Not so fast
I got a chance to fondle a friend's Toshiba convertible recently. Not bad. Of course, it showed typical Windows design sense "Add more buttons! Who cares if it makes sense where we put them!" and achieved it's small size and battery life by omitting an optical drive (something my similar-sized (and cheaper) iBook manages to keep).
We got talking about the future of computer, and while Bill says the PC isn't dead (yet), I think we're heading towards a "data-centric" model, and away from the hardware-based computing environment we now have.
It'll be something like this, only moreso.
Imagine a USB thumb drive with all your data which scales in features according to the hardware environment it's in.
If you want basic access (email, office apps, browsing) plug it into your PDA/Smartphone. For more advanced computing, say, graphics, 3d games or desktop publishing, plug that same drive into a "desktop" machine, and get all the office apps/email/etc, plus the more advanced graphics/memory needed for those other apps. Plug that same module into a "laptop" machine for the same feature set on the run.
Ideally, it will be OS-neutral, cross platform and open standards all the way. It's data on the PC, and what you do with it, that really makes a computer valuable. Hopefully PC design will eventually catch up with that fact.
We got talking about the future of computer, and while Bill says the PC isn't dead (yet), I think we're heading towards a "data-centric" model, and away from the hardware-based computing environment we now have.
It'll be something like this, only moreso.
Imagine a USB thumb drive with all your data which scales in features according to the hardware environment it's in.
If you want basic access (email, office apps, browsing) plug it into your PDA/Smartphone. For more advanced computing, say, graphics, 3d games or desktop publishing, plug that same drive into a "desktop" machine, and get all the office apps/email/etc, plus the more advanced graphics/memory needed for those other apps. Plug that same module into a "laptop" machine for the same feature set on the run.
Ideally, it will be OS-neutral, cross platform and open standards all the way. It's data on the PC, and what you do with it, that really makes a computer valuable. Hopefully PC design will eventually catch up with that fact.
This entry was posted by Kevin Creighton, on
3.22.2005.
