especially because of my father, I couldn't even give them a computer. But I feel, since they've come to accept and use cell phones, that a tablet might be acceptable...
And then, after those 30 years that Cringely talks about, the PC will be usable for them -- mostly for seeing pictures of their grandsons, but still... btw, anyone knows of an app that makes the tablet work like one of those electronic photo frames? And I probably need to get one those Bluetooth keyboards... can they be safe for internet banking?
As for me, Android won't do, only Linux can allow all the tweaking I demand. I'm too far into desktops to change now...
If this prediction comes true, it's the ultimate lock-in for data. People complained in the 90s and 00s about how MS Office files weren't readable in other programs. Well, you could still back them up and distribute them as you wished, and MS couldn't take them away if they didn't like you. Text, image and video files on the desktop can be opened in different applications depending on the need, while in the cloud it's at the mercy of the provider. If the present is anything to go by, most providers aren't going to have public APIs for interoperability.
(There are of course advantages to thin clients, which are harder to implement in "fat" clients, and even harder in a P2P setup, but the lock-in problem is pretty fundamental)
Those are non-simultaneous users. Pretty sure they require licenses per simultaneous user for RDS or at least did in the past, but it's been a long time since I dealt with that.
Yes. I just built a terminal server at work. 5 legal remote desktop users = 450.00 - 500.00 dollars. And that is not counting the OS, which must be a Server OS, or the hardware. You are easily looking at 1500.00 - 2000.00 for a legal 5 user remote desktop.
Make a copy of Office available on the Remote Desktop...need a license for each user. You sneeze right, you need a license for that.
There are several dirt cheap Citrix-like products: Check out http://www.thinstuff.com/
Now do a search to see if that product is legal. Well no, they are not. If you don't have a Remote Desktop User CAL for each user, it's in violation of Windows EULA. I just spent a lot of time researching this stuff.
You can even run thinstuff on XP. Works great. I tested it. Is it legal. No. On XP, you can't put in Remote Desktop CALs, so there is no way to make it legal, even if you used thingstuff and attempted to purchase legal CALs.
Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, religion destroys spirituality
to be forgetting the serious gamers. For them, nothing but a powerfull PC with a large monitor and lots of ram will do. What about those who work from home, or run their own small business? A smartphone or tablet cannot replace a PC, never will for many of us. While these devices are highly portable and have their uses, the desktop PC is far from dead. And as long as consumers want them, they will continue to be available.
PS. I have a "dumb" cell phone, (only makes/recieves calls and texts), and Lenovo A1 7" tablet. The tablet is great for taking with me to surf the web play games, watch netflix etc...when I don't want to lug a laptop. But replace my laptop or my desktop PC completely? Not even anywhere close!
I believe that Terminal Services on a linux box is the "killer app" for linux on the desktop in the corporate or small business world...if only those freeNX virtual desktops are serving up a Quickbooks client. And not even a great open-source replacement for it, it needs to be a real Quickbooks *client* to pull off our coup.
And errrr, yes, you are correct, that's *simultaneously*. :)
Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, religion destroys spirituality
Ya know i just cant give up my 22 inch hdtv monitor for a 3 or 7" inch screen. Im not going back to squinting at a screen, besides all of the programs i cant run on a smartphone or netbook. Of course i cant take it with me i have a laptop for that, thats as far as i am willing to go. It might be the nitch for alot of other people but im betting they really don't use the computer part of it. Making the switch to a netbook although too small a smart move.
Jack of all trades,master of none
It might be the end of the PC but not the BC or business computer. All these new "memes" are great for consumer devices, but do we really think that professional offices will have people typing on tablets or even keyboards connected to tablets? The recent SCOTUS ruling on the affordable health care act was 110 pages. If this is truly the end of the PC, how will that be accomplished on a tablet or phone?
This isn't going to happen on Windows. Could finally be the year of Linux on the desktop, though. Windows EULA specifically prohibits one shared computer with multiple users without a license for each user.
Citation on that please.
Windows has the capability to have multiple users, with multiple passwords, built right in. I can't remember the last home PC I've had that hasn't had a separate user profile for every person in the house (plus guest). And they've never tried to extract more money out of me.
I think what he meant was multiple users with multiple screens logging in at the same time. Microsoft's desktop OS won't allow you to do that. To get that capability you need to run Windows servers with terminal service server. Microsoft requires you to have Client Access License for each user that would want to connect to that server. And if you run Office on that particular server, you'll need to purchase Office license for each user.
just like people who want to customize their cars and their desktops, people like to build a pc to their needs and wants, they want something tailored to their particular style of life. amd or intel, ati or nvidia, when you get rid of companies like these, then maybe you will see the end of the pc era.
Has he ever been right about anything? I'm not sure why anyone pays attention to him.
I retired my laptop recently and replaced it with a desktop PC. I was tired of laptop's limitations. It had a small (17") screen and the connection to an external monitor crashed the system. It had only 2 GB of RAM, and my use patterns require more. Its performance was mediocre. Fans were noisy and right in front of me. And so on...
