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07 Nov 2009
2.
Compact Disc
Shaun Nichols: Really, the CD got a bit of a bum deal. The
record album was the standard for several decades; the cassette tape had a good
two decades. The CD had maybe 10 or 15 good years, only a bit better than the
eight track.
The undoing of the compact disk was twofold. First, there was the emergence of the DVD, which took over much of the data storage and distribution market due to its increased capacity.
Then there was the emergence of the online music market. Just as the CD was settling in as the dominant medium for delivering music, the online services, both legitimate and otherwise, started popping up. When broadband costs dropped and high-bandwidth connections became commonplace, the writing was on the wall for the humble CD format.
Iain Thomson: I am not a huge fan of the CD format for a number of reasons and will be happy to see it go.
When CDs came out they were billed as high quality recording media that would last forever. Instead what we got was an expensive replacement for records that produced lower quality sound and turned out to have a depressingly short shelf life.
This latter part of the equation is most worrying from an IT standpoint. If you have information backed up onto CDs you might want to put it on something more permanent. The format was described by one manufacturer as virtually indestructible on launch, but repeated tests have shown a sharp drop off in readability after a few short years. From my personal experience about 20 per cent of CDs I burnt at the turn of the century no longer work.
While the capacity of the DVD is ultimately what has done for the CD, in data storage terms that format suffers from similar problems and if you are storing mission critical data you will need one, or preferably two, sets of backups.
1.
Desktop PC
Iain Thomson: The desktop PC is a dying breed for most people,
but it has served us well. They are still hanging on in the corporate sphere
because they are cheap and get the job done. But laptops are now outselling them
and I suspect our children will look on them with the same wonder as we do today
at early vacuum cleaners the size of a truck.
Some PCs are still in demand. Really high-end gamers like them because they can get the ultra-fast graphics systems that shave seconds off reaction time, and can handle the massive cooling systems needed to get that kind of performance without setting fire to their bedrooms.
Some corporate verticals also like them, because they are solid and can be physically fastened down to protect the data that they contain. I know more than a few parents who like them too, so that the family computer can be installed in the living room where everyone can see what it being viewed.
The fact is that laptops used to suffer a performance penalty over desktops, but this is no longer the case. You can now do pretty much anything you want with a high-end laptop, with the added bonus that you can take your computer with you.
Shaun Nichols: A part of me misses the day when a geek was judged by the size of his (or her) PC tower. It used to be that having a huge enclosure on top of your desk was something to brag about. During that time notebooks were reserved for road warriors and those who did not need much more than a word processor and a spreadsheet app.
However, since then the notebook has gone from being an underpowered, overpriced machine to the dominant form of personal computer. Everyone from home users to students to professionals now prefers the notebook over the desktop. As battery life improves and components get smaller, I suspect that this will only continue.
However, at least two groups will keep the desktop market alive for quite some time. Gamers, for one, still scoff at notebooks for the most part. First, the screens are too small to deliver the size and resolution to get the most out of the latest titles. There are also the limitations of the small enclosure. Many high-end gaming and hobbyist systems require very large fan or liquid cooling systems that would not come close to fitting in a laptop.
Similarly, graphics professionals are not likely to switch over to notebooks any time soon. They also love the large, accurate monitors that are all but impossible to integrate into a notebook design.
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Do you agree?
Dìa de los mertos is for all loved ones who have passed away.
Dìa de los muertos is for all loved ones who have passed away not just "recent". Who told you that one?
Posted by: Christopher 18 Nov 2009
I wouldn't give up neither on CD nor on PC
CD will always be in use among, say, classical music lovers, who usually don't treat music more as a background. (And those recordings are often really beautifully edited.) The PDF and portable readers won't replace the printed book as well. Laptops won't replace desktops anytime soon. It's not about performance and the price/speed ratio, it's about size and quality of the screen (users of S-IPS know what I'm talking about), size and ergonomics of the keyboard (I use Microsoft Natural 4000) and noise (my desktop - after some extensive work, I admit - is virtually silent and I don't keep it right under my nose). And, which is equally important, I keep my keyboard on a pull-out extension, so I can put a book or a sheet of paper on my desk between the keyboard and the LCD. Docking station? Well, what's the point? If you are really mobile - maybe...
