Is the Home Desktop Going Away? 102
fishdan asks: "I recently wrote a lengthy reply to Doug Barney who had written an article saying that Apple and Linux were not trying to compete on the desktop. I saved my reply in my journal, if anyone is interested. However, this got me to thinking. Game makers have said that they are going to be developing for consoles like the Xbox or Playstation, first. Rich web applications like Writely are moving much of the standard functionality of the desktop online. Email is moving rapidly to mobile devices. Given your integrated Web/Media Center/TV that runs through your high resolution screen (that everyone will have in 10 years), what is the future of the home desktop?"
Homework (eew!) (Score:2, Insightful)
SETI@Home (Score:5, Funny)
I'll just sit back and wait.
Re:SETI@Home (Score:1, Troll)
It's tralfalmadoreans, by the by.
Re:SETI@Home (Score:2, Informative)
Same old same old (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure that EVENTUALLY with media centers and portable tablet/handhelds getting move advanced it might become a reasonable notion, but until we're all walking around with Star Trek-esque super computers the size of a notepad, I'm not sure I see any obvious reason for the desktop to disappear anytime soon.
Re:Same old same old (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Same old same old (Score:2)
That may be sooner rather than later. (Score:4, Insightful)
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/20/15142
With that, "ubiquitous computing" may morph into personal computers merely being interfaces for The Grid, essentially providing the basis for _all_ applications to scale like Seti@Home. Perhaps that's also why Google is interested in electronic micropayments...and it could all happen very, very quickly.
Re:That may be sooner rather than later. (Score:5, Insightful)
- batteries. You can run a heavy, hot laptop for about 2-3 hours before needing a lengthy recharge. You can run a handheld PDA for roughly the same amount of time; current drain scales up proportionately. You are going to need a couple of orders of magnitude better power sources to replace a desktop; 12 hours of continuous use per day for several days, I would guess.
- data input. The desktop/laptop has this amazing invention, the full size keyboard, that lets us enter tons of information more quickly and accurately than any other method. Having used a Palm handheld and mobile phone for years I can safely conclude that the keyboard is in no danger of being replaced. Speech recognition still sucks and that's the one possible alternative.
- display. Desktops have awesome displays; it's not uncommon to have 19" or 24" displays these days, nice crisp LCD screens. Nothing compares to this. Teeny little 3" screens are not going to replace these any time soon.
- storage. Desktops start at 40G of permanent storage and go up to terabytes. Nothing else can compare. What's more, our storage needs are growing, not shrinking. We're not going to switch to Pocket PC/Phone/consoles that have maybe a 10G memory card or a 30G hard disk and give up our 250 giggers.
- connectivity. A desktop is on DSL or Cable or T1 or dial-up and is a reliable way to access the internet. Handheld devices have to be in range of a wireless hub or in network for cellular connections. The widely available connectivity for broadband handheld devices simply doesn't exist yet. My previous apartment was in some kind of Verizon dead zone, in a big suburb next to Boston so it would have been impossible to have handheld broadband or even handheld slow dialup. THere's a tremendous amount of infrastructure to be built, just to displace an existing infrastructure that works pretty well.
As storage is further miniaturized and as voice input and battery technology improve, we will doubtless see a displacement of casual desktop/laptop use with handhelds, such as Blackberry-style email reading and Palm/PPC-style organizer functions, but for heavy lifting, the desktop will remain. When 8 megapixel cameras are the norm and everyone's using digital video cameras with their huge demand for disk space, we're going to want those capacious, fast desktops even more.
Phones will probably get a little smarter but convergence tools such as the Treo can only do so much. People still want phones to act like phones. It's going to take a lot of tech to move us to the next level.
Re:That may be sooner rather than later. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:That may be sooner rather than later. (Score:3, Insightful)
Laptops will only replace desktops so long as they (unlike desktops, today, here in Australia) are recognized expenses for tax purposes. Otherwise, most people won't buy them because most people don't need them.
Otherwise, given you move between an office and your home and don't really need a PC anywhere else, why pay for a machine of a family
[a] inherently more expensive due to their monolithic construction
[b] underpowered as compared to desktops (cpuwise, gpuwise, whether comp
Re:That may be sooner rather than later. (Score:1)
Then I guess I must have been imagining my GRiD 1720 lasting almost fifteen years before it finally crashed back in '04. Now there's a machine you've got to admire – even with a 16MHz 286 and 4MB of RAM, it was still faster than most of the machines I own today.
