http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/n ... he-PC.html

Thoughts?

I don't see why we can't have it all

I do still think that PC are at the leading edge of technology. Smartphones and tablets are simply miniaturised versions. The fact that they use touch screens is only down to practicality and the fact that large touch screens for desk tops are still too expensive right now. You have Thunderbolt in desktops and gradually these technologies will make it to smaller devices. One thing that has been lost with older PC's is the need to be efficient with code. Apps have brought that back to an extent.

It's rare that I disagree more with tech articles tbh.

While they might suffer in the novice, casual user (Mum & Dad) market, the idea that big business will move wholesale to tablets is, IMO, fanciful. I tend put the idea of tablet ubiquity in the same category of fantasy as flexible home working, voice recognition and the paperless office.

Jim's right (again).

The day somebody invents an ergonomically superior solution to the humble keyboard, then we can talk. Until then, the PC is the PC. Everything else is smaller and [LIFTED], but might be suited to specific applications.

Yes tablets are niches, albeit a very profitable niche. I still use my desktop most of the time. My iPad is a very useful accessory to them. Companies might use tablets for specific tasks, like menus in restaurants or for ordering services in hotels, as organisational tools. Though they will still need computers to process and manage the data. Household might be able to get away without using a computer and doing everything on smart phones and tablets but they will be few.

I do see the PC changing. I've long envisaged everyone have a device that does everything - similar to Leela's wrist thing but thought of it whilst the simpsons were still popular.

Before cloud-computing was known about and mobile phones were simple call or text only affairs, I envisaged them being more computer like, which we see at the moment. The difference is I thought of the "main PC" being hidden away whilst the other devices would connect to it and it would act as a gateway. The main computer would remain connected to the internet and whenever a device would come within range, it would automatically upload/download any info to/from the device. I didn't know about 3G etc back then.

Given that cameras can connect directly to printer, TVs can connect directly to the router and the proliferation o handheld devices, it's conceivable that some households won't require a desktop computer. Many these days have laptops instead and this is more due to space and portability. The iPad popularised the tablet computer and many use it alongside laptops/desktop PCs. Once tablets have increased functionality and there's no need for iTunes or similar synchronising software, there well might be a decline in the need for and use of desktop personal computers.

Cloud computing was a dream of Microsoft and others from the nineties. It never materialised in all those years. Google Docs is a variation of cloud computing. Much of the technology was dreamt about many years ago. It has just taken a long time for much of it to become viable.

As for computer-less tablet service. Apple are working on that because it opens up new markets from those who do not have a computer. It is a logical step to make them less computer centric but it does not mean that the PC is dead yet.

To be fair we don't have to invent better alternatives, we just have to perfect them. Proper natural pattern speech recognition, for example, would be infinitely better than the qwerty keyboard (which, of course, was designed specifically to slow people's inputs down). we have 'invented' that, but we can't get it to work correctly just yet. Because getting a computer to recognise nuance and tone is actually really hard.

Possibly the only 'invention' we could get that would be better than speech recognition would be if you could get a computer to actually read your mind - so you'd just think the words and they'd pop up on the screen. That's a long, long, long way away if it's even physically possible at all. Plus being able to do that opens all sorts of cans of worms - Ian Banks points out in his Culture novels that in that fictional universe computers have reached the point where they can read people's minds but they choose never to do so because that would inevitably lead to suspicion and paranoia.

Jon

Ok, "perfect". But I stand by my comments, without a decent replacement for the keyboard that works better than a keyboard does, we're going nowhere.

I find typing far better than talking. Seriously - talking for me is an effort. I prefer to IM than phone. Voice recognition is now just as accurate as typing on a touch screen, but nobody uses it because typing will always be so much less effort for those of use who've been using keyboards since we were young. It's also more sociable - nobody wants to hear every word you type.

For this reason, despite the fact that my phone could easily fulfil all of my daily computing needs I choose to sit here in my comfortable chair typing at my 5 year old desktop with it's full Qwerty keyboard, an optical mouse at the peak of development and a glorious 2048 pixel wide screen.

I love portable devices, but when I want to sit down and do some serious trolling I need my big-arse computer.

I can generally type faster than speaking. I usually end up umming and ahhing. Typing also allows me to reflect on my posts a bit more (well most of the time) before I hit the send/submit/post button. There's been quite a few times I've just closed a window rather than post my reply. Speaking would interfere with this entire process. What's really needed is thought-control.

Quite. My problem is that I no longer have a desk or a big-arse computer available. So for now the smallest I'm prepared to go is a 10" netbook. In an ideal world, I'd have a big-arse computer with a proper keyboard and a couple massive screens. As it is, should this living abroad lark become a thing for me, I suspect a 13" ultraportable will be the best compromise available to me.

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=14458

I'm curious to see where they take those

Try that on a trading floor or any open plan office. It is hard enough when you've got half a dozen people trying to telephone at the same time, get 50 odd people in an office trying to control their computers and it will sound like feeding time at the monkey house. I think future computers will use several interfaces - depending on the situation. Also, I can type faster than I can talk.

Voice will work in quite environments, touch will work on smaller devices, motion/gesture, thought caputre (ah, I see you are ahead of me), some sort of keyboard for bulk data entry or when it is noisy.


And how long until we are then plunged into Butler's Jihad?

This.

Also, most people feel uncomfortable/strange talking to their computer. And what of producing confidential documents?

For me, it would take far longer to edit the gibberish that would end up in the document from speech input than it would take for a monkey to type it.

And don't even get me started on using speech interface to edit a document... that is so horrific it should be used as a punishment. The text in the document would read "The cat sat on thee no back delete that oh just listen to me you [LIFTED] piece of [LIFTED], just [LIFTED] off and die Aaaaargh