The Future of the P.C. 226
scarcrowman writes "This is an interesting article on the projected future of what we call the 'P.C.' It is becoming more 'Personal' than ever."
It is easier to change the specification to fit the program than vice versa.
Re:Life Recorder (Score:2, Insightful)
The PC will Never Die. (Score:2, Insightful)
Rambling? (Score:5, Insightful)
ahem... (Score:5, Insightful)
Before we get into a holy war over operating systems, set-top boxes, and other things that most of us probably don't want to argue about tonight, and for those of you who didn't RTFA, it basically looks at the possibilities of decentralising, if you will, certain functions of a PC.
I still believe, however, that the PC itself lacks a certain combination of features that other devices lack. A Tivo or XBox may be simpler to operate, but a PC is expandable and upgradable, simply does much more, and does those things better. A PC is more flexible, and that's what I believe counts. You can word-process or play games, browse the internet, whatever. But if you buy a bunch of 'appliances' to do those things, it really makes life MORE complicated, not less. I yield the floor.
Re:Life Recorder (Score:2, Insightful)
as long as they ditch the i386 arch, all's well (Score:3, Insightful)
Things have gotten slightly better over the last decade, but damn if it doesn't feel like a big waste of time, considering there were better archs available 10 years ago.
Re:ahem... (Score:4, Insightful)
The flexibility and expandibility of a desktop PC are primarily attractions for people who want to "do it themselves." Most people, though, would probably prefer to have a simple PC-type device to do word processing, taxes, etc. while having the more specialized devices to play music, play videogames and the rest. Given an HDTV monitor and properly formatted web pages, I expect that most people would even prefer browsing the Internet from the couch on a set-top box (WebTV and the other services like it just came too early to be properly functional).
Heck, even in the geek community people buy Xboxes to use as media centers, presumably because it would be inconvenient to simply hook up their PC to a TV and use an RF keyboard/remote.
The PC evolving into a dataserver (Score:5, Insightful)
Playing songs and movies
Chatting with an IM, checking e-mail
Writing documents (letters, resumes)
Playing games
Let's start with the first one. Songs sound better through a full stereo set, we can all acknowledge that. Stereos right now are very good at playing audio: they aren't that great at holding the songs they play. Clunky 600 CD changers aren't really the answer. A PC can hold, index, categorize and search more songs in a smaller space than a CD changer ever could. With the advent of set-top boxes, playing and storing movies and videos is now almost practical in a non-PC device. However, a PC is still a more extensible platform for storing and retrieving video data. For display of video, a properly sized television is simply larger than my 17" monitor, and better suited for viewing from a distance. So playing your audio through your stereo and your video through your TV are both better options than just using your PC, but using your PC for storage and retrieval is the best way to look after data.
For chatting/e-mail, the PC is still the premiere platform. However, increasing numbers of people want to take their e-mail with them. Also, people may tend to both chat (IM) with a person they also call on their cell phone. Currently, synchronizing the data between your PDA, cell and computer on who can be contacted where is a pain in the butt. The PC is best suited to storing contact information, but a cell phone is better suited for phoning somebody, a Blackberry can check your e-mail anywhere and hopefully someday will be able to use IM as well (if it doesn't already?).
Although it's a long way off yet, e-paper is still being actively pursued as a better way of entering data. The modern PC, with it's QWERTY keyboard (a design meant to hinder speed, not help it) isn't the premiere choice for entering data. The e-paper with a clipboard could go more places than your PC ever could, but probably won't have the storage capacities that modern *cough*MS Office*cough* document formats require. So having a PC act to save and retrieve all the documents for your e-paper is probably the right combination of technologies.
As for game playing, we all know that both the console and PC games market aren't dying (haven't heard a peep out of Netcraft), but costs for a modern gaming PC are continuing to climb (look back at the pricing for a "budget" GeForce 2 card, now look at the price for a "budget" GeForce 6600 card). At the current rate, the "PC" that you play games on will be a completely different beast than the "PC" that is targeted towards the mass consumer market.
