Guesstimate of computers in 20 years

[TkdRO]

Actually, I am more amazed at how little the actual "user experience" has changed in the past twenty or more years. Let's face it, we're all using fancy-ass, super-fast Xerox PARCs with vintage 1970s technology: Keyboards, mice and windowing-OS's are almost thirty years old. If you go back thirty years before that, computers took up entire buildings and were programmed by hard-wiring!

When I was a kid I figured by now, I'd be having philosophical discussions with my own HAL 9000, not still banging on a QWERTY keyboard designed to keep speedtypists from jamming the keys on manual typewriters in 1868!!! Where are the universal speech inputs? Where are the eye-focal pointers? Where are the neural interfaces? Hello?

Even the speed itself of the "user experience" hasn't changed much since my Mac Plus. Even though my CPU is a few zillion times faster than a 68000, Word still takes half a minute to repaginate my manuscript... but it does it in 32 bit color... which is such a help when I'm writing a report... DUH! And my Mac Plus booted up in a few seconds... try that now with XP. So today I can Gigaflip and Gigaflop. Big frakkin' deal.

I'm massively unimpressed by today's computing experience. The vested interests embodied in Satan Gates and his Satyr Henchman Jobs have effectively frozen the computer "user experience" to about 1980 when they first got into the business. They have done more to hold us back than anything else by distracting us with the mad "performance" game which looks great on charts but doesn't mean tiddly-squat to the average computer user.

wow...your lazy...lol
j/k

What!!!do you want to be a robot? have chips implanted in us n stuff.
So the government can put something in there too n keep track of you.
Having chips installed in human's is just wrong and if ever happens is the beginning of the end of the world.

 

[celewign]

The current user experience is very friendly. The computer is still treated as a tool, but it is easy to learn about and use effectively. Having computers planted in us may be convienent, but is it friendly??? I'm not sure. "Threatening" might be more apt.
-cm

 

[justjc]

To in any way make a guesstimate of computers we need a definition of what a computer is. The first line in Wikipedia states

A computer is a machine for manipulating data according to a list of instructions known as a program.

Would that mean that my loudspeakers are computers? No, as there is no program dictating it should make sounds when there is a signal.

Would it make my MP3 player a computer? Yes, as it has a program that tells it that if I press play on this file it should decode and play it.

Is my 1 dollar weatherstation a computer? Yes, as it can store the data and show me if temperature is rising or falling depending on data caught by it's sensors.

A nonobot, as those some plan we should have floating inside us, would also be a computer as it will be directed by some program(or at least I hope so)

If we follow the simple definition we will not really be able to predict anything, other than we wil surround ourselves with more of them and they're likely to be smaller and more efficient


However when we hear the word computer we usually just think of the machines known as PCs, as the first poster did, and to be honest I doubt many of us will use them in 20 years.

I belong to the group of people, like Donald A. Norman, who likes things to be simple, and in that world PCs will have to make way for more task specific computers.


With that view one can wonder why I even bother to have a PC, but the answer to that is simple...
I might be wrong...

 

[blunc]

You seem to be applying your opinion of my prognostication based upon todays technology, I'm guesstimating computers 20 years in the future. I really doubt anyone will need standalone computers in that time frame unless they are off planet. And yes, I think we won't have automobiles in 20 years due to improvements in technology, changes in resources and society.

and another thing, I did carefully read your post (more than once before posting) 8O I'm thinking they won't be using silicon to make circuits out of in 20 years, but maybe I'm thinking a bit more forward than you seem to be.

These are just my opinions, I respect that you have posted yours, I just disagree with them.

 

[jimw428]

You seem to be applying your opinion of my prognostication based upon todays technology, I'm guesstimating computers 20 years in the future. I really doubt anyone will need standalone computers in that time frame unless they are off planet. And yes, I think we won't have automobiles in 20 years due to improvements in technology, changes in resources and society.

and another thing, I did carefully read your post (more than once before posting) 8O I'm thinking they won't be using silicon to make circuits out of in 20 years, but maybe I'm thinking a bit more forward than you seem to be.

These are just my opinions, I respect that you have posted yours, I just disagree with them.

In order to forecast the changes likely to take place over the next 20 years, it's useful to look at the past 20. For the most part, the PC of 1986 is architecturally the same as it is today.