The laptop was consuming 45 watts (as measured with a Kill-a-watt.) The desktop draws 50 watts. The difference is completely irrelevant. Now I have a decent 1920x1080 Acer H274HL LED monitor, so I can have many windows on the screen at the same time. The box is under the table and I do not hear the fans. Fans are easy to replace when they wear out. There is 8 GB of RAM and I can install more if I want to. Lots of HDD space. Excellent performance.
Cringely and others like him simply found a new wave to ride. Now they are endlessly writing that everyone will soon be computing on their cell phones. But I bet that Cringely typed his screed on at least a laptop - if not on a desktop. Professionals do not really need portable devices. What they need is computing power, lots of it. Why to sit idly and look at the computer that is locked up and thinking its own computery thoughts?
The laptop, of course, will be reimaged and restored; the hardware is reasonably OK and I have replacement fans for it. But it will no longer be my primary computer. It's not worth it. Laptops are always a step down from a desktop in terms of performance because they have to be small and flat. A large design can be "greener" than a small one because it can afford more efficient - and larger - components. The example of the desktop that draws as little as the laptop is an illustration of that.
My guess is that there will always be a market for, and a supply of, DYI computing hardware and software. FOSS at the very least will provide OS choice. Commercial OSs are another matter. Windows 8 appears to be some sort of a dumbgrade from Windows 7. It looks set to turn your multi-tasking computer into more of a one-task-at-a-time appliance. I do reckon that the DIY hardware will no doubt get more expensive. This, since more and more people will be choose to use computing appliances. As a result consumers of DYI components won't benefit form economies of scale.. However, the appliance crowd has heretofore only been frustrated and confused by the amount of choice in the PC world anyway. My observation is that the tablet/smartphone model is a relief for many. But I think there will always be a supply of components for computerists. I am not a PC gamer, but that is a vibrant market. Heck, you can still get tubes for high-end audio, turntables and vinyl have come back. And urban outfitters has whole racks of 35mm film cameras for sale.
But I agree that fears of a grimmer future are not unjustified. It does worry me that manufacturers are already starting to build DRM right into the chips. The computer industry seems far more willing to protect the interests of Hollwood than it did in the days of Apple's RIP-MIX-BURN campaign. Mainstream equipment might well be some sort of cripple ware. But I still maintain that unpolluted hardware will be availble. For a price. Nevertheless, hang on to those old MOBOs... The unfettered chips might turn out to be as valuable as, say, the high-end vintage turntable you sold at a garage sale in 1993.
"No fear. No envy. No meanness." Liam Clancy
Im fairly certain the post PC stuff will never actually happen. Lots of people will have a cell phone and tablet and all that stuff, but also retain regular computers, in much the same way as some people have a laptop but still use a desktop compuer as well.
There is a reason I read Slashdot. From time to time I still learn stuff. I Googled and I saw: I had no idea that there was a hacked firmware for Android smartphones. (Not that I ever looked.) I am not surprised, but I had heard early on that these appliances were fairly well locked down. Now that I know I can give one an open-source douche I might just have to spring for a Nexus.
This appreciation in lieu of a mod up since I had already posted!
w00t.
"No fear. No envy. No meanness." Liam Clancy
I hope my desktop PC is one day able to shrink enough to fit into my pocket.. That would be swell.
Calling a PC something other than a PC just because it has a different size and shape is quite nonsensical. It is what the PC provides not what it looks like or how humans interact with it that provide value. This is all that matters. My laptop is a portable PC.
According to popular culture, my Galaxy GS2 has more computing power that the entirety of NASA when Apollo 11 landed on the moon. It certainly has more storage and memory than a decent PC I used only a few years ago. I use it for all sorts of things. Yesterday, I even made a phone call on it! :)
I am sitting at my computer typing this comment. I read /. and other interesting stuff all the time on my phone. I read my email on my phone and listen to all sorts of podcasts audio and video. There is no way I am going to use my phone as a PC replacement.
We all know the reasons. I have a bigger phone screen than any iShinyShinyPhone. I have better apps than Apple would let me have and I don't need to Jailbreak it to make it useful. So Why?
Even a screen this big is tiny in comparison to a 15" monitor. A touch screen keyboard, even Swype (or whatever you prefer) is nowhere as good as a $10 keyboard from the supermarket and although pinch-to-zoom is nice even a 10 year old Microsoft mechanical mouse is more accurate and comfortable. Anyone who has a PC probably has better than any of those devices.
Smartphones are like tablets. Very good for media consumption and lightweight gaming but if you actually want to do something a decent PC is required. If you want to blog, code, photo edit, write a book, run FB G+ Twitter and LinkedIn, doing it on a phone screen is hard work. Phones are brilliant for moving about, travelling and for when your ISP decides to go t##sup but the PC has not met its equal - yet...