Posted by: voyteck 15 Nov 2009
Here's a better prediction
1. Laptops A powerful desktop + truly portable netbook combo is already preferred by most people - and it's actually way cheaper than a so-called "high-end" laptop. Laptop sales are already going down, netbook sales soar, there's absolutely nothing that would indicate this trend is ever going to reverse. 2. Smartphones There's one basic problem with smartphones - they're too big and clunky for making actual... you know... phone calls. And since it's only a matter of time until netbooks get even slicker and easier to carry and use - smartphones, with their poor input mechanism and dumbed down operating systems, are going away.
Posted by: Anonymous 15 Nov 2009
Here's a better prediction
1. Laptops A powerful desktop + truly portable netbook combo is already preferred by most people - and it's actually way cheaper than a so-called "high-end" laptop. Laptop sales are already going down, netbook sales soar, there's absolutely nothing that would indicate this trend is ever going to reverse. 2. Smartphones There's one basic problem with smartphones - they're too big and clunky for making actual... you know... phone calls. And since it's only a matter of time until netbooks get even slicker and easier to carry and use - smartphones, with their poor input mechanism and dumbed down operating systems, are going away.
Posted by: Anonymous 15 Nov 2009
Floppy disks
I believe that some IBM PS/2's had 2.88Mb floppy disks, wow where's my 8GB SD card.
Posted by: Steve Long 15 Nov 2009
Your back and neck won't thank you for ditching your desktop
Laptops are great for portability and they let corporations control what machines are able to access their VPNs but that is about it. Unless you use your laptop with a proper keyboard, mouse and monitor (on a stand) whenever you use it for more than an hour, you will end up regretting it, suffering lots of pain and make your chiropractor rich. So if you have to write a quick report on the train or at a conference, fire up that laptop but as soon as you get to the office or home, dock it with some peripherals designed to prevent RSI not cause it like most laptop ones.
Posted by: George Young 14 Nov 2009
satnavs? Nope, phones can't cut it.
There are many places where there is a lack of phone coverage but a satnav is still required. ferinstance, outback australia and similar places in the world. Even in the UK, I venture to say there are many places where phone coverage is non-existent.
Posted by: jack strangio 14 Nov 2009
Wwireless Power?
You obviously don't understand basic physics. The simlpe devices that are mentioned use induction for power, which is very limited in range and distance (if safety is a factor) and only provide a few milliamps of power to the device. Geeze.
Posted by: Tired of Hype 14 Nov 2009
CDs are great
You're missing the point on CDs. 1. They are high quality. anyone who has ever had to use LPs for any amount of time will tell you that they are prone to scratches, dust, movement, and generally provide a medium-fidelity recording. Self-professed audiophiles who claim LPs to have superior fidelity to CDs have no idea how audio actually works and are hanging on to the trendiness of LPs as a fashion statement. 2) Advancements in technology were bound to make the CD obsolete, no matter how great a technology it was; thus, the longevity argument doesn't hold. DVDs themselves are great tech but will likely not have the same longevity as CDs due to replacement technologies (like broadband) 3) The CD was a critical step in the adoption of a superior technological format by the masses. There had always been superior technologies available (e.g. Beta vs. VHS) but here was a case where the CD was actually technologically superior to its predecessors and was adopted highly by the consumer. We seem to be in a period of regression, where the consumer prefers lower-quality compressed music to high-fidelity renditions (thus, mp3 and other compression formats). Still, for anybody who enjoys the nuance of their music, CD is still the way to go.
Posted by: Nagarjunary 14 Nov 2009
Voice from the grave
Don't bury me before I'm dead!! Laptops have a long way to go to supplant desktops. Laptops are throwaway, Desktops are fixable. Laptops are lower quality, Desktops can be upgraded and have multi-screens and are just generally better. Admittedly they might be better with longer cables so they could go out of sight. Mac all-in-ones are nice but suffer from laptop unfixability. CDs - great idea, don't live up to hype and copy protection makes them suspect (can't put some music on your ipods etc). Also, has anyone noticed how expensive they are (music etc) - they deserve to die. Landlines will have a future I'm sure, and how can we lose the OS now we've macos and linux? Perhaps the only one we will really lose is Windows, which like many technologies has served its purpose and is now going to wither. I'm sure when windows finally goes men (and women, let's not be sexist) will have more hair and the world will be a calmer place at 9 on a Monday morning.
Posted by: Phil Cox 12 Nov 2009
CD and DVD quality
I've been burning CDs since 1998. I have not had a single one go bad. Maybe most people aren't taking care of their storage. You kept your LPs in the jacket and cover and you didn't leave one in a hot car. I see people throw CDs around like they are frisbees and store them in the worst conditions (worst thing is not using the jewel case). What, it's better to keep all my music as inferior compressed mp3s? I guess that's okay if you listen to everything on earbuds (gag).