In the end, I'm trying to say that just about the only thing a PC does really well is store stuff. Playback and data entry are done much better by devices specialized for that task. So, in the long run, I think the PC will end up acting as a data server/hub for a variety of devices and server to keep them all in sync with one another. Just my $0.02
Re:Life Recorder (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:ahem... (Score:4, Insightful)
Like what happened at turn of the last century? (Score:5, Insightful)
It seems that a similar transformation is occurring (has occurred?) in the computer industry. Instead of having one computer you use for everything, a multitude of small computerized devices now exists for fulfilling specific functions. Of course, a great deal of this is just natural, considering you wouldn't want to lug a desktop PC around with you whenever you wanted some tunes on the go. :-)
Re:Text vs. Audio (Score:4, Insightful)
A spoken phrase contains tons more information than the words used.
"hi" can mean anything from "go away" to "good to see you" to "great to see you" to "i love you" to "i want to have sex with you right now" depending on how it's said.
"Yes" can mean "yes with 100% certainty" or "I think so" or "I disagree but I'll go along with your opinion" depending on how it is said.
Sarcasm, enthusiasm, mockery, degrees of understanding and confidence are all components of audio that are missing in text.
You can carry on an entire side of a conversation with the phrase "um hmm" in different tones. In text that would compress very well. In voice, it better not lose the added info.
Missing the point of PCs (Score:5, Insightful)
1. People generally use the PC for A, B, and C.
2. New devices are coming out that can do A, B, and C better.
3. So PC will decline or die out.
But they always forget why PCs became popular in the first place. PCs are GENERAL computing machines. With new software or upgrades they can take virutally any role. Their functions are virtually limitless. As a result they are often the nexus of different devices. They help bridge the conntection between other devices or give rise to new ones. How are you going to use your iPod without a PCs? The PC bridges the connection between Internet and iPod. The trend has been towards a convergence rather than a divergence of information and computing. A general computing device is what's going to make it happen, not individual devices that stay one way and operate apart from everything else.
Re:Life Recorder (Score:5, Insightful)
Think of this:
What if were done against your will?
Supposing the penalty for whatever crime they choose would be to have several permanent cameras and audio pickups mounted on, oh, a hat, or a pair of glasses, transmitting a data feed wirelessly to a court-mandated hard drive array you must wear on you belt? Or maybe the camera and audio pickups could be made flat enough for a "third eye" circuitry tattoo on your forehead, and the recorder could be solid state, embedded surgically in your body, or bonded to your skin? Whereever you go, there they are, watching you, whenever they like. Probably automatically alerting your warden whenever key words are spoken. Hook it up to a GPS, and we're ready for our terror-war future.
The porn industry may adopt tech first, but totalitarianism is always a close second or third.
Re:Missing the point of PCs (Score:2, Insightful)
Answer: Your phone is also an iPod, stores 10GB, and you can buy from iTunes on it. Geeks will demand phones with removable SDIO cards or cables to jack into a PC, but most people won't care.
Putting electronics into a phone also gives you an Internet connection.
Yes, and since there's value in carrying it with you, that general computing device is inexorably moving into a phone. You'll always have something resembling a PC because of the screen and keyboard, but the center of your life will be your phone.
Damn Samsung and Sprint for cancelling the sph-i500, my would-be convergence super-device.
Re:Life Recorder (Score:2, Insightful)
A cross between my phone and a PC..... (Score:3, Insightful)
I think the best device would have a keyboard/trackball and a screen that flips up and a docking slot that the PDA plugs into. Wireless built in to the PDA for local LAN, with a slot for WAN broadband. Standard phone rechargers, docking bay has its own powersupply.
Max weight 2.5lbs.
Performance roughly equal to a low end PC.
Re:Life Recorder (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't! Girlfriends tend to disappear when you show them proof of their mistakes. Or, even worse, she might start showing you proofs of your mistakes! Let her keep her illusions, then maybe she'll stick around and let you keep your illusions.