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
Three reasons why the "post-PC era" is overhyped marketing nonsense.
- tiny screens.
- virtual keyboards are nowhere near as good as real keyboards.
- loss of control over your data.
there are, obviously, many more reasons but these are IMO crucial. Together, they highlight the fact that phones and tablets are devices for the consumption of information, not for creation or editing.
mobile devices have their uses but they are not a replacement for desktop PCs, in the same way that a TV or a book is not a replacement for a PC.
Yeah, things will get more compact, more powerful and less energy-consuming...
...and once they do, some schmuck is gonna take a lot of those things, shove them into a cabinet, and do something cool with it that isn't possible with one of those small devices alone.
And so, the PC will never die.
I am so confused. Are people suggesting that I wont be able to buy parts for my pc anymore? Why not? Will they be made illegal? Will companies simply cease to manufacture them? Why? The main reasoning behind TFA seems to be some random blogger claiming that people like to carry things around with them, so pcs will die out because they aren't portable. I have no portable devices, I don't really go out much. I thought that was part of being a proper computer nerd. Am I missing something important here? If I do go out it is mainly because I have something to do that doesn't involve my computer, you know, meat stuff. Maybe I am a luddite but I like to be able to swap out my hardware, mainly for cost/performance reasons. How does the random tech blogger intend to prevent me owning a pc? Maybe he is just talking about the mass market, pcs aren't where the $$$ is anymore. In that case I just wandered into the wrong conversation altogether. Who gives a fuck? I am not a vendor. Why is this even considered newsworthy? Is there really such a high percentage of slashdot readers that sell hardware? Someone please explain to me what this conversation is even about.
iOS is a worthless piece of shit compared to Mac OS. Android is a worthless piece of shit compared to XFCE. Just try to really do something on a phone and you'll be hit between the eyes with the 2x4 of reality.
Phones can't replace PCs until they become PCs. And while there's no reason that can't happen, it hasn't been happening. We're not even seeing a significant trend toward smartphone software sucking significantly less than it did, say, 3 years ago. Even if the hardware gets better, the "revolution" hasn't even started yet, and the ones that promised a better future (e.g. Maemo's descendants) are sidelined.
Almost every year i hear the same crap. tablets and smart phones anent going to replace the desktop. but rather become a companion to it. People have this idea that one device is going to replace them all but that's not going to happen.
After all in a multi tasking OS if you do not want to multitask you simply don't open any other apps and stay with what you are doing. Then, well, you are single tasking. I agree that it would be a bad move for Microsoft to limit thier new OS. However, I just finished reading this article in Wired that claims that is exactly what Win 8 Metro does. It is apparently a poor environment in which to do multi tasking. It seems odd to restrict the user to one app at a time, as on a phone, essentially creating a "smartphone" like environment on the PC desktop which -- unlike a phone -- has the hardware to support many running applications. People who do a lot of multitasking will probably not like Metro. Limiting multi-tasking seems like a downgrade to me. Or as I said in my post a "dumbgrade." Hopefully 8 will offer a way for those adapted ADDs among us to jump around as per usual...
Oh, wait. A win messenger pop-up. It's my old pal 5eX-T0i from Kiev. Gotta run. Ciao.
"No fear. No envy. No meanness." Liam Clancy
I wouldn't be surprised to see a complete development toolchain for Android running on an Android device eventually.
By eventually, do you mean three months ago?
Will a PC become a tablet, absolutely not, screen does not stand up on it's own
A PC monitor doesn't stand up on its own; it needs the stand that's attached to the chassis through a VESA mount. Likewise, a tablet doesn't stand up on its own; it needs the stand that's attached to the chassis.
The keyboard, I like my current logitech illuminated, tactile and can easily see the keys
Tablets can use the same Bluetooth keyboards that PCs with a Bluetooth chipset can use.
A tablet PC is defined by it's size, it's lack of a keyboard and mouse, otherwise it's an all in one PC.
And a docked Android tablet is an all-in-one PC, a docked Android/Ubuntu tablet even more so. The problem comes when tablets running iOS or Windows RT dictate what applications you can and can't run even when docked.
...the nickel theater was a night out anyone could afford and a national classroom for our new immigrant population.
Oh for the return of those days. Theaters show enough stupid advertisements before the movie that it wouldn't hurt them to show the informational shorts again.
I can think of one in particular that should be shown in every theater in the country for at least the next 5 years. Disney created an animated short that featured Goofy and Donald Duck learning how to drive on a freeway. It had detailed instructions for how to MERGE, and included comic disaster demonstrations (courtesy of Goofy) about what happens when you fuck it up. That alone is worth its weight in gold. Sometime in the past 20 years, people forgot how to drive on a freeway. It'd be nice for that to be fixed.