Sure today's PC is faster, has much more memory, disk storage and better graphics, but otherwise its the same. There is so much invested in the X86 instruction set, windows formatted data and application software, that change will occur much more slowly than you think. The driving forces in the marketplace, that dictate the pace of development, have very little to do with gaming and the interests of most of the posters on Forumz. Business applications are the mother's milk for hardware and software producers and they change very, very slowly. Why? Because change is very expensive!

It's an interesting discussion, but you should remember that to a young person 20 years seems like an eternity, during which all things seem possible. But for someone well past 40 (as I am), 20 years passes all too quickly and things change more slowly than you expect.

One final note on the automobile. Not only will it still be around, much in its present form, there'll so many of them they will be choking the planet. However, it's likely that many will use different fuels, although petroleum based fuels will likely still prevail.

 

[CompTIA_Rep]

So who here will be over 65 in 20 years? Because you dont count.



And you guys are forgetting one then when looking into the future via retrospect.... Technologies that dont exsist. We cant mearly guestimate what the future will be based on the progression of the last 20 years. What about future technologies that are real? Such as holographic storage?

 

[jimw428]

So who here will be over 65 in 20 years? Because you dont count.



And you guys are forgetting one then when looking into the future via retrospect.... Technologies that dont exsist. We cant mearly guestimate what the future will be based on the progression of the last 20 years. What about future technologies that are real? Such as holographic storage?

Holography has been around for a very long time, but has yet to be commercialized. Its longer term prospects are in high performance mass storage, but until recently the lack of a low cost storage medium has hampered it's progress. There is no evidence whatsoever that a general purpose holographic computing engine will exist in the near term future. As is often the case with demonstrable early stage technology, a profitable business case can’t be built, so its mere existence doesn’t imply future application and market success.

Projecting the future is more than thinking about what is technically feasible, it requires one to think about market opportunities, capital investment requirements, competitive barriers to entry, and return on investment. These, and other factors, will determine what technologies find their way to the market place, and which ones languish in the laboratory.

As to the relevance of my age group in 20 years, you might a take look at some demographic data. We will control most of the capital, be the largest segment of the market, run most of the businesses and have the greatest political influence. It would be just one more mistake of youthful naiveté to dismiss us.

 

[CompTIA_Rep]

Sorry you dont count.... NEXT!





Btw I am aware of the fact that holographic storage has been around for quite some time. Dont forget this is the era of google and wiki, one search would revial enough information to pretend you know everything. I started folowing holographic technology 5 years ago, and I know it was fathomed in the ~60s. To me, this tech will be the future of storage.. .and since that is what we are taking about (futures) I broght it up.

P.S. Dont get defencive because I dont think anyone at age 65 can contribute to our future social-economic needs. You just cant... by then, you will be old and senile so any view you have now, is irrelivent and not worth reading.


(joking..)

 

[horstmann]

It won't matter because North Korea will Nuke everyone before then.

 

[CompTIA_Rep]

As much as they think they can nuke everyone (btw i said his 2 pages ago), North K. will cause the US to nuke everyone....

 

[jimw428]

Sorry that you just don't get it, moronic children rarely do.

 

[CompTIA_Rep]

Wow insulting an obvious joke, banter, ... I assume I hit a button of yours sorry.

I actualy hope that in 20-40 years we as a society do 2 things, Learn to have enough kids to replace the parents, no more / no less ( to keep the population stable) and find a way to stay healthy thoughout our aging process... I would not want people to live for 200 years or more because talk about a population crisis. think of how many kids you could have in 200 years.

and in 20 years, we beter be writing like this:
1|\| 20 `/34r5 1 |-|0p3 \/\/3 4|| 5p34|< |1|<3 7|-|15 83¢4|_|53 \/\/3 \/\/0|_|||) 7r|_||`/ 83 |337.

 

[Invader]

frankly, you guys are wasting your money buying now. I'm waiting to upgrade when they come out with the 80 core processor Intel announced ... :idea:

 

[djkrypplephite]

Fully parallel, several-thousand core 128-bit or maybe even 256-bit systems that have no use in anybody's computer except a server, yet we still all have it.

 

[dasickninja]

I'm still waiting for the flying car. [/clerks]