| News | Features | Interviews |
| Blog | Contact | Editorials |
| The Dream of Computing for Everyone |
| By Howard Fosdick on 2012-08-27 13:53:48 |
| The dream of inexpensive computing for everyone has been with us since
the first computers. Along the way it has taken some unexpected turns.
This article summarizes key trends and a few of the surprises. |
|
| Everything can be a computer |
| By Chrispynutt on 2012-08-27 16:08:52 |
|
Within reason everything can be a computer. All that it takes is for SOCs or processors to become cheap enough and low powered enough to move into that space. We started off with computers that were the size of buildings that only a government at war could require. However we still have super computers on that scale today. Then we moved down to servers the size of rooms. Which only a large company could afford. Again this is still the case today. Then we moved to individual desktop computers, but only businesses could afford. Today we call them workstations. We then got a our day to day personal computers. They reduced in size and increased in availability. Again they are still prevalent today. Then we had laptops which took the power of a PC and tried to make it portable. Now todays ultra light i5 laptop can have more CPU power than a Core 2 Quad from only a few years ago. We had PDAs that merged with feature phones to become Smart Phones. We have tablets that fill the gap between phone and computer. We have small hobbiest machines, but also tiny little embeded machines that run Windows CE in the background with out people noticing. I am 90% that the coffee maker in the company kitchen is a Win CE device by its alert noise. We have Kontiki that is runing on 8-bit SOCs that are in traffic lights and other mundane systems. There is a stream of computing power that flows further and further down. When everything is a computer all we have are form factors and 'computing' building blocks. Some companies make building blocks well for one use and another better for a different use. We don't critise mining companies for not selling wood. I am sure they would like the business, but who wouldn't want more business. |
 - Score: 2 |
| I doubt that |
| By boudewijn on 2012-08-27 16:40:27 |
|
I doubt that this is true (about smartphones). "Today they're ubiquitous. Many who carry them would never touch "a computer." There simply isn't big generation left that is so old they don't want to use computers. Not in the west. If you're seventy years old now, you were forty when computers came in. Like my dad, plenty young enough. My dad-in-law was ten years older, and he skipped computers. But then, he skipped mobile phones. Over 90% of Dutch people use computers every day. The remaining 10% is definitely not the demographic that uses a smartphone instead, like my dad-in-law. Just like these days the kids really don't know more about internet than their parents: their parents started using internet when they were in their twenties, and their kids know less. And in the third world, the people who use mobile phones instead of computers aren't using smart phones. They cannot afford those, so they mostly use feature phones. Or, since very recently, those Asha wanna-be-a-smartphone feature phones that are such a huge success in India. And they still want to use real computers instead. |
| - Score: 6 |
| Comment by Sodki |
| By Sodki on 2012-08-27 17:29:06 |
|
> Given that Raspberry targets consumers, I'd recommend consumer packaging. Add a case. Offer a bundle that includes the required cables, charger, mouse, keyboard, etc. Consumers want plug and go, not a naked circuit board. Not that I don't agree, but please note that the Raspberry Pi is selling like mad. This proves that, right now, the target consumers want what is being offered, no matter if it has downsides. > Expect more super-cheap PCs soon. I wonder if embedding the PC into the monitor will become more popular as footprints shrink? But then you lose the benefits of componentization. Perhaps we could standardize PC enclosures and put a snap-on mounting bracket on the back of all displays. This has been standardized (at least de facto) for a few years now. I've used it and I've seen client using it. Not all displays have it, of course, but the ones that do usually are compatible between them. It's the same size for wallmount. Componentization is a good thing if you need it. For many use cases it's not needed. Example: dumb terminals. |
| - Score: 3 |
| Office vs personal |
| By Sabon on 2012-08-27 18:07:12 |
|
Yes you want a keyboard for your office computer. But let me guess as to who owns that. The company you work for? Unless of course you work for yourself. Your article is talking about personal computers, not work computers. "Most" people like the iPad, as you mentioned, since it doesn't have a keyboard or mouse or stylus. iPad "type" devices are exactly what people have been waiting for for a long time. You use your finger just like you would for water coloring or touching paper or ... whatever you typically do with everything that doesn't involve a computer. Cheaper usually means less options. It's hard to build an "everything" computer that geeks will love for low dollars. Even the Pi (spelling?) computer have very limited ports on it. The more ports and capabilities they add the higher the price would be. We'd all love to get free computers. But we would be tied to what the giver (someone has to "give" you that free computer) wants you to be able to do. It is better that we pay for computers. The question is, how little or how much do you want? The more you want, the more it costs. The more the OS does things for you, the more the OS is going to cost. Sure cost for the company can be lowered if they sell a lot of their product. If they didn't, there is no way that Apple could sell their most recent OS (Mountain Lion) for $19.99. It would cost over $500 if they sold it to tens of thousands or maybe hundreds of thousands. Sure, Linux is "free". But you've got a lot of people that work at other jobs (mostly) that are not paid for what they do for Linux. They do it for love, not money. For those that do it for money, they get paid somehow and that means someone is paying or services and that money is paying for them. Basically, business Linux is subsidizing Linux for home use. I guess that works, except that only a few people use Linux (percentage wise it is still less than 2% of desktops). |
| - Score: 2 |
| Calculators |
| By Treza on 2012-08-27 18:54:41 |
|