The desktop pc will always be around, how the hell can gaming, animating, art, cad and other industry usage cope without a central desktop pc hub, I mean your not going to do any of that on any tablet at all, tablets and smart phones are cornered monopolies with limited app markets, on desktops your free to download what you want, install what you want, add whatever hardware you want and get the power you require. No smart phone or tablet can even come close to the practicality of a desktop pc, they are simply portable social gadgets nothing more. Tablets and smart phones will just replace laptops for users that have them for light work and entertainment purposes, they will not replace a desktop!
cell phone data prices are way to high for them to take over.
$50 for 5GB and then add $10 for 1GB?? When for about the same price you can get 250-300GB on cable and add 50GB for $10.
It doesn't. If someone is using a copy of Win7 Ultimate in the other room and I want to log into my own account, I have to knock them off in order to do so.
Windows might be able to do this if you pay Microsoft enough money. It's not going to be the sort of thing that your $50 copy of Windows can manage though.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
want to develop a desktop application for Windows? Get a Windows licence from Microsoft
But not necessarily a Visual Studio license or an "unknown sources" license that must be renewed annually. Even if Visual Studio Express didn't exist, there's nothing in Windows to stop people from porting the GNU Compiler Collection to Windows. On the other hand, iOS, Windows Phone 7, and game console operating systems employ cryptographic rent-seeking mechanisms to prevent third parties from making fully functional toolchains.
want to develop for the iPhone? Buy a software/hardware combo from Apple, that's called a Mac.
There's no reason except for cryptographic rent-seeking that one shouldn't be able to develop for an iPhone or iPad on a docked iPhone or iPad. The existence of AIDE for Android demonstrates this.
You sure your not just thinking about terminal services logins. Im fairly sure i dont use remote desktop to log into the computer im sitting at.
It couldn't possibly be that most content consumers are simply not interested in creating content?
Rephrased without loaded language:
It couldn't possibly be that most people who view works are simply not interested in creating works?
Nor could it possibly be that people who view works may want to try their hand at creating works without having to buy a $1,000* PC? Sure, PC don't cost that much yet, but it is conjectured that in a post-PC market, PCs will become more expensive because PCs are priced for businesses.
This. It's no the 'post PC' era, it's the 'post freedom' era.
All software is censored and taxed by the platform holder's App Store. Nothing else runs, without (illegal) hacking of the device.
Post freedom era is it, and we're in the heliosheath. When we hit the heliopause, that's it, you'll need a license to develop and deploy anything. Will this come to pass? I doubt it, but only if we fight for our freedom. But if the only people who develop independently in the future are renegade hackers, then we as a free people are screwed.
If Apple's app store started banning users with jailbroken phones that would push even more people to Google's Android based phones.
Microsoft's app store bans users with hacked Xbox 360 consoles, but what does that push more people to? What's the Android of set-top video gaming?
Alternatively jailbroken iPhone users could point their phones to alternate IOS app stores
Unless your bank chooses to make its application exclusive to the official App Store. Apple could require this with a non-compete clause that forbids developers to make an application available on the official App Store if it's on a jailbreak store.
All software is censored and taxed by the platform holder's App Store. Nothing else runs
That's really only true for Apple.
And for Microsoft (Xbox 360 and Windows Phone 7 devices), Nintendo (Wii, DSi, 3DS, Wii U), and Sony (PSP, PS3, PS Vita).
But, if you are the average developer do you really care? Toolkits, libraries and widget sets are most important to you
The toolkit available to an iOS application developer who has not paid Apple's ransom is HTML5 in Safari. Unfortunately, this toolkit includes no way of accessing the camera or microphone of an iPhone because Safari for iOS 5 does not support HTML5 Media Capture. Good luck making a barcode scanning web application without the camera or a VoIP application without the microphone.
The big reason that I carry a 10" laptop is so that I can build my portfolio on my bus commute to and from work.
Mobile gaming is now higher volume than pc/console combined.
The lowest-common-denominator input device of mobile gaming leaves much to be desired. Your thumbs can't feel onscreen buttons. Can the developer of a mobile game rely on players owning an iControlPad, iCade, or similar Bluetooth input device yet? Or is there a standard control method for platformers and fighting games on phones and tablets that I'm missing?
You could buy a Nexus device (current legal troubles notwithstanding).
For one thing, some post-PC alarmists assume that these "current legal troubles" will continue long enough to marginalize Android in the North American market* as much as Nokia N900 was marginalized in the North American market. For another, what unlocked Android pocket tablet with Google Play Store is priced anywhere near an iPod touch?
*Slashdot is hosted in the U.S., Google is headquartered in the U.S., and I live in the U.S.
I write this on a cross-country train with no wifi
Not all remote applications are affordable at $10 per GB. How much bandwidth does, say, a VNC or RDP session take?
You still need some kind of development platform for the mobile devices
You also need a development platform for video game consoles manufactured by Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony. That doesn't mean the console makers are required to allow the general public to buy developer products. Instead, one is required to move to Austin, Boston, or Seattle and complete a multi-year apprenticeship in order to be allowed to buy a console devkit.
