[citation][nom]arcainumbro[/nom]I'm personally torn. Think about how many things your grandparents said "I just don't get that, or I just don't like that" about. Well, now it's our turn for those statements. Kids will now grow up with gestures and touch interfaces as the norm, so for them anything that we love and try to stick to will be old fashioned. I have a 7 month old daughter right now, and it may become reality that she will rarely use a computer with a mouse. And to her, having to touch a mouse with buttons will be weird and she won't like it.[/citation]
Ya, no kidding! I rebuilt my rig last November and it dawned on me: My son will likely never have a traditional desktop computer. He may have an all-in-one that is tied to his desk, but the idea of having an upgradable box is going to be pretty foreign by the time he is ~8-10 and getting his own PC/Laptop/tablet/computer/thing. Touch will be considered 'normal' and standard equipment. Voice input will likely replace keyboards for many applications (something along the lines of SIRI or Google's voice search), but keyboards will still be around for large text input. 3D screens will still not be standard, but likely more than the niche market that it is today. Quad core mobile devices and 8-16 core/thread 'less mobile' devices will be normal, with 32+ core/thread options available (right now duel core is still normal, with 8-12 thread/core available). SSD or similar tech will be standard equipment. Ram will be a 'non factor' with most systems having 8+GB, but still only using 2-4GB for day-to-day use (Perhaps 'ram' will disappear entirely with things running directly from the storage device and CPU cache). Lastly I think that video walls or multi screen displays will catch on by this point.
Custom computers will mostly be for servers where you may want more storage space than what your SSD based 'end user' devices have but they will not be big bulky servers like today, and for extreme gaming (3-7 4K displays). Your average 'computer' will be able to do everything from gaming to 4K video editing without any need for additional hardware. Once we can do real time ray tracing, and be able to produce retna display quality gaming for under $500 (which we should be able to do in the next 5-10 years) then you will simply pick your display you want, and it will come with a CPU/GPU combination capable to do whatever you need to do on your display.
Heck, we are already beginning to see this transition as there is less 'need' for CPU and GPU power. My wife's 4 year old PC has more than enough horsepower for office work, browsing, flash games, simple video editing, advanced audio editing and music scoring, HD movie playback, etc., and with an SSD it is pretty quick at all these tasks. My old computer (which was similar to hers, just 6mo older and with a gaming GPU) had more than enough power for my gaming needs and other tasks, and the only reason I upgraded was because I needed something a bit faster for HD 1080p video editing (HD editing on a 5 year old duel core is a bit painful lol). I went a little overboard with the build because I want it to last a long time, but even $800 all-in-one PCs can do HD editing with no problem these days (though rendering the video may take a little time), and if they can do it now, they will be able to do it much better/cheaper in 10 years. Hell, even the iPad can do simple HD video editing, and it is a gutless wonder! I am not saying it is the 'end of the PC' yet, but you can see it from here, and the end will have come by the time my son is ready for a computer.
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