"Back in the 1990s, who would have thought that smartphones would popularize computing?" Smartphones real ancestors are certainly the programmable pocket calculators (HP, TI, Casio, Sharp...) which ran all sorts of applications and were quite popular in the '70s and the '80s |
| - Score: 1 |
| RE: I doubt that |
| By darknexus on 2012-08-27 18:59:02 |
|
> There simply isn't big generation left that is so old they don't want to use computers. Not in the west. No, but there are a great deal of people from certain generations that won't touch them. Case in point, most of my relatives (parents, aunts, uncles). My dad, for example, will use a Windows PC when forced to but absolutely hates the things. In contrast, he loves his Android smartphone. It's hard to believe this trend until you've actually seen it, but there it is, and it has nothing at all to do with a generation gap. |
| - Score: 2 |
| RE[2]: I doubt that |
| By Sabon on 2012-08-27 22:41:01 |
|
I agree. My in-laws are in their 70s and were given a computer to use (not too old, still ok) and multiple people sat down with them (on different weekends) trying to find ways to explain things so that they would be easier. They did figure out how to use it and were just bored with it. Then I took my iPad to their house and they thought, at first, that it was just a photo viewer but then they saw all the other things I could and were very impressed and took to it like, "fish in a pond". |
| - Score: 2 |
| RE: Everything can be a computer |
| By hhas on 2012-08-27 23:35:12 |
|
The article's emphasis was on 'personal computing' rather than every possible application of compact/low-power/special-p urpose computing, so I can see why the author didn't get into embedded applications. That said, you're very nearly onto an extremely significant point: the trend is definitely away from owning one big general-purpose box to owning a heterogeneous collection of small, specialised devices. Which starts to look more like the traditional embedded ecosystem in its general philosophy, only with one huge exception: ubiquitous integration. The real trick is going to be in getting all these user-oriented devices to integrate seamlessly and securely, so users can mix-n-match services and access their data from multiple devices at any time. On a purely hardware level I can imagine, say, Apple producing a smart TV that can also do casual gaming a-la iPhone, waiting a couple years till that's well established and then releasing a snap-on box that boosts it up to full-blown console level, making it both a desirable 3D gaming platform just as the traditional console makers are falling asleep at the wheel again, and providing enough functionality to do general computing (e.g. run a copy of Word) as well, allowing it to do triple duty as an iMac-like PC as well. And neither device would require much internal storage, because users can either keep all their data in iCloud and/or on a local turn-key Apple 'iHub' NAS (a much more flexible successor to their rather old-fashioned Time Capsule back-up system). And then all this stuff is going to happily chat with your iPhones and iPads, and even MacBooks if you still bother to own those. And even that only scratches the surface of what might appear in future. Essentially, personal computing is now entering a post-scarcity age... at least where hardware is concerned. Consumers can now afford to buy a specialised device for each class of tasks they regularly perform. Each device will still retain some general-purpose capability (e.g. you can type a letter on an iPad or smart TV; mostly it'll just be slower if you don't purchase a keyboard as well), but for its optimised purpose each one will really shine - certainly much brighter than the traditional general-purpose PC which does a bit of everything reasonably but nothing brilliantly. The real challenge will be on the software side - getting every device talking to every other device with zero hassle and zero configuration/management costs for the user will be no small practical feat. The basic concepts needed already exist in isolation, but fusing them into a completely successful mass-market solution will be a non-trivial task. Hopefully this is something the author will explore in future articles; looking forward to them already. (Full disclosure: While not really a true nerd/geek, I do still keep my very first ZX81 up on my cupboard shelf.;) |
| - Score: 2 |
| RE: Calculators |
| By l3v1 on 2012-08-28 06:22:05 |
|
"Back in the 1990s, who would have thought that smartphones would popularize computing?" I would also add that the '90s were not so long ago, I started university studies in the '90s and having mobile phones and laptops around and using computers for many years by then I actually remember talks with friends about smaller portable computers, how and when they'll come and how will they look like. I know how 1.5 decades can seem a very long sometimes, but it isn't really. |
| - Score: 2 |
| etc |
| By l3v1 on 2012-08-28 06:37:55 |
|
> I'm betting on smart TVs as prices drop. Well, not much of a bet, since even today you can buy some really good looking all-in-one PCs where everything is built inside the screen, with decent cpu, {s/h}dd and ram. The only thing missing is double-triple screen size with - and this is important - double-triple resolution and high dpi. And for the love of god, not some Apple-ish "retina" crap resolution, but real proper high resolution displays. > small laptops were rechristened "netbooks" Memory is a b*tch. Netbooks fall into a dim territory, small screen, weak cpu, low memory, low storage - more specs of a phone than a portable computer. I'd say the whole netbook thing was a bad thing and everyone should just forget about it as wuickly as possible and move along. Also, mixing ultabooks and netbooks is a bad idea. > [Tablets as] The Primary Computer of the Future? Oh come on. Tablets might just turn out to be one of the primary computer interfaces of the future, but not primary computers, for sure. Unless you count a 2m wide screen with 24 core cpu and 48 gigs of ram and 10TB of storage space with touch capabilities in your living room a "tablet". In that case, it just might be the primary computer of the future :) > Given that Raspberry targets consumers, I'd recommend consumer packaging. I think you're a bit mistaken regarding the target demographic of the R.Pi. > The user interface of smartphones and tablets challenges that of laptops and desktops. Touch and sound replace keyboards and mice. Another person who always forgets about who creates the content for you people: developers. Right. Sound and touch my a**. |
| - Score: 2 |
| News | Features | Interviews |
| Blog | Contact | Editorials |