But if I'm just going to use my tablet as a desktop PC, with a keyboard and a big monitor, then why do they have to put that giant touchscreen on the tablet?
For one thing, the touch screen is your trackpad for moving the cursor around. Have you ever heard of Wacom's Cintiq tablet? For another, a built-in display comes in handy when you undock to view works while taking a break from creating works.
from a software standpoint, what's going to happen in this glorious "post-PC era" when half the devices out there are locked down to the point where they can only run "approved" software? We're going to have to hack our shit just to get back the ability to install and run whatever the fuck we want on our devices?
This has already been the case for set-top gaming computers since 1986, when the NES started to overtake the Commodore 64 and PC makers decided not to support standard-definition television output even for low-resolution graphics modes.
You sure your not just thinking about terminal services logins.
Yes, Terminal Services logins. If you have one computer and three terminals so that more than one person can use the computer at once, you need a server OS and multiple CALs.
Im fairly sure i dont use remote desktop to log into the computer im sitting at.
How many people does Microsoft allow to use that same computer at the same time as you?
"but also admits he thought this transition would have already happened"
That should tell us all we need to know. Stop giving crazies a voice.
I think what he meant was multiple users with multiple screens logging in at the same time.
As Endo13 put it: "There's a reason it's called a personal computer." In this use case, why doesn't each user have his own computer, even if only a $300 laptop?
I'm running win8, and I'm multitasking in the same way I always have. The desktop works the way it always has. The only complaint I have is that just hitting the windows key creates a jarring switch to the start screen on my active monitor (but not on the secondary monitor, which always shows the desktop, even at boot). From what you've posted, I'm not convinced you've actually used Win8, and are instead referring to opinion pieces online to make your point.
You gonna lug around your 23" HD LED monitor (connected to your mobile device) too?
No, you're going to use whatever HD monitor you find at the work site. And now that so many people have big HD monitors in the living room, it's not going to be hard to find one. An HD monitor will end up being something omnipresent like electricity or potable water: most of the time, you use the utilities that are already there instead of having to bring your own generator or bottled water.
A home or "cloud" PC that you can login to from any dumb terminal makes much more sense.
Not if you're on a bus that doesn't provide affordable Wi-Fi. At $10 per GB for cellular data, remoting into another computer can get expensive.
and if you've got a static IP
Homes aren't guaranteed to have this. A lot of countries have effectively run out of IPv4 addresses, and ISPs are giving home customers 10.x.x.x addresses on private internets. To accept incoming connections, you'll need to pay extra for business class service.
Most of the pre-1923 books should be available on Project Gutenberg for no charge beyond what your ISP charges per GB.
it's just a less powerful pc - but there's nothing about it that makes it not a personal computer
What you say is true if it runs Android. But if it runs iOS or Windows RT, it's not a general-purpose computer because there exist purposes that the device's manufacturer forbids.
Yawn. Just more extrapolating trends too far. Sure, when iCrap caught on, CD sales took a nose dive, but I still encounter CDs almost every day. They still fill a functional niche, and I suspect we'll still find CD-Rs on sale at Big Box for a long time. They're a cheap, portable way to physically transport a chunk data—especially audio. No, I'm not burning hundreds at a time, but when I need one, it's the best tool for the job. Contrast this to a floppy, which was totally unreliable, low capacity and utterly replaced by flash drives because of their superiority in almost every way. Sure, we're probably headed for a world where a lot fewer people are buying 4GHz desktops with 8gb ram, and, sure, lots of people will herd happily into walled gardens, because they don't care or don't know better. There are people who only ever used their PC for facebook et al., hell, they probably already swapped it for a mobile device. The thing we can't ever lose sight of is that consumer spending drives this industry. As long as people are willing to spend money for something, someone will be there to accept that money. Just ask the millions of PC gamers out there when they will trade their uber PC for a tablet. Just because something becomes less commonplace and more specialized doesn't mean it's just going to disappear. FUD.
We're only at that point because of freaking consoles, which unfortunately the PC didn't kill off in the 90s.
PCs didn't kill off consoles in the 1990s because PCs didn't have 4 gamepad inputs or SDTV outputs. N64 and PS1 with a multitap were a lot cheaper than having to buy four computers, monitors, and network cards, despite the disadvantage of screen peeking.
If all games didn't have to target the consoles they'd still be pushing that update cycle
So why doesn't a major PC game publisher partner with a PC maker and make an own branded PC that comes preloaded with the game publisher's own app store?
Equally, a stylus is always better than a finger-based touchscreen system.
I have an Archos 43 Internet Tablet, on whose resistive touch screen I use a stylus that I borrowed from a Nintendo DS Lite. But like other touch screens that support a stylus, the A43's touch screen doesn't support multitouch, which rules out certain gestures to rotate or zoom, on-screen gamepads, and the like.