By the time the thing finally died – the hard disk and floppy drive eventually just simultaneously failed – the only "problem" with
Re:That may be sooner rather than later. (Score:2)
With a desktop, you simply could have changed the monitor and keep the rest of the system, instead of suffering a broken display for 10 years. I call that an advantage of the desktop over the laptop.
Re:That may be sooner rather than later. (Score:1)
Well, the thing is, when we got the thing it was the only one we could afford – and besides, by the time I got it (after we got a new family PC), I already had a couple desktop machines I was using anyway. The point of a laptop is that it's portable, and this one was pretty damn good consi
Re:That may be sooner rather than later. (Score:3, Interesting)
People don't buy shiny tech for tax purposes.
To address your points:
[a] inherently more expensive due to their monolithic construction
[b] underpowered as compared to desktops (cpuwise, gpuwise, whether comparing strongest models of each or same-costing models of each, you name it)
Web and multimedia capable PCs have been pretty cheap for quite a while now...and laptops aren't much more expensive. The "underpowered" aspect just doesn't matter except for gamers
Re:That may be sooner rather than later. (Score:2)
* I can read my e-mail, sort photos from my camera, work on software... on the sofa with my girfriend.
* I can run all sorts of slideshows and music at my Boys Brigade group.
* I can do digital slideshows for friends and family whenever I want
* I can catch up on personal projects wherever I am - on holiday, travelling with work...
* I can run databases to let me score and manage Boys Brigade competitions wherever and whenevver I want, rather than having to do it all on paper. This weekends
Re:That may be sooner rather than later. (Score:2)
Re:That may be sooner rather than later. (Score:3, Insightful)
Laptops can connect to outlets too, but unlike desktops, they have their own battery in case no external power supplies are available, and
Re:That may be sooner rather than later. (Score:2)
That's interesting, my desktop does - it's called a UPS. Still cost less than a comparable laptop for power and storage.
Laptops can connect to desktop keyboards and mice too, but unlike desktops, they have their own input devices in case nothing better is availab
Re:That may be sooner rather than later. (Score:2)
And again usually cost from 30-40% more than the comparable internal drive, and are slower.
You also forgot to mention that portable hard drives also work for desktops, so the GP's point is moot.
Re:That may be sooner rather than later. (Score:2)
Except play games.
Even if you're lucky enough to get a laptop with enough onboard graphics horsepower to play two-year-old 3D games, what are you going to do when you want to play the next crop of games? Buy a whole new laptop, that's what, because you sure aren't going to be able to upgrade it with a new video card.
You might be missing the trend (Score:1)
- batteries. You can run a heavy, hot laptop for about 2-3 hours before needing a lengthy recharge. You can run a handheld PDA for roughly the same amount of time;
A Nokia 9500 runs a full workday (and then some) on a single charge. Each newer device gets better, and soon all devices will carry enough juice for the average Joe.
- data input. The desktop/laptop has this amazing invention, the full size keyboard, that lets us enter tons of information more quickly and a
The battery argument (Score:2)
Batteries are really one of the two main advantages of laptops, the other being the portability.
The real anti battery argument you could have made (but didn't) is that in order to extend battery life, laptops get crippled versions of CPUs and other components, that bring down usefulnes even when plugged in.
I didn't say they would go away... (Score:2)
I never said desktops would go away, just that their purpose as we recently have thought of it is already in the process of changing so drastically that the distinction between desktop, laptop, handheld and all manner of both stationary and mobile devices will become practically meaningless. Perhaps I did not say that in those words, but that was my point. So what if a device of any form, desktop included, has X amount of ram or processor speed if it can connect to a 1 million CPU grid with exabytes of stor
Re:That may be sooner rather than later. (Score:2)
Probably a good thing, actually, because it will mark the point where PCs are an integrated and accepted appliance in the home of "Joe Average".
Re:Same old same old (Score:1)
Even then desktop will persist (Score:1)
Even then desktops will be around if only to start a web browser. So there will always be remote web applications as will be local binary applications. The only difference is which kind for what task.
But what will change is that applications either on the web or local will become cross-platform since sooner or later nobody ca
Re:Same old same old (Score:1)
I'm sure that EVENTUALLY with media centers and portable tablet/handhelds getting move advanced it might become a reasonable notion, but until we're all walking around with Star Trek-esque super computers the size of a notepad, I'm not sure I see any obvious reason for the desktop to disappear anytime soon.
from my perspective, there still are problems with other technologies:
LAPTOPS: There is a power and convenience vs. size and heat tradeoff. I personally don't like fast laptops for several reasons.
Not so long as it's so hard to upgrade laptops (Score:1, Interesting)
But maybe by 2020 we'll see the home PC get phased out.
