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The Immortality of the PC

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    #16
    Re: The Immortality of the PC

    Thanks to all for the interesting discussion. The important question to consider would be if mobility would improve peoples’ productivity. In some cases no doubt. In other cases being chained to a desk with all its goodies, a phone and computer is all that is needed. Besides the ability to type much faster on a full size keyboard, the ability to have a full size screen when analyzing data cannot be replaced with a portable screen. Would anybody here want to do software development on a tablet? My hands are too big and my brain is too small for that. Complicated spreadsheets and dashboard analysis on even a 12 inch screen are going to be difficult as well. At least where I work dual monitors in the past couple of years have become much more common and have been a real aid to productivity at a relatively small cost. Going the other way with the screen size to gain mobility in cases such as this is not going to work now or in the near future. That said, it would probably be safe to say the growth in portable devices and their applications will be much faster than that with PCs. The growth in mobile technology will most likely have a much greater effect upon productivity and the way we do things.

    Comment


      #17
      Re: The Immortality of the PC

      I should pretty well have all the bases covered then

      command centre 1.jpg

      (clockwise from the right)

      - iPad 2
      - Acer Iconia Tab W500
      - 3 x 24" LED monitors hooked up to the desktop PC described in my post above
      - Mac mini
      - Lenovo laptop
      - iPhone 4 ... that took the photo
      Cheers!
      Lyle Chamney
      http://www.2ninerniner2.com/
      Websites rebuilt with WordPress
      http://goodcheapfastwebsites.com/
      Complete, ready to install WordPress websites
      http://snifflevalve.com
      WordPress training and tutorials

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        #18
        Re: The Immortality of the PC

        RRtracks, that is not necessarily all true. Retina projection can be done by combining glasses with a mobile device and project a full size screen. It really is all up to technology. There also are at this very moment goggles on the market then can display live data for instance for skiers or motorcyclists. If the market really expands to the size some expect, then the industry will be keen enough to follow up with technical enhancements soon. It's simply their livelihood task to do so.

        Comment


          #19
          Re: The Immortality of the PC

          You still must admit Mr. MR that Lyle still has all the bases covered - I see space between the leftmost monitor and the tablet for the 3D glasses.

          Comment


            #20
            Re: The Immortality of the PC

            Marcel thank you for the response. Going from current and near future mobile technology to retinal projection is a bit more of a jump in technology than is likely to happen in the near future. When expounding theory regarding the future using anything that can be imagined is possible because there is going to be a possible real or more likely imagined market for it has to be tempered a bit.

            I have heard a few people say with smart phones PCs are not needed. Recently I tried using one of my TV’s with the latest Android Software and hardware to replace the PC used there. After doing this I felt like a moron for even having tried.

            How could many people doing software development see the PC being replaced with a tablet or other mobile device in the near future even with the wildest improvements be imagined? Before going on please consider a concluding comment in my previous post I still stand by:

            That said, it would probably be safe to say the growth in portable devices and their applications will be much faster than that with PCs. The growth in mobile technology will most likely have a much greater effect upon productivity and the way we do things.

            When dealing with the present or future most of the time it is hard to get people to be specific rather than give meaningless self-serving generalizations to the causes they serve with a closed ear.

            All the Best,
            Rich
            Last edited by RRTRACKS; 02-01-2013, 03:57 AM.

            Comment


              #21
              Re: The Immortality of the PC

              Hi Rich. I can understand that these kind of innovation is not everybodies piece of cake. There are enough other things to follow in life without following up on all the things some laboratories might work on. Besides that, typical behavior of laboratories working for large industries is not to shout of the roof what they are working at right now. Competition also listens along.
              But you might want to have a look at this link:

              http://www.slashgear.com/brother-air...e-15-17223265/

              This gear is already on the market NOW. It projects an SVGA 800*600 display and it hooks up through USB. Look at the video targeted after industrial use, it's quite interesting!

              So, "a bit more of a jump in technology than is likely to happen in the near future" might be not quite a good evaluation: it's already there!
              There are more examples of these types of technology like goggles for skiers that are on the market already for some time. And we simply won't know what other laboratories are working on until they announce it.

              It doesn't come more specific then this Rich because nobody holds the patents to the crystal ball that predicts the near future, be it the no-sayers or the yes-nodders.

              Comment


                #22
                Re: The Immortality of the PC

                Its no good for racing a car yet. You need depth perception in racing and instant decisions have to be made that impairing one eye would make for some big problems. In an aircraft, the depth for a turn is a relative, in a race car it is a definite. Go past the point of no return and you crash. How many one eyed racers did you ever see? I do love my racing cars.
                Dave Mason
                [email protected]
                Skype is dave.mason46

                Comment


                  #23
                  Re: The Immortality of the PC

                  I know nothing about racing cars (we stand in large traffic jams on a daily basis here instead) but I know about skiing. A skier racing downhill at high speeds might come close in terms of instant decisions, fast reactions, fast turns with consequences if you do not do them right, and so on. For a skier the dept of a turn is not relative either, instead he gets something added what the racing driver is not bothered with: dept.

