Future of computing

[willawake]

What is the future of computing? are they just going to make periodic upgrades and minimal progress so we are still going to be using basically the same thing for years and years. Should we look to the web and mobile devices for the future? hardly much progress there also.

[bgavin]

Re: Future of computing

I think it all revolves around whoring and marketing. Perhaps this is the cynical view, but everywhere I see electronic toys plugged into people's heads. It seems the purpose of a computer is to deliver entertainment.

I've been commuting on the BART train for a contract I'm working in Oakland, CA. It seems I'm about the only one who is not plugged into iTunes or texting on their phone. I guess nobody can live in the head anymore... they need electronic stimulation all the time.

The contract I'm working is the usual "we're all screwed up" computer stuff. There seems to be no end of broken business stuff. If VISTA is the future... I'll pass.

[i4004]

Re: Future of computing

are they just going to make periodic upgrades and minimal progress so we are still going to be using basically the same thing for years and years. Should we look to the web and mobile devices for the future? hardly much progress there also.

yeah, progress is always slow and gradual.
good thing i have a bike now.

[stretch0069]

Re: Future of computing

quantum computers


really though....it boggles the mind that we are dealing with a creation that can only exist in two states........on or off. thats insane!!!!!!!!

i don't know why we don't have "computers" that are dealing in more than just ones and zeros.

maybe its just me.....

if i had the time (more truthfully, the energy/motivation) i'd try to make something better. i don't understand why no one else has.

[zandrax]

Re: Future of computing

IMHO computing is a cycle: as an example, consider the idea of powerful and independent computer against the dipendent terminal.

From late 1940s to late '70s computers were expensive: usualy a big mainframe, the only powerful computer, was surrounded by dozen of dumb terminals. Minicomputers in late '60s didn't change too much the situation: there were still terminals, called intelligent because they could decode ASCII or Escape sequences ...
30 years ago came the revolution: there was a market for smaller but powerful computers, dubbed home computers or microcomputers (because they were based on first microprocessors and the were a lot smaller than a minicomputer). People started using them; a lot of devices and models came, but the IBM PC imposed itself on the market because of its open architecture (who said IBM compatibles a.k.a. clones? ).
In first '90s Internet broke off: people could finally connect their computers to a bigger one, a server. In late '90 Sun and Oracle tried to market the Network Computer idea: a dumb terminal connected to a big server. It was too early and never succeded.
Late 2000's: the so-called Web 2.0 (TM of a big editor somewhere in Sebastopol, California ) is here even if nobody can recognize it, Google Apps allows people to work online through their browsers. Another dumb terminal idea?

My idea regards distributed computing: people start with a resource limited device that can do only a function (say a pocket organizer); in short something like a quite dumb terminal. They find it comfortable and would like to enhance it into a more powerful device (a B/W PDA): they make it intelligent.
Enhancement continues: it becomes so powerful you can even entertain yourself (PDA with mp3 playback in late 90's, video playback in 2000's, 3D videogames in 2010's?).
Then you find it becomes too powerful: it's bigger than older devices, requires more resources (old Palms lasted a week with a pair of AA alkalines: how many hours does your Win Mobile PDA last?) and some functions overlap with other devices (smartphones and portable consoles).
Eventually the wheel spins again: someone will rediscover something like the original resource-limited device (... maybe a weareable organizer? ).

1st consequence: we are diffusing computing power in our environment. Since devices are more and more powerful and new devices come every year, expect diffuse computing (weareable computing, domotics, embedded computers).
2nd: after diffusion, there will be the connection. Devices are more useful when connected togheter and IPv6 is going to supply 2^64 addresses to everyone: expect billions of new presences in Internet in next 10 years.

Well, I'm a bit tired. Run out of Cassandra's predictions now

Zandrax

[i4004]

Re: Future of computing

pc history is mostly about x86 getting cheaper and faster...
it's future will probably be more of the same thing...
and smaller....
i wouldn't say we'll be going back in any way, and i think "diffused" compuitng and web intergation will be same step. what's a pc without internet?
fatser mobile phone connections are coming anyway...although it will probably be crowded...

>old Palms lasted a week with a pair of AA alkalines: how many hours does your Win Mobile PDA last?)

old palms are plain silly today...but mobile phone tariffs are too...
how do you get out of that vicious circle? mobile operators will say they need money to build next generation network, so in the end price stays too high all the time...how does that help the mobile internet adoption?

[zandrax]

Re: Future of computing

pc history is mostly about x86 getting cheaper and faster...
it's future will probably be more of the same thing...
and smaller....
i wouldn't say we'll be going back in any way, and i think "diffused" compuitng and web intergation will be same step. what's a pc without internet?

Yeah, Internet is as pervasive as computers.

how do you get out of that vicious circle? mobile operators will say they need money to build next generation network, so in the end price stays too high all the time...how does that help the mobile internet adoption?

It doesn't help it at all: things get widespread if they're cheap enough

Zandrax

[willawake]

Re: Future of computing

showing pictures on the ceiling
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencete...ear-round.html
http://www.theskyfactory.com

edit : hey these are only static photographs. how lame.

[Paul S]

Re: Future of computing

That sort of reminds me of the scene in Soylent Green. Where Edward G. Robinson is in the dying chamber at the death clinic.

http://www.youtube.com/v/ImcuCZqkh5c&hl=en