I think we're more likely to see home PCs use more wireless keyboards and run off the HDTV screens, though, and as console game systems improve, we might see fewer people buy home PCs.
I have noticed this too (Score:4, Funny)
Both the desktop and BSD seem to be under the weather lately, and might be dying.
Re:I have noticed this too (Score:2, Funny)
Re:I have noticed this too (Score:1)
Re:I have noticed this too (Score:1)
Evolution, not destruction (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Evolution, not destruction (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Evolution, not destruction (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Evolution, not destruction (Score:1)
How far into the future? (Score:2, Interesting)
My only real point: it's a total no-brainer that desktop computing systems, as we know them now, are going to disappear. Computer technology gets old, and it gets there fast.
Might be more trouble than it's worth (Score:1, Offtopic)
MCP: I was planning to hit the Pentagon next week.
Dillinger: The Pentagon?
MCP: It shouldn't be any harder than any other company. But now, this is what I get for using humans.
Dillinger: Now, wait a minute, I wrote you.
MCP: I've gotten 2,415 times smarter since then.
Not offtopic (Score:1)
Physical locations? (Score:3, Insightful)
An "integrated Web/Media Center" that runs a high resolution screen sounds a lot like a personal computer. Are you simply inquiring as to the physical location of the typical home computer in the future? I'm guessing many people would be happy with only one computer, hooked up to a T.V....but any user who is even *remotely* hardcore will always have a computer at their desk. It's a tool, just like a pen or stapler.
Plus, I doubt LCD TV or Plasma screens will ever be low enough that the average income...such as myself...can afford multiple displays (which I *need*) on their Media Center.
Re:Physical locations? (Score:2, Insightful)
That said, the idea of a tivo/cable box/media center thin client that runs firefox/writely/zimbra seems like it would work for a lot of people. That gmail thing seems to be catching on, too.
Most likely, everyone here will have a destkop (or 2 or 3 or 4) for the forseeable future.
Personal server no doubt (Score:3, Interesting)
Whatever the conjecture, we have entered the age of the personal server.
Re:Personal server no doubt (Score:2)
I think your more likely to see diskless systems and fiber to the home. Hell ADSL is fast enough to stream better than cable quality xvid encoded video now. The powers at be don't want people to own massive collections of media and what else do you need all the HD space for on a Personal Compute
Re:Personal server no doubt (Score:2)
I disagree. My son (who uses the computer as a tool, not as a hobby or as a software geek) is living in a house with three other people, and between them they have I think it is 6 computers (laptops & desktops) hooked into a wireless LAN. It's all off-the-shelf stuff, with a little bit of help from the local geek (not me, although I did buy at leat one of the computers). None of them are computer geeks -- I'd put them all at the joe-
Re:Personal server no doubt (Score:2)
Actually, I think the technology is just fine. The problem is the execution of it. Servers are SUPPOSED to be big and scary. Really though, what does the average user need in a home server? Fileserver. E-mail would be cool. From there you can add some things like a streaming music server, maybe video, whatever. But primarily they need the FILESERVER. Everything else i
Vista SP4 (Score:2, Funny)
Big Roadblocks (Score:5, Insightful)
1. At least in the U.S., there just isn't a good enough broadband Internet infrastructure to handle the bandwidth required to drive a dumb terminal and provide anything near the current desktop experience with games, movies, etc.
2. Even if point 1 wasn't an issue, it'd still be a gradual process to get people to switch to something like that, plus it would take time for various service providers to come up with the hardware and software infrastructure to do it, and finally there'd be a big market war.
3. There's also the point to be made that Microsoft still maintains its industry presence largely via Windows, and a move to dumb terminals plugged into a server-side experience would cause a dramatic shift in Windows' - and thus Microsoft's - role (if not toss it right out the window, pun intended).
Bottom line: I give desktops at least another 10-20 years before someone vaulted into the future from today would have a hard time recognizing a home computer.
Re:Big Roadblocks (Score:4, Interesting)
There's more than enough bandwidth for remote desktops. Video is a slightly more difficult issue, but that could be EASILY handled by on-the-fly MPEG-2 compression at the datacenter, and a dirt-cheap MPEG-2 decoding chip in the thin clients. Games are a non-starter, but other than that, I think we're ready to go.
Actually, I think you could get a very large number of people to switch right away. Offer them an "internet computer" (read thin client) for free, and only slightly higher broadband fees to cover the ISP's costs. Advertise it to the people that don't know which end of a computer is up, as something they can't possibly make a mistake on (and "low power" and "all the software you'll ever need, built-in"), and you'd have a good-sized market, almost instantly.
