:talkingfuture.com Come and learn about the future…

Martin: We’ve all got used to seeing grey boxes, monitors, keyboards and mice on our desks. We got used to carry laptops (or notebooks) around with us that recreate the grey box in a portable format too. Over the next few years we aren’t going to see them as much. This doesn’t mean that we will be moving back to the dark ages and using pens and paper again, just that the computer will be transformed into something else.

One example of this is the iPhone. It isn’t a phone. Its a portable computer that can web surf, email, check your RSS feeds, play games, take pictures and play most of your media files – anywhere. You used to have to go to the nearest computer to do this. Take the Xbox 360, it can play Games, DVD’s, rent films and TV shows from the comfort of the sofa on any TV no matter how distastefully large. Its a lot nicer to sit in a comfy armchair to do this than upright in front of a 20 inch monitor at a desk. Do you think we’ll see a big change in the type of hardware we use to do our computing?

Thomas: You seem pretty convinced about this one! I’m not so sure I’m with you, I can see to many times when computers in the sense of a cheap beige box are still the answer. Take for instance the office worker, and I don’t mean the business owner, the traveling salesman or the IT consultant, I mean the secretary or the call center agent. They need access to a screen and a way of putting data on to it, and the cheapest way to do that is the beige box. As cheap as laptops get I can’t see a point where they will overtake the beige box from a pure price perspective. Also, you have to take into account people who really use computers, and I mean scientists, engineers and designers. The sort of people who have a beige box under the desk and four vast monitors on top so they can see all the data they need on screen at once. Try doing that with your laptop or your iPhone!

I’ll concede you might have a point when it comes to the home user, the consumer. I think the desktop computer is starting to look more and more like a tool for work, it’s main use in the home has been all but replaced by dedicated games consoles. Overall though, we are going to see more computers at home, they  just won’t look like a computer anymore. Take for instance the Sky+ box (Similar to a TiVo). This is essentially a computer designed to do a very specific task, with a remote control replacing the keyboard and a TV replacing the monitor. Microsoft already make the Windows Home Server, which is designed to tie together several independent computers around the household, letting you share your photos and MP3 collection with the kids laptops.

So if we’ve got a device to share all our photos and MP3s, what sort or devices are we going to be using to browse it if not a beige PC?

Martin: Totally agree with you that a big beige box and a great big monitor are essential for work. At home if you need to do any writing or do some accounting you still need a more conventional computer, at least a laptop. But, when you sit there browsing the internet or watching a film there is no need to be sat at a desk or sit in a big comfy armchair with a heavy awkward laptop burning a hole in your legs. There is a definite split forming between machines for content consumption and content creation.

I like the idea of a MacBook Air, it seems so much more useful to me than a netbook, it nearly crosses the creation/consumption divide perfectly, just a shame that it is still so expensive. The next, class of device that has been heavily rumoured is the tablet or slate device. I think that the Apple rumours are true and that in the near future they will release that machine hitherto only known as iPad (I hope that won’t be its real name). I imagine this to be a sort of gigantic iPod Touch crossed with a Kindle and a Netbook. It would be ideal for content consumption. I could browse the internet on a screen of similar size to a small laptop (10-13″), watch video and play games on it.

I reckon that with a laptop/desktop for content creation, the tablet device for less serious computing, a smartphone for ultra mobile web and app access, and a games console like the XBox 360 feeding TV, Films, music, photos, maybe even games (!) to a TV the size of a small mediterranean principality, then that’s all a persons modern digital life covered.

All you need then is a “Home Server” with copious amounts of storage and a wifi router to bind all this stuff together. Surely this is possible today? Would it be easy to set up or do the major OS’s need a bit of work to provide this type of functionality in an easy to setup and use format, that any simpleton can use? Could the server eventually do all the processing and the devices I described become so called thin clients? (Not so much cloud computing as foggy computing)

Thomas: As I mentioned, Microsoft already have the Home Server edition of Windows. That basically fulfills the role of somewhere secure to store your data, but it also makes an (bit of a ham-fisted) attempt at backing up that data to DVD or Tape. It can also be used to share out MP3’s to iTunes and host photo galleys. It’s a difficult task trying to bring regular server technologies and concepts like redundant storage and regular backup to home users, who should never need to worry or care about such things. The real trick will be to make these things invisible to the user, like the inner workings of an internal combustion engine. You don’t need to know how the engine works to drive a car, and you shouldn’t need to know the ins and outs of a hard disk subsystem just to listen to some music. I expect to see a bit more competition from the likes of Apple in the future, and maybe a sprinkling of vendor specific systems running an embedded Linux.

I like the idea of all the compute power being stored in one box and just using thin clients around the home. It’s certainly technically feasible, but the chances are for it to work you’d have to sell your soul to a single vendor and go for an all in one solution. It’s certainly an idea to keep an eye on in the future!