Re:Life Recorder (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't know what's worse. Having to constantly be in photo mode around them or enduring having to look at various fairly mundane photos every single time you see them. It's worse then the cliche of vacation slides.
My prediction (or rather hope) is that this will be a self defeating trend, as the technology makes this behavior more accessible for a larger group of people, it will be progressively lampooned and ridiculed.
The alternative to me is disturbing.
It becomes normal for everybody to have some mega phone with mega pixel camera and powerful flash, if anything interesting ever happens and you -don't- record it, people will think your lying since it would have been so easy to do so. Conversational storytelling dies because it's normal to just show them and they go "ok, heh heh, wow, uhmm.. (pregnant silence).. any new clips on RealTV's vidsite?"
music recording (Score:1, Insightful)
And then every time the Linux kernel is upgraded you can be sure that you won't loose your ability to record.
That makes sense to me.
Why don't these little rio things have a record that lets me get 24 bit audio?
Because they want to sell us the music, not give us the ability to make and sell our own.
PC's are so generalized that they do a lot of things, but none of them with the quality that you need to have a professional product unless you dedicate the PC to that function. Hence distros like Planet CCRMA.
But even if you can get your PC to record music, you will have a lot of buzz and hum from all the fans and all the other crap too.
It is better to have a dedicated device so that it will do what you want well.
Re:Life Recorder (Score:2, Insightful)
Chane is inevitible (Score:4, Insightful)
Do I doubt that the PC will change? No. Do I expect that this article will be an accurate prediction of what we will see? Hell no.
I hope that the PC will remain a general device that can do many different things. To me, the versitility of the PC is the key to making it personal. Once you start integrating it with other things, it becomes less general and more specific to specialized tasks. When you integrate a PC with entertainment functions, it becomes a specific kind of tool - likely to be used for entertainment. If that is what you want, fine but I still like pulling up a spreadsheet in one window and surfing the net in another. Nobody else uses a PC exactly like I do and to me, that is what puts the "P" in PC.
I can see the value in different machines to record TV shows, play games, and to do "office work" but I see another side to it too. About the only way that I can explain it is to compare it to a collection of tools. A few years ago, when I was single living in an apartment, I kept my tools in a bucket under the sink. I had everything I needed, a hammer, a crescent wrench, a couple of screw drivers and a couple of pairs of pliers. Today, I own a home. I own woodworking tools, mechanic tools, yard tools, an air compressor, power tools, and many other specialty tools. My investment in tools must come to thousands of dollars. Yet most of these tools sit idle until I need them. I'd rather not have a bunch of computers that sit idle until I actually need them.
I want a more general single device to call a PC! More like that simple bucket of tools that did everything I need. If I don't have that, I see a huge investment in machines that I won't use nearly as often - kinda like my tool collection I have today.
Re:Computing Excess (Score:2, Insightful)
the flaw in your argument is assuming applications will not take advantage of the increases in performance.
believe it or not, most people don't think dual opterons with anything but a supermodel are sexy. they just want a computer to run their software well.
I have to use microsoft products for the bulk of my work needs, and a 1.5GHz processor is painful for me to use. 10 yrs ago that would have sounded crazy. All the comments around gaming primarily pushing the envelope indicate a major shift will happen that will drive the next technology boom. The software gurus just need to think big.
How big?
What do you think will be here in the next 10yrs - full time AI and voice recognition helping me with presentations, mail, and time and project management?
I think so.
One Word: Palladium (Score:2, Insightful)
As far as I can see, if MS et al manages to push TCPA out the door we're all screwed. As far as privacy goes we're headed for a Orwellian society if TCPA gets accepted by manufacturers - MS will decide what software we run, what ISP we use and what we type in our email. We'll be using Freedom Operating System graciously provided by MS and munching Freedom Chocolate all the while constantly having MS monitor our email to make sure that we don't write any nasty stuff about our Gracious Liberator Bill Gates.
Admittedly though I am quite the cynic about these things.