When there's money to be made, believe me, the service providers can do it at record-breaking speeds. 99% of the software already exists, they'd just have to expand their datacenters, wire them up in a cluster for failover, reasonable back-ups, etc. I really can't see any reason they couldn't put this all together, and start signing customers within 6 months.
I know I'd never sign-up for anything like that, but I know a lot of people that would fit into this model perfectly, provide there are good terms in place, and getting copies of your own data (eg. on DVD-Rs) isn't too expensive.
Re:Big Roadblocks (Score:2)
I think the selling point is going to be no more data loss and no more malware. Most average consume types I talk to find that all of this security stuff is confusing and are tired of loosing files. Thin clients put all the hardwork in security and reliablity in the datacenter.
The whole thing has to be sold as one simple package for a reasonable price. The package must include internet, voice, media, office applications, personal webspace(blog, photo albums, shared documents, etc.
Re:Big Roadblocks (Score:2)
Because the hardware/software for encoding/decoding MPEG-2 is far cheaper, and the patent fees are significantly less as well. The bandwidth really shouldn't be an issue.
It certainly is. Thin clients aren't dumb terminals. The client is only doing some basic compression/decompression. You can easily find RDP/Citrix thin clients. Unfortunately, I haven't seen VNC thin clients yet, most likely because dirt-cheap (old) har
Re:Big Roadblocks (Score:1)
Re:Big Roadblocks (Score:2)
Haven't they done this multiple times before - say like the iOpener or WebTV? Why has it never taken off?
Re:Big Roadblocks (Score:2)
No. Those were browser-only computers. They couldn't be used to put together documents, spreadsheets, presentations, databases, watch videos (let alone re-encoding). Hell, you couldn't even store anything except your bookmarks on those things.
Unlike those "web applicances" this will be a full-fledged (managed) computer, it will just be at the datacenter, instead of being in your house.
a prediction i had once... (Score:3, Interesting)
For a few extra dollars a month, the isp would provide them with a thin client (either a complete hardware and software package or a cd that would boot on an existing pc), and they'd never have to worry about anything like backups and security again. Email and documents would be stored at the ISP (but readily accessible somehow...). If they botch their browser or email config or something, the ISP would be able to fix it with a few button clicks.
Obviously you'd have to place some trust in the ISP to adequately protect your data etc, but if your data consists of emails like 'little johnny took his first steps today, here's a picture', then it's of limited value to anyone anyway.
Hasn't happened yet though.
We can only hope. (Score:5, Insightful)
Remember WebTV? It was supposed to be the internet for people too dumb/old/poor for a PC. I remember we got it for my grandmother. It sucked pretty bad, and the fact that it only did the basic things was still too much for her. The problem was that no one else knew how to use it either, since everyone else has a PC.
Now she has a PC that's riddled with spyware. What she should have is a machine with a smallish(5G), noexec hard drive + smaller (1G) HD for swap space, in a $100 box that runs BOOTP or something to her ISP. Every morning, she turns it on and it pulls down the OS image, in fact the same OS image that every client of the ISP gets. Tech support becomes "Reboot the box."
That's all 90% of home PCs need to be. But then those semi-tech literate kids at Best Buy wouldn't have anyone to lecture about spyware anymore. Very sad.
Re:We can only hope. (Score:2)
Isn't that the default scripted instruction from 1st level support anyway?
Re: (Score:1)
Re:We can only hope. (Score:2)
There was a dilbert cartoon that went something like this:
Dogbert: Picks up phone. Answers with "shutup and reboot". Hangs up
Dogbert: <repeat of above>
Dogbert: . o O {hmmm... my call times are improving}
that always springs to mind when I hear of someone instructing a user to reboot a computer to fix a problem
Re:We can only hope. (Score:2)
Of course, people won't go for it when money becomes an issue.
webTv is still useful (Score:1)
For somebody who doesn't need to create content and is complacent with not having to watch movies, play music, or put up with pop-ups, virus plan renewals, etc... the WebTV
Re:We can only hope. (Score:2)
Just find an old system and put Ubuntu on it. Set it to do an apt-get every night at like 4 am and you are all set.
If you want to ditch the drives put a USB pen drive on it. A small flashed based system isn't that hard to make anymore.
Already there - but this one would work. (Score:2)
The vast majority of tech support these days is *already*, "Reboot the box."
With your proposed thin client, that would have a much better chance of working!
