With PCs disappearing from desks but technology showing up everywhere else, computing will only get more personal in the coming decades.
The future ain't what it used to be. In the pre-PC era, futurists predicted huge changes in transportation. By 2008, they prophesied, we would be flitting about with personal jetpacks and taking holidays on the moon. But the communications revolution spurred by personal computers and the internet wasn't on anyone's radar.
Now the technology landscape is once again on the verge of change – change that will transport us to places few people have imagined. We know that computers will be vastly more powerful, mobile and connected. But soon we'll struggle to tell where the technology ends and the rest of our life begins.
Digital technology will become firmly embedded in advanced devices that deliver information and entertainment to our homes and to our pockets, in sensors that monitor our environment from within the walls and floors of our homes and in chips that deliver medicine and augment reality inside our bodies.
This shiny, happy future may come at a cost, with experts warning of security and privacy issues. So let's hope our jetpacks come with seat belts. It's going to be a wild ride.
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Comments
northernguy said: The company I work for owns the building where our office is locatedSince I visit it occasionallyI have to use its biometric security It scans my finger by some process It does not work for me I have no idea why but it takes several minutes of repeated attempts to get it to recognise me In fact it is so cumbersome that I have stopped using it and simply use my cell phone to call the office to buzz me in It is irrelevant to me that it works for everybody else On one occasion I was passing by the office after hours when the police wanted to enter the building to investigate a noise complaint I was unable to let them in because the biometric refused to identify me Fortunately another building occupant happened by and let them in Luckily I have no responsibility for sales of the buildings units which sell for 2 million to 20 million dollars
Tsteen said: My WLAN connected Laptop BSODs evertime I operate the Logitec Harmony 525 remote for the AV amp TV in the same room so whats in it for wireless stuff in the future
dwr50 said: Sounds great if youre rich In the meantime Windows still crashes MAC OS105 whatever is still full of bugs and Linux is starting to make a real dent in the computer market