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Intel Wants PCs To Be More Than Just 'Personal Computers' (engadget.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report "What people need from a PC, what they expect is really more diverse than ever," Intel's Client Computing head Gregory Bryant said in an interview. "We're going to embark on a journey to transform the PC from a personal computer to a personal contribution platform... The platform where people focus and can do their most meaningful work." Bryant says Intel will focus on five key areas to reframe its vision of PCs: Uncompromised performance (of course); improved connectivity with 5G on the horizon; a dramatic increase in battery life; developing more adaptable platforms that go beyond 2-in-1s and convertibles; and a push towards more intelligent machines with AI and machine learning integration. Admittedly, many of those points aren't exactly new for Intel, and they also fall in line with where the computing industry is going.

10 of 180 comments (clear)

  1. Re: They are by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Phones aren't really PCs. They're too locked down to be used for developing software. Which was the whole point of PCs...not having to go wait in line and buy mainframe time.

    Let's face it, computers in most hands are just another boob tube.

  2. Re:improved connectivity by Austerity+Empowers · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I honestly don't want anything they're selling up there except uncompromised performance. I want to see larger DRAM capacity and more I/O bandwidth, on a larger range of their product portfolio than it presently has.

    I've got a smart-phone, I don't want it to be my laptop or desktop, nor vice versa.

  3. Re:They are by JMJimmy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Honestly, the area of the market they need to develop is the integrated home PC.

    A modular system, wired into the home that enables 3rd parties to develop home technologies. I don't need every device in my home to be connected to the internet - I need them to connect to my home system and be managed locally. My PC should be my home's cloud and every "smart device" should just be a control board & dumb display that get fed data from applications/services running on the PC.

  4. Hell no by smooth+wombat · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I want my PC to do one thing and one thing only: do what I tell it to do. I don't want it to "think" for me, make guesses at what it thinks I'm going to do, or get in the way of what I'm doing.

    I want a platform which is stable so I can do my work.

    --
    We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
  5. Marketing just figured out how to say... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    They want PCs to be PCs?

    Because that is what it reads as.

    Then you read 'always on 5G connectivity' and it becomes Big Brothers Little Helper instead.

    I can always go for more battery life, but going for always connected insecurity is out of security budget.

  6. No thanks by OrangeTide · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'm only looking for a Personal Computer or Workstation. I don't wish to commit to anything beyond that.

    It's like when I buy a blender, I don't also need it to be a cheese grater.

    --
    “Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
  7. Re: They are by Type44Q · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Phones aren't really PCs. They're too locked down to be used for developing software.

    A) Phone's are nothing more than tiny ARM PC's with built-in screens, and...

    B) How the fuck does the "locked down nature" of a typical phone - an irrelevant point to the discussion, anyhow - prevent you from using it to write code??

  8. AI and personnal assistants by Zitchas · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Honestly, I really like the idea of having a personal assistant AI sort of thing that tries to help keep track of stuff for me.

    The problem is that everything these days wants to send all that data back to a server somewhere. My personal computer should be just that: My. Computer. I want something that requires zero internet connectivity to do its job. And that job should very clearly be: Do what I tell it to do. Take notes, schedule an appointment on my calendar, open programs, set a timer, or an alarm, or a reminder, etc.

    The closest it should get to doing stuff online is if I specifically ask it to do something online. ex: "Search the internet for pictures of kittens." Simply stating "Search for kittens" should default to searching my computer itself. Nothing should go online without my actually stating that it should go online.

    Computers in the late 90s were starting to get programs that could do basic voice recognition and dictation. I see no reason why my computer today can't do vastly better at it than the old apple performa did - and without using any servers anywhere to do so.

    --
    Z
  9. Re:They are by webnut77 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Honestly, the area of the market they need to develop is the integrated home PC.

    A modular system, wired into the home that enables 3rd parties to develop home technologies. I don't need every device in my home to be connected to the internet - I need them to connect to my home system and be managed locally. My PC should be my home's cloud and every "smart device" should just be a control board & dumb display that get fed data from applications/services running on the PC.

    The trouble is that those vendors are not going to give you what you want. As vendors, they need to harvest your data. They also need to have a backdoor into your device for reason... Therefore your device needs to connect back to the mothership.

    TFS:

    and a push towards more intelligent machines with AI and machine learning integration

    This makes me nervous. Will this serve me or the vendor?

  10. Re:They are by Marc_Hawke · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Like webnut said, gone are the days when someone would sell you a product. Now everyone is just using products as bait in order to hook a recurring revenue stream. They could make things that work 'stand-alone' but it's so much more profitable to make it go through the middle-man....with them being the middle man.

    That being said, is there an indie/homegrown market for home automation? Is it all just Raspberry Pi based stuff? Are their light-bulbs that will work on my internal network? Is there a remote door lock system that listens on my own IP address and not routed through a server on the internet?

    I think their are. The first security camera flaws were poorly secured little web-servers in the cameras themselves weren't they? But at least they had to come to my house to hack me..rather than hacking everyone all at once by hitting the server.

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    --Welcome to the Realm of the Hawke--