                  Have a look here. It might change your perception.

                  Comment


                    #24
                    Re: The Immortality of the PC

                    Marcel,
                    In a racing car, you have cars all around you and diving into a turn at 130 mph behind a line of cars with none having brake lights, you need both eyes(fully functional) to judge the distance between you and the next one. Any one of the cars messes up and you could all be in a big wad. If you were in a car by itself(no other cars), and had a unit to show you how many feet to the turn, it could be an advantage because you could time your entry into the turn at almost the perfect number of feet from the apex of that corner.

                    Since any kind of distraction for one or both eyes could definitely cause a huge problem.

                    As a note, I have won over 200 short track races. I even refuse to wear sunglasses and until it became a requirement, I used an open faced helmet instead of the full face units you see today. Even with the full faced units, mine generally had better side vision than most. We have to know exactly where every other car is around us up to 5 ahead and 3 behind as well as both sides. Going further, we need to know what each is doing and likely to do.
                    Dave Mason
                    [email protected]
                    Skype is dave.mason46

                    Comment


                      #25
                      Re: The Immortality of the PC

                      I am not quite sure how car racing came into the equation anyway since the initial post was about the "immortality of the pc", and reasoning from there the likeliness that fast technical improvements or innovations would boost the usability of mobile devices to a level where they could (maybe) easily compete with the stationary pc's.

                      But anyway, although I don't know squat about racing, and will take your word for the fact that HUD's would not be beneficial in car racing, it seems that reality says differently. Maybe it is just a matter of the rules in car races, maybe it isn't allowed (anymore) but in formula 1 racing BMW has already experimented with HUD equipment and if I remember correctly Ferrari had a remote link to the pitt over HUD with the pilot. Below is a picture of how this worked out for the BMW team in some cockpit during a race or test. So it has been done (which does not say it was a success!) but I don't know whether it is allowed to begin with.

                      1468_02.jpg

                      1468_01.jpg

                      Anyhow, although I understand that f1 takes all you've got (if you have it) you will have a hard time convincing me that it is more then a ski-racer or jet fighter pilot endures. Fighting for your life in dogfights at speeds around mach2 seems at least as demanding. And the ski racer probably has even more to worry about with the constantly changing bottom under his skies, not only in terms of depth, but sometimes more or less icy and this at speeds well over 100kmh without a rollbar.... There seem to be more very demanding activities were a HUD is used.

                      And if it is now available and affordable for recreational skiers to purchase such a unit, then I assume not much holds the manufacturers back to come to the market with a similar device for use with a personal computer. I guess it is all a matter of market. Maybe the market for such devices is not (yet) there. Since this would need at least heavy power users, more likely business users. And as I have reasoned more often, the mobile device is not yet playing a major role in businesses with regards to computing. This may soon change (who knows?) however. It seems Alpha thinks so to begin with.

                      Comment


                        #26
                        Re: The Immortality of the PC

                        Marcel,

                        In the future it may be viable in the cars at speed. Remember that F1 cars have brake lights, we don't. They can even tell when the car in front is at full throttle. I do nascar type racing and this is not allowed mostly for the reasons I stated above. It has been tested and deemed too dangerous. F1 makes a pit stop in about 4-5 seconds and we still take 13-14 seconds. Yeah, I would love to drive one of those. Our cars cost a mere 500,000 to 1 million a copy where an F1 is 5 times that. Neither of us wants to wreck.

                        Does this belong in this thread? Maybe with the turns the thread has taken, maybe.
                        Dave Mason
                        [email protected]
                        Skype is dave.mason46

                        Comment


                          #27
                          Re: The Immortality of the PC

                          Trying to get this thread back on track - but, not a race track...

                          My daughter works for Intel and says that this guy knows his onions (possibly his liver too)...

                          "The PC is not going to go away anytime soon, Intel's CEO states.

                          In a recent interview with BusinessWeek, Intel CEO Paul Otellini covered a number of topics ranging from the cost of building a chip-manufacturing plant, to producing SoCs for smartphones, to the competition between Microsoft, Apple, Google and Amazon. But there's a point where they start talking about a post-PC era, and Otellini clearly acknowledges that the industry has moved away from an era of personal computers, to an era of personal computing. Still, that doesn't mean the desktop is dead.

                          "That means that there are going to be computers all around us and in different form factors," he said. "The PC is not going to go away anytime soon, if ever. It’s going to continue to evolve. Right now, it’s the most powerful tool you can have, but it doesn’t mean that there won’t be tablets or phones or even connected cars. The beauty of all these things is, if you get it right, the sum total of them has more value than the individual devices. That’s the model that we’re working toward."