I have pretty much changed over to doing everything on my smart-phone. I won't mention the brand here, but its the one w/ the webtop and laptop docks available. It does pretty much every thing I need, but I am not a gamer or an audiophile or some of the other things mentioned here. I am a Real Estate Agent that happens to have a background in computers and electronics from a previous life.
I have one desktop still running, mostly as a bit of a server. I still make use of it's desktop capabilities every now and then. I've gone as much as 2 weeks without firing up the desktop side of it though. My most recent laptop seems to be dying and at this point, I'm not so sure I will replace it.
I saw where someone posted here that the telephone with it's centrally located battery system was going to be a much more reliable way of communications device than cellphones and their reliance on the grid in the event of a major power outage. I guess they weren't paying attention a couple of months ago when someone posted a link on Slashdot to an article about how AT&T has been working on converting everything over to VOIP. Whether you like or use AT&T, they are still the Big Dog and are likely setting the tone for this on what's to come.
My phone, my laptop dock, and my tablet (once I get one), all being batter powered, are likely not going to be to difficult to charge off a couple of solar cells. Neither are devices like Kindles. Most of our central phone systems are still battery backed up. Even cellphones towers are battery backed as any more they are considered essential in the case of an emergency.
The last thing. While the telephones may have a central battery to supply a ring voltage, all the switching gear to route that telephone call needs power as well. Let's not forget all the multiplexers and De-multiplexers. There was a day when telephone switch gear just connected my copper to your copper, That day is a couple of decades gone. The only thing the battery backups really do anything for now days is the local area in case a neighborhood sub-station goes down. Anything larger and telephones will likely be out for a significant area as well.
He missed the critical word 'simultaneous'. There's an entire product dedicated to this 'Terminal Services'.
Except for fringe cases, laptop monitors should be 1920x1080.
One common fringe case that I see arising often is people with less than stellar eyesight trying to use applications that react poorly when the window system is set to any DPI other than 96.
Hell, give us a call when you're actually *allowed* to develop on the iPad.
Do you run to mommy when you need to post to Slashdot? It seems you must need permission for everything you do...
Meanwhile real technical people do whatever the hell they like on an iPad, Apple permission or not.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I totally agree that the new devices cannot replace the old.
The thing is - they never do.
But what they DO do is marginalize the old devices. Over time, there is less and less you HAVE to have an old PC to do. There is more and more you can do as generations of post-PC devices advance.
That is inevitable. And what I am complaining about is that it seems like so many Slashdot readers seems unwilling to admit devices that re not PC's can make any advances in those regards. Look just at those snidely asking us to let them know when you can develop for the iPad, on an iPad - when you can do that already, and could in fact do so as soon as they were jailbroken.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Meanwhile real technical people do whatever the hell they like on an iPad, Apple permission or not.
So what happens when the three-year DMCA exemption expires and Apple goes all Sony v. Hotz on jailbreakers?
And we're about to be proven right about the "bonnet welded shut" thinking as the iPad 1 is about to stop getting upgrades.
Right about what? All computers reach a point where they cannot run newer stuff.
Just because it cannot run iOS6 does not make it redundant, most applications will continue to target 4.x for another six months at least, and then 5.x for a year after... and even after that the device keeps working, you can run the applications you have until the end of time... just like any other current PC.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Give me a call when you can easily develop for the iPad on the iPad.
That's entirely an artifact of cryptographic rent-seeking. AIDE for Android supports developing for a tablet on a tablet.
anyone who wants to create anything outside work without forking out a fortune
Let me share with you what CronoCloud told me some time ago: Having to fork out a fortune helps weed out crap like that which caused the video game market to implode in 1983. If you want to create something, the first thing you should do is move to a city where creating-as-work is common. Then pay your dues by working in the creative industry for several years on other people's projects while saving up to start your own company. In the case of film, this is Hollywood. In the case of video games, this is Austin, Boston, or Seattle.
Devices with web browsers tend to have libraries that implement DEFLATE, even if only for Content-Encoding: gzip in HTTP. In fact, Android has java.util.zip.ZipFile that handles not only DEFLATE but the entire zip file format. If a device's application acceptance policy is permissive enough to admit a general-purpose emulator,* then it's permissive enough to admit an unzip program that acts as a thin wrapper around the built-in zip file support.
* By this I mean an emulator that isn't cryptographically locked to a specific ROM. Official emulators distributed through the official app stores for Wii, DSi, 3DS, iPhone, and iPad won't run any game other than the one they come with.
Uh, I guess it's far too difficult to program a computer to understand the words "scratch that" to correct or delete text.
I detect a hint of sarcasm. But given the infamous "double the killer" demo, that might actually be too difficult as of right now.
The low end garbage, the $399 PC? yes those go away, and no nerd,geek, or other even wants those.
So what is a geek in high school or college supposed to afford? Or should a programming student have to use the workstations in the school's computer lab?
Give me a call when you can easily develop for the iPad on the iPad.
You already can.
The point is not that it can do everything today, it's that you can imagine it doing everything someday.
