Are We Losing Interest in Computers?

[tobalaz]

With a smartphone I can
Check my email
Read my news
Get updates on my fantasy sports teams and manage them
Send texts (eliminates instant messengers)
Surf most of the web
Sync to my car stereo via bluetooth as a jukebox
Shop almost anywhere, Autozone, Amazon, Bestbuy, Newegg, Walmart, ect....
VNC into my pc from anywhere and manage current tasks
Play games that range in quality from an 8 bit NES to a 32 bit PSX.
Use my phone as a GPS so I no longer need to search and map directions first
Which leaves...
A few sights that don't play nice with mobile
High end pc games
Productivity software, like Word, Excel, and video editing
Burning cds or dvds

So about 85-90% of what I used to do an a pc I now do on my phone.
Firefox is cross platform, so I keep all my bookmarks in sync be it on the tablet, pc or phone, no need to search with all my bookmarks. I've been on the web since my K6-2 350 and know everywhere I want to go and where to find answers without searching.
There's an app on my phone for almost anything, I search Google Play before Google.

And yes, a pc isn't intimidating like it used to be, its Lego's for geeks, and we don't have the problems with cheap capacitors or conflicts because we put out PCI cards in the wrong order. We no longer need to install DOS before we can put Windows on top. We just drop a disk, punch a code, and even most of our drivers are already on the install disk so once it installs itself, it also updates itself to the latest drivers as well. CPU's now come unlocked so we don't have to fill in a void with superglue then jump the chip with a windshield defogger repair kit, then set jumpers on a motherboard to overclock. It's all in the BIOS now. We can't re-solder the jumpers on a GPU to change it from a Radeon to a Fire GL....
In short, no more challenge. It's no longer about skill to maximize your rig, its all about the money you spend.

 

[Pherule]

[citation][nom]rebturtle[/nom]Now that everything can run Crysis, what's the point?[/citation]
Crysis 3, 2013. Are you ready?

 

[rebel1280]

Tech News: Toms and Anandtech Other stuff: Slashdot (though its starting to go down the tubes )

 

[rosen380]

" I've been on the web since my K6-2 350 and know everywhere I want to go and where to find answers without searching."

Huh? So you are saying that you've built up a set of websites from the distant past and there is no need to look for new ones?

When you say you can 'find answers without searching', what does that mean exactly? I know if I need to try and figure out how to do something in VBA, I can go to ozgrid.com or mrexcel.com.

Once I get there, though, I have to search for what I am looking for-- given that, I just go to Google and search for what I'm looking for-- if one of those sites has it, I get linked right to the posts I'm looking for and Google lets me check those sites and 1000s of other similar sites all at the same time.

When you need the SQL Server code for outputting a date/time field as yy/mm/dd, how do *you* find it without searching? If you have some mechanism for arriving at exact pages unknown to you beforehand, I'd love to have that at my disposal.

 

[spartanmk2]

"Are we losing interest in computers?"

I sure as hell am not. Spent 4hrs into the early morning last night busting out my old Athlon 64 pc and all my spare parts to see what i can do to make this monstrosity work again and even upgrade the cpu and graphics for like $25 bucks lol.

Anyone else lose track of time when building new/busting out old pcs just for gits and shiggles?

 

[f-14]

if we are looking at our economic environment, they may have a case here. We surely live in times that may encourage interest in credit cards, mobile devices, mortgages and rentals.

considering the depression we are in much like that of the 1980's when the biggest american manufacturers left for asia for it's cheaper production costs and higher profits importing rather than domestic manufacturing costs. this is the truest sign of how financially bad off people are, they are just trying to survive on what little they earn with just the basic necessities even if they have to use credit cards to buy their mobile devices and pay rent as opposed to buying a home and an auto and all the other stuff they USED to be able to afford before NAFTA and PNTR with china kicked into full swing. EPI papers have shown this to be the results in the past and even went so far as to say start expecting this kind of conservative fisical trend amongst people after pntr with china passed. and now obama brings us asfta and south american free trade deals. it's only going to get worse the more and more we pit american workers against cheaper workers in all other parts of the world.

 

[f-14]

[citation][nom]TheBigTroll[/nom]not my laptop bro[/citation]
time to buy a new laptop

 

[tobalaz]

[citation][nom]spartanmk2[/nom]"Are we losing interest in computers?"I sure as hell am not. Spent 4hrs into the early morning last night busting out my old Athlon 64 pc and all my spare parts to see what i can do to make this monstrosity work again and even upgrade the cpu and graphics for like $25 bucks lol.Anyone else lose track of time when building new/busting out old pcs just for gits and shiggles?[/citation]
Oh I still have to search for threads on my chosen sites.
Most of my Q&A is for the latest Android roms for my tablet and phone, XDA and Slatedroid pretty much cover that.
Windows has hit a point of stability that I'm not searching for random crash codes anymore, and I've spent enough time fixing almost every pc problem hardware related I usually don't have to fire up google and search like I've never experienced working on a pc anymore. Sorry if you do.
You'd be surprised at the wealth of information on NewEgg's customer feedback, a lot of times if there's a compatibility problem someone already had it and there is a response from the manufacturer.
I guess what I was trying to say is I can find answers in my forums of choice faster than sorting through google searches most of the time.
That doesn't mean ALL OF THE TIME mind you. I still search now and then but its not as frequent as it used to be.

 

[antilycus]

The spikes are the holiday season, duh

Also there are more options besides just google. Not to mention the search bars that are rammed down people's throat that don't know any better. On top of that places like NewEgg, TigerDirect, Amazon, Ebay, etc etc etc have their own search engines that don't run through Google. So in other words, this graph determines ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.

 

[rosen380]

" and I've spent enough time fixing almost every pc problem hardware related I usually don't have to fire up google and search like I've never experienced working on a pc anymore. Sorry if you do.
You'd be surprised at the wealth of information on NewEgg's customer feedback, a lot of times if there's a compatibility problem someone already had it and there is a response from the manufacturer."

Sure-- just like I have my favorite places for finding bits of code and what-not-- but I still search Google, since *those results* show up in Google and I can consolidate multiple searches of particular sites into one Google search.

IMO, if your Google searches come up with so much crap that it is faster for you to go to particular sites, look up a part and read through the user reviews looking for the incompatibility issue, then I think there is something wrong with the search terms you are using.

 

[hetneo]

As with all statistics this one show everything and reveals nothing. First of all unknowns is what this graph is showing, is this percentage of all queries or the absolute amount? I'm more prone to think it is percentage because number of PC owners and internet users in the world has increased for quite a bit in the world since 2004 and it would be expected that curve of absolute numbers be much more flatter. With article that fails to answer this question all you can do is make swag (that's silly wild ass guess for you kiddos).