Have to jump in and add a +1 to this being the best thread necro I have ever seen ^_^
My predictions for 10 years (cause why not for fun )
Someone will bring in a VR headset that isn't permanently isolating (something like controlled transparency) eliminating the 'anti-social' issue current designs have with market penetration
Desktops will be vastly rarer than they are now, budget models could easily be non-existent with only power users still needing them at all. Possibly even dying out altogether with dedicated devices for the few remaining power users such as GPU boxes for gamers/graphics designers to plug into your main 'computer' (some kind of portable)
There will be some fusion of the ultrabook/tablet/smartphone market (quote and reply below about this) since the power difference between all 3 will be meaningless to most users the only real difference will be screen size.
I'd say optical media will be dead but that's not really a prediction since it's mostly happened already
Resolution will have maxed out (possibly at 4K, but I'm guessing marketing will push it to 8K) and screen technologies will transition to focusing on other areas such as significant gains in contrast ratios, light weight thin possibly even flexible (and hopefully optionally transparent) displays for portability
Although I guess that's starting to get off the CPU topic . I'm no expert I'm sure I'll be wrong on most/all of these but hey it's fun to speculate ^_^.. I would love to say screw all displays/inputs we'll have neural links but I know that's not going to happen for dozens of reasons... The cyberpunk kiddie in me desperately wishes it would though
Instead of a Computer at your house doing all that processing for tasks It's more likely that people will just buy services where that processing is offloaded through internet pipe to a service provider.
I really don't see this one happening without a complete physical rebuild of the internet..Which granted will happen one day but it's a long long way off. Basically the load running everyone's standard day to day computing would put on the pipelines would be insane plus the cost of operating it could well exceed the cost of the increasingly ubiquitous low power pc's we see nowdays that are getting pretty amazing at handling average usage as long as you aren't a power user. That's not even getting into the privacy side of it, although honestly that's a lost game at this point anyway
instead I think smartphones will get potent enough to be your everyday PC. Most of the tech is already there, Widi type connection to a monitor or two, bluetooth to a keyboard/mouse and you're there.
This.. Very much this.... The rate that smartphones power has increased at is insane, obviously it will slow down at some point but still.. There's already been companies that have tried the 'smartphone for everything' concept the Asus Padphone being a big one but it was just too early and couldn't quite do the different tasks well enough.
But I really don't think we're that far off a product like that being completely viable and your phone essentially replacing your Chromebook or possibly even ultrabook which are powerful enough for the vast majority of users needs (not most users here obviously...we like our high end CPUs and GPUs ). I would jump on a functional version of the Padphone in a second to replace my hybrid tablet/ultrabook if someone managed to make one.
I don't think I could ever get rid of a high end home computer simply because of gaming..and while I know there are places trying cloud gaming the latency is a huge factor plus my geographical location means even if they do get services like that functional it'll be a long long long time before I see a server within several thousand kilometres