You don't have to look very hard to see the trend.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Make sure you have screensavers with password locking on by default, problem solved. If someone leaves the computer logged in, all the next user will find is a box asking them for their password or to switch users.
Incidentally, this is the set up we use at my office too.
Yes. I just built a terminal server at work. 5 legal remote desktop users = 450.00 - 500.00 dollars. And that is not counting the OS, which must be a Server OS, or the hardware. You are easily looking at 1500.00 - 2000.00 for a legal 5 user remote desktop.
Make a copy of Office available on the Remote Desktop...need a license for each user. You sneeze right, you need a license for that.
There are several dirt cheap Citrix-like products: Check out http://www.thinstuff.com/
Now do a search to see if that product is legal. Well no, they are not. If you don't have a Remote Desktop User CAL for each user, it's in violation of Windows EULA. I just spent a lot of time researching this stuff.
You can even run thinstuff on XP. Works great. I tested it. Is it legal. No. On XP, you can't put in Remote Desktop CALs, so there is no way to make it legal, even if you used thingstuff and attempted to purchase legal CALs.
Being legal on windows is far too much hard work. It's only 1500-2000 if your time is free.
just use linux, it just works, there's no worries about whether you have a "license" to run it on the second Tuesday of the month etc.
You are absolutely correct. I have not used Windows 8. It was pretty clear from my post that I have not. Indeed, I was quoting from an opinion piece. From Wired. I even gave the link . And I did add at the end of my post the caveat: "Hopefully 8 will offer a way for those adapted ADDs among us to jump around as per usual..." Glad to see it does. Shame on Mr Thompson, the author of the Wired piece, for not mentioning, or at least not properly highlighting, the fact that there is a way to reconfigure Win 8 to do multitasking. Since an upgrade from XP is expected to be very reasonable in price, and Windows 8 is meant to be pretty snappy, that is good news. I was wondering why MS chose to cripple their OS. Wondering no more. Thanks for hands on info.
"No fear. No envy. No meanness." Liam Clancy
Windows has the capability to have multiple users, with multiple passwords, built right in.
How many of them could login at the same time? I don't think you know what multi-user system realy means.
Phones and tablets are more controlled more locked down. Not to mention the insane data caps from mobile carriers and ISPs. Cloud computing just isn't worth it until caps are more reasonable or a fair usage based model is had.
I like 320kbps MP3s and 720P quality video. Streaming that from the cloud just doesn't make sense. Storing all that on my phone or tablet sounds scary too. A traditional hard drive at home as a central location sounds much more reasonable.
I plea brevity, and not loaded language ;)
That's a valid point as well though. GGP's post carries an implicit assumption that the move to non-PC devices inherently cripples the ability to create content, when nothing is further from the truth. I'm fairly comfortable in stating that more unencumbered digital content is being created now than ever before - as a direct result of the massive availability of mobile, non-PC devices.
That's a very different egg than the home PC with multiple users. Why don't we just accept it as it is, they're using multiple user accounts, not terminal services.
I can't remember the last time I saw a home Windows PC running Terminal Services to provide multiple user accounts to the family members.
I stand corrected about the Amiga. But there was still no culture of connecting the big two computers of the day (IBM PC and Macintosh) to a living room TV.
Every time I see references to it, it all sounds like super-spiffy terminals connected to a mainframe. Got stuff on a cloud? There is *zero* difference between that and the corporate mainframe... and the people running it are not only more vulnerable to "requests" for info, but highly likely to sell that info to Big Corp (forget Big Brother).
mark
to do a direct upgrade without a clean reinstallation. Fair enough. The upgrade price from XP and Vista and Win 7 is said to be $39.00 as well. I have read that we are probably going to see at a faster OS cycle from Redmond. And I hope the price slide starts to apply to Office. I am currently running 7 on my two newest machines. Vista on my old laptop and XP on my old Desktop. At that price point I might consider an across-the-board upgrade.
"No fear. No envy. No meanness." Liam Clancy
The Nexus 7 is $200.
The Nexus 7 is unavailable until the end of this month, which sucks if a relative has a birthday in July.
A smartphone seemed like overkill since for much of the last five years I was in Tajikistan. Cell coverage is good in some spots but 3G.... not so much. You could guess this from the photos I linked to. (I am the guy with the hair)
Now I am in Norway, which has screamingly fast wireless data. So I am seriously considering an Android Smartphone. I have been researching and have decided on a modest unlocked Nexus S, doubly so since its bootloader is unlocked and I can put that awesome looking Cyanogenmod firmware on it. A little surprised myself that I had never seen anything about Cyanogenmod, but then I have not been looking at all. w00t!
"No fear. No envy. No meanness." Liam Clancy
I pay $4/m for a static IP
For one thing, you are an edge case. For another, a static IPv4 address costs a lot more than 4 USD per month in some markets.
and what about IPV6?
