The Future of Computing

[kp.ramen]

I read this article on TrustedReviews.com http://www.trustedreviews.com/mobile-phones/review/2011/02/16/The-Problem-With-Multi-core-Mobiles/p1?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TRV+%28TrustedReviews+Site-wide+Feed%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

In summary, it mentioned how quickly mobile hardware is advancing, at a much faster rate than mobile software. But that's not what I want to discuss.

The article points out that Nvidia has plans to bring out a quad-core CPU along with a 12-core GPU. Qualcomm will have a quad-core CPU that will run at 2.5 GHz. All of this in 2011! These mobile machines are quickly catching up to their traditional, mainstream PC counterparts. Yes, I understand they still can't compete with the latest bleeding edge hardware, but that demographic makes up a small part of the market.

It got me thinking about what the future of mobile, perhaps general, computing will look like.

Do you imagine a future where (mobile) computing will be:

(A) General Computing = cell phone + full blown OS + wireless display technology + any display, any location?

Or

(B) General Computing = cell phone + the "cloud"* + wireless display technology + any display, any location?
*By the "cloud," I mean all the computing/processing and data storage will be done elsewhere)

Or

(C) Something else--I saw Chris Hardwick on Attack of the Show say that computing will be just people walking up to any terminal, having a biometric scan, and all of our data and settings will just sync and be available.



Though the article is about hardware, I see the technology in cell phones to be the same--they will just get more powerful and robust. Cell phones will have all the same capabilities and features of their PC counterparts, if not already.

 

[Gigantopithecus]

Personally I loathe cell phones and if it weren't for their utility in emergencies, I would have gone back to a land line and an answering machine years ago. Nothing I do is so important and critical that I must always have access to my email and the internet. Similarly I'm not so important that I always need to be reachable via phone. I also have an ancient contract with Verizon so I pay about $30/month for my mobile phone and I'm not keen to start spending over $1,000/year more for a data plan. I wonder how many other people there are like me?

I really don't see mobile hardware ever catching up to desktop power (laptops still don't approach desktops), though like you said, enthusiasts like me make up a small fraction of the market. I have been content with a very capable desktop and a portable laptop for the last six years and I don't see that changing for me. Hell I just sold my 3rd gen iPod Touch because I never used it (and iTunes makes me want to vomit).

 

[mnewsham]

Personally I loathe cell phones and if it weren't for their utility in emergencies, I would have gone back to a land line and an answering machine years ago. Nothing I do is so important and critical that I must always have access to my email and the internet. Similarly I'm not so important that I always need to be reachable via phone. I also have an ancient contract with Verizon so I pay about $30/month for my mobile phone and I'm not keen to start spending over $1,000/year more for a data plan. I wonder how many other people there are like me?

I really don't see mobile hardware ever catching up to desktop power (laptops still don't approach desktops), though like you said, enthusiasts like me make up a small fraction of the market. I have been content with a very capable desktop and a portable laptop for the last six years and I don't see that changing for me. Hell I just sold my 3rd gen iPod Touch because I never used it (and iTunes makes me want to vomit).

I agree to a point, I can see SoC cpu's targeting laptops by 2013 and desktops in 2015, the quad core cpu nvidia just announced is already at mobile core2duo levels, nvidia's plan is for 100x the tegra2 in just 4 years. With that type of increase in cpu power mobile devices will soon rival laptops in useabilty, once the software catches up anyway. So I don't currently see mobile computing taking over it will in the next 5 years or so.


My $0.02

 

[smoothvirus]

The desktop PC is already "dead". The only people buying/building them are enthusiasts or gamers such as ourselves. On the corporate side, it's all going to small formfactor/all in one setups. The rest of the masses are all going mobile, and for now that means inexpensive laptops. It *might* mean tablet PC's in the future but I think jury's still out on that.

That said I think that the desktop PC will reign supreme, computing power wise, for the next few years. And we the power users will probably be building our own systems for some time to come. But I think slowly the innovation will go over to the laptop/tablet side of things.

When friends or family members ask me what to replace their desktop PC's with these days I tell them to get a laptop. I have two laptops myself, one of them is a powerful gaming laptop. And the truth is my gaming laptop will run pretty much anything that my gaming desktop system runs. Yes, the desktop (a tower actually) will run games much faster and in higher resolutions than the laptop can, but they are just as playable on the laptop and I can take it pretty much anywhere.

Tablets are the big question mark - many analysts think tablets will kill off the laptop but I can't imagine having to type a term paper on a laptop. I think for general computing needs and work, people will be using laptops for now. However, I will admit I spend a LOT of time surfing the web and reading articles on my iPhone, and I even enjoy watching shows on it while I'm lying in bed before I go to sleep. So yeah, I would have a use for a tablet (iPad or whatever) and I could see myself purchasing one in the future. However I don't do much gaming on my iPhone and I don't think I'd do much gaming on a tablet either.

 

[wuliheron]

What's coming is portable gaming. Right now its mostly little kids carrying around gameboys everywhere, but increasingly adults are using their cell phones to game when boredom strikes. If you have to carry the thing around with you anyway, why not, and if you have to buy your kid a handheld gaming device to keep him quiet, why not make it a cellphone as well. If he wants the latest and greatest game you can just download it for him rather then driving to store and plenty of games are available for free online.

Portable games on a cellphone might not sound appealing to some of us, but they are already beginning to hurt the sales of console games. Indie games can cost a fraction of what it costs to develop a console game and have enormous returns. Other developers like ID software are working on gaming engines that scale well on the smallest to the largest screen providing the maximum eyecandy possible at any given resolution. Eventually you might be able to start a game on the subway and, when you get home, plug it into your TV and continue.

India has been trying to produce a $35.oo tablet pc for a couple of years now and when congress auctioned off the digital TV bandwidth there was a proposal to create a free broadband internet service paid for by advertising. As costs continue to go down the pressure for governments to provide free or cheap access to computers and the internet will continue to grow. Inevitably the home pc that can be upgraded and repaired will become as obsolete as a do-it-yourself stereo or ham radio today.