                          The interview then moves on to talk about the pace of technological change. Otellini calls it evolution, describing the move from mainframes to minicomputers to the desktop PC. Intel servers have taken on supercomputing characteristics while the PC form factor has shrunk from "brick" to "ultrathin." Our phones have even gotten "smart" -- all thanks to the evolution of the microprocessor.

                          "Had we not done the basic work in microprocessors, for example, none of this would be possible," he said. "While there are some really interesting moments where you see great leaps forward -- and I would put the iPhone in that category -- it’s not like it was the first thing. I mean, you see this being argued out in the IP courts today: of who had a phone that was similar to that. Who had swipe gesturing 10 years ago, those kinds of things."

                          BusinessWeek brought up the subject of Intel's late entry into the ARM-dominated smartphone sector with its own SoC. Otellini said that part of the "oh gosh Intel missed the boat" argument stems from the analyst community which, as he states, "has its own agenda." Critics are seemingly fixated on ARM's dominance rather than focusing on Intel's success with high-end chips in data centers.

                          "They may be long on something and short on something else," he mused. "We tend not to worry about that. We just tell our story to them. There have been believers all along. They have made a lot of money, and the people that invested in us at the trough at whatever it was, $12, a few years ago have more than doubled their money, and they’re happy campers."

                          He goes on to describe Intel's entry into the smartphone sector is a marathon, not a sprint. "The most important thing for us is to continue to grow our presence in computing, in personal computing, and in the data center, and then over time get stronger and stronger in devices," he added.

                          To read the full interview : http://www.businessweek.com/articles...s-evolution#p1"
                          Last edited by pulsoft; 02-01-2013, 04:27 PM.

                          Comment


                            #28
                            Re: The Immortality of the PC

                            I think that is one of the most "down to earth" statements about the future of computer usage that I have seen on this board, and I fully agree with its embedded vision!
                            However "Intel's CEO states" does not say "this is how it is going to be". Remember Thomas J. Watson, CEO of IBM, and well known for his alleged 1943 statement: "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers".
                            We have all seen how that turned out.... now, the recent CEO's won't be making those kind of mistakes in judgement anymore, but "the future" sometimes has its own path in mind.

                            Comment


                              #29
                              Re: The Immortality of the PC

                              Originally posted by DaveM View Post
                              Does this belong in this thread?
                              Absolutely, this also

                              Comment


                                #30
                                Re: The Immortality of the PC

                                Marcel,

                                Please accept my apology for the ignorance displayed in my previous posts. Let me also thank you for the information you provided along with the patience displayed. The information you provided was found to be quite interesting.

                                With a last name of Pasma you probably know where some of my ancestors came from and this might explain some of my hardheadedness.

                                I am still not sold on the idea of people using retina projecting glasses in place of monitors. One of the links you provided mentioned they would not be practical while walking around and is currently only being used in industrial environments.

                                They already sell cables to connect smart phones and tablets to monitors, and perhaps a wireless connection if not available will be so soon. There may also be some other type of portable projection available that would provide the equivalent of monitor performance.

                                A wireless keyboard and mouse might be also be available. But now the issue of portability might become an issue. If much typing is required, an ergonomic keyboard with a wrist support is preferred by many people. Typing on a flat surface for any length of time is not going to practical for many people. Dictation replacing the keyboard will work for some people, but not all, me being one of them.

                                Dual monitors have become more common where I work and it is suspected, it might be a while before a tablet or smart phone is going to be able to provide this much flexible and viewable data.

                                Here again is the question asked in my last two posts that has gone unanswered: How could people doing software development here see the PC being replaced with a tablet or other mobile device in the near future even with the wildest improvements imagined? To answer my own question, most of the software and processing would be cloud based minimizing the hardware required for the portable device. Working at a desk would still be there along with the ability to move. Would the ability to move be required or helpful?

                                As far as this discussion going off on a tangent, it probably has regarding what is going to be the death of the PC. Improvements in hardware are probably only a small part of what is going to be the demise of the PC. It is the applications that can be run more effectively on a portable device than a desktop that is going to be the killer. Perhaps someone here could provide some examples of what they have seen or developed in this regard.

                                Being ahead of the curve is what is required with any software development company for survival. Alpha Software has repeatedly demonstrated this ability over the years, and its direction towards the web with less emphasis on the desktop side when considering this is hard to question.

                                As far as being a model citizen I have already demonstrated my ability to provide opinions with errors. If you do not make mistakes you cannot learn, unless you learn from the mistakes of others, and this is much harder than advertised. This was just a silly comment.

                                People here sometime seem to act as if there is a ridged format they are afraid of. Rules are worthless if they lack the flexibility common sense gives to think outside the box.

                                All the Best,
                                Rich
                                Last edited by RRTRACKS; 02-02-2013, 06:07 AM. Reason: grammer

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