Running a home server requires a couple things to happen: 1. a critical mass of home ISPs have to provide IPv6 service that doesn't block incoming connections, and 2. running a home server has to become attractive enough that a critical mass of home users will buy a new IPv6 router to replace a working IPv4 router.
Also, you'll notice that the advent of the printing press didn't eliminate writing things by hand. Likewise, the telephone did not stop people from physically going to other people's homes to sit and chat. And the TV hasn't stop people from sitting on their porch and watching the sun set.
All this really says is that cell phone technology in general (and smartphones in particular) have been broadly adopted at an incredibly fast pace compared to previous data points. Or it might say that nothing about a smartphone is really new technology from the human factors perspective. After all, we've had personal computers for 30 years. We've also had walky-talkies much longer. The smartphone just combines things that have been around a long time into a more convenient package.
I'm about to buy a desktop system. For about a year now, I pretty much wanted to do what I wanted with computing only on the go, as I am often out and about instead of a homebody. So I bought an Android smartphone.
So at first I find that I need to root the phone to really be able to do much. Like, get rid of VM's custom crap that left little to no space. Even when I installed everything I could to SD (many huge apps don't even enable that by default), I could still have very few apps on my phone.
Not to mention the very limited software. I signed up for one of those $10 a month music services, as well as Netflix. I gave up on that after I couldn't find tons of movies I wanted to watch, and when much of my favorite music was pulled from the music services because major labels flipped out. Because of course, big music labels are pissed that they aren't getting $25 a CD anymore like in the 90s, you know, money they're entitled to. I assume Netflix was a similar story.
I did root this. While that solved some problems, I wanted to do some custom Linux type stuff, because you know Android is Linux right? Wrong. Maybe a Linux kernel, but userland is way different, and much more arcane than a typical Linux system. Simply installing gcc to an Android phone is likely impossible. I also bought a bluetooth keyboard with the intention of using the command line, but half the keys don't work on this software setup (namely important ones such as Ctrl, Shift, Fn, etc).
There is a Linux phone, the Neo Freerunner, with the mobile open source goal, but I wonder about the likely lack of touchscreen-friendly software out there.
I am going to buy a Mini-ITX box, either pre-built machine (they look MUCH better than those crappy Dell/HP boxen of the late 90s), or build one myself from readily available parts. And compile Linux however I want to, run a server, do gaming, and probably torrent a bunch of stuff, as the subscription based music/movie services are of course an epic fail right now because the old guard of big media is desperately trying to hold on. I am NOT paying $25+ for music CDs or movie DVDs.
The GP missed a critical word, concurrent. The EULA prohibits multiple concurrent users i.e. terminal services. You may have as many users as you like so long as each is physically interacting with the computer.
Noone prevents you from selling an open platform device
I'll assume you meant "no one", not the lead vocalist of Herman's Hermits. But with that out of the way:
For one thing, patent holders intent on monopoly rather than FRAND could prevent someone from selling an open platform device. Apple, for example, successfully got such an injunction against Samsung. For another, if you are a software publisher selling your own open platform device on which to run your application, I don't see how such a device could be marketed to get people to buy it just to run one application.
toriver, why do you think the lack of a widely available open platform device is a good thing for the public?
There will always be a need for a powerful "main" system, that can run most recent and most powerful programs, be easily upgrade-able and customize-able. Sure, people who are using internet and computers to just participate in social networks and casually surf the net aren't going to need computing powerhouses. Computer gaming (virtual reality) fans and developers are another story.
I have two tablets - ios and android. Whenever I want to do any cutting, pasting or text manipulation I go running for a PC/Mac and mouse. (and not the magic pad)
One could argue that any desktop system built expressly for development is a "workstation" and not a PC
In that case, a docked Android tablet is a "workstation". See AIDE.
you can't develop on a NES either.
But one could develop on a Famicom, the Japanese version of the NES, using the Family BASIC cassette. The main thing keeping Family BASIC from running on an NES is the lack of an NES version of the alphanumeric keyboard. And now with the PowerPak ($135 one-time, not recurring), anyone can develop NES software using Free tools on any Mac, Windows PC, or Linux PC that has a CompactFlash card writer, even a lowly netbook like mine.
100 bucks gets you dev environments(testing+publishing rights) for the locked platforms nowadays
Not for PS3 or Wii, not for Xbox 360 in countries without Xbox Live Indie Games, not for longer than twelve months, and not for iOS once Apple stops making versions of Xcode compatible with your slightly older Mac (see last week's story about Mountain Lion dropping support for four-year-old Macs).
They will have a choice of using an Android tablet or an Android cell phone.
Unless Microsoft and Apple succeed in shutting down Android with patents.
Today virtually everyone that has a tablet or smart phone also have and use a PC.
One of my co-workers is not part of your "virtually everyone". She owns only a smartphone.
We need itsy bitsy PCs with the power of super computers that we use with a keyboard and mouse and can still be upgraded.
If one upgrades the storage connected to a Raspberry Pi computer, does that count?