Re:a prediction i had once... (Score:2)
Re:a prediction i had once... (Score:2)
The people you're describing don't understand what a backup is, or how to approach security. These are the people who
Re:a prediction i had once... (Score:1)
By the end of the project, it was broadband enabled and quite nice. I keep expecting some other group to resurrect it into an even better system.
Something like that would be perfect for my Parents. Remote desktop over dia
Define Desktop Computer (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Define Desktop Computer (Score:4, Funny)
And people say that the family dinner is a dying tradition. Oh wait...
What I do on my desktop (Score:4, Interesting)
I program on my local box, I do heavy graphics on my local box, but those are't the usual day to day applications.
Using web apps means my data is accessible from nearly anywhere. If I'm really concerned about privacy, I keep it on a thumb drive, but there's darn little that I worry about.
I'm not sure why an ordinary civilian user needs a desktop.
2GHz Pentium M vs. 2GHz Athlon 64 (Score:1)
Dell 700m - 2.0GHz P
No, but few people need much more than a terminal. (Score:5, Insightful)
I have no problem finding public terminals in libraries, friends houses and coffeeshops that I can boot from a USB key or a businesscard CD, so perversely don't take my laptop on the road. I could be rendered homeless tomorrow and my clients wouldn't notice. It's a barely perceptible but immensely powerful change in the world - net access isn't ubiquitous, but it can be found for free or at nominal cost just about anywhere in the developed (or even semi-developed) world, as easily found as a public restroom or a dumpster full of yesterday's bagels [kuro5hin.org]. People like the homeless guy [blogspot.com] are as much a part of the information age as the rest of us. That's world-changing stuff that no-one really notices.
Re:No, but few people need much more than a termin (Score:1)
What do most adults do with their home PC? Edit photos, home accounts, type a letter or two, use a browser, collect their email.
We have PCs that are "good enough". The interfaces are "good enough" (wifi, USB2), the recording media devices are "good enough" (recordable DVD, flash drives), and the PCs in terms of speed are now just waiting for the users.
This doesn't bode well for Microsoft's home market, because I real
Games (nt) (Score:1)
Re:Games (nt) (Score:1)
Wait... (Score:2)
nope (Score:4, Insightful)
Going off-topic (Score:1)
I'm going to go off-topic a bit here. I'm not sure I buy your reasoning behind why people will never rely solely on public transportation. It's not because we like to have our own cars, or our privacy, or our own schedule. It is, but that's not the deal-breaker. More people would use public transportation significantly more if a few key pieces are put in place:
Re:Going off-topic (Score:2)
Re:Going off-topic (Score:2)
Japan I think has a different mindset. How many people in rural areas have the ability to carpool but don't? Japan has railways that will take you to just about anywhere you might possibly want to go in the entire country. America doesn't. There's something impeding the transition from highways to public transit, and it's not necessarily that there's not enough transportation - it's a chi
Re:nope (Score:2)
Not if we keep shopping at Ikea (Score:2, Interesting)
Will it be the same device that I play video games with in my living room? Maybe, but I know I'm not going to email in my home theater room.
The device might converge, but my life isn't going to.
Cyberbrains (Score:1)
Don't think so (Score:2)
Re: question (Score:1)
cell phone running vncviewer (Score:1)
Is the Home Desktop Going Away? (Score:2)
I don't have a desktop (Score:2, Interesting)
Mini ITX (Score:2)
Your wife will love them as you can build it into the decor.
Gaming (Score:3, Informative)
As a former games programmer, I'll respond to this. Games firms always start out on the open PC platform, then try to graduate into the more profitable and high-end console business. It's deceptive, because at the same time there are new games developers popping up to add other PC games.
It's like interviewing college students, finding that they all want to graduate and get a job, and concluding that soon no one will be attending college.
Divergence that leads to Convergence (Score:2, Insightful)
My ideal world (in terms of computing):
My PDA (not much smaller than today's cellphones) has the ability to display a keyboard on any surface (this exists today). It can somehow emulate a screen in the air (holographic technology) or transmit video signals directly to my retinas (this exists today as well). The wireless network (WiMax anyone?) will be powerful enough to pi
Re:Divergence that leads to Convergence (Score:1)
For most people, desktops aren't needed. (Score:2, Insightful)
I can see this happening, however I do not think that desktop computers will become totally extinct. I do think however that they will become less-used. These days, many people who own full desktop computers don't even need all of the things they have. Many people are quite satisfied with a web browser, email, and maybe an IM client or a data organizer. Depending on their needs, office suites might also be needed.
But really, that is the extent of many peoples computer usage. I hear this a lot when