Posted by: Sean 12 Nov 2009
Desktops will not die any time soon
Desktops will not die any time soon! Why? Because Moore's law will die instead. Clock speed which use to grow exponentially - has long since topped out (we might add a gig - big deal). Transistor density (which is what Moore's law is about) will also top out. We'll probably hit 22nm. A miracle might get us to 11nm. Certainly we can't go below the 0.5 nm of for example a Si atom. This means that we will get to the point where you make computers faster not just by adding more cores per chip but by adding more chips. Holding all these chips and the need to cool them all means we will return to the past where a computer's physical dimensions reflect its processing power. There will always be people wanting the greater computing power, that even now comes with greater size, at the expense of less portability.
Posted by: Rodney 12 Nov 2009
Tape Will be Aroun a Long Time
The author are a bit clueless about why people use tape: backup of data stored on hard drive arrays for archival and data recovery purposes. There is no alternative that comes close to tape in performance and price to serve this need. Simply buying a new RAID array whether it is a spinning magnetic disk or a solid state variety for off-site archive is not cost effective. If the only thing you need to back up is a laptop you might have a different world. Life in the data center is different. I guess the authors can't think beyond their laptop.
Posted by: Ralph Daly 11 Nov 2009
landlines & desktop dying out? I don't think so.
Landlines won't die out. Wireless may be good enough for mobile access where you don't need high throughput, but try to download the next 40GB bl movie rip through it. See what happens if 10 people try it. See what happens if someone "misconfigures" his wireless access. And scaling ethernet is much easier than wireless. Add another bunch of cables and some routers/switches and done. And while it seems that we already reach the maximum speed for wireless and fight over the available ranges, 10gbit ethernet is in coming for home and 100gbit is possible (and it won't end there). Desktop PCs won't go away either, they will become invisible, but the main difference between mobile and desktop is just that - mobile helps you to work in not prepared environments, even if it is not as comfortable, healthy or even awkward to work with (and thus slower), while a desktop helps you to get stuff done at a prepared place. Why would you pain yourself with a laptop at home if you can enjoy a good monitor, keyboard, mouse and sound boxes? (Except you think that paying a doctor is cheaper than buying a good set of peripherals) And there is a reason why traditional desktops won't disappear in the near future: we don't have simple network/location aware OSs who can communicate with each other without problems at a high enough level nor the hardware for them. The nearest we got are NAS for filesharing at home. We can't just access all our systems at home with a single command (except for geeks) from our TV, then go to the toilet, switch on our hologram projector and accept the incoming phone call through our home network, then save the record of that voice call with a single command in the kitchen. Also, chances will be high that the moment computing is possible everywhere at all times *laptops* will go away, not desktops. We will all use small gadgets/'smart phones' and have our invisible servers/network at home. Only people who work in field service or need better security will need them. Cables also won't go away. Cables/Protocols exist for all kinds of peripherals and are built into every system. And as long as wireless peripherals have the problems they have yet (energy and connection) cables will be a good choice for people who don't want to optimize their rooms for wireless throughput all day. If they are that worried about cables they can eliminate most of them with an USB hub. Cables also have the added benefit that on a place with 100s of computers in an open space you won't need to setup the peripherals/computers to always listen to the correct end.
Posted by: c 11 Nov 2009
Desktops and Portable Media Players
Desktop PCs are here to stay. They will evolve by leaps and bounds in a few years and will never die away into oblivion. They do have a lot of advantages over portable laptops which will keep them alive. They might become less popular, but will never completely die. As long as smart-phones don't provide a sufficiently efficient and long battery life, portable media players are here to stay, specially among travelers and the population that listens to a lot of music.
Posted by: Manasa Malipeddi 11 Nov 2009
No way...
- Power cables - how does the power block get the power? - By cable - SSD - maybe, but not in the next 10 years. There are still Win98 systems out there, think about it... - OS - how do those web applications run? How many GB of traffic each month? And why Win95 was on floppy-disks and now we need a DVD ? - landlines - are here to stay, don't worry. How much concrete do you think that wireless connection can penetrate ? - floppy-disk - think about the times when you have to submit (give) a small document, and you have to make it cost-effective (like tax income each month, no disk return)
Posted by: Mihai 11 Nov 2009
Desktops and Internet Connections
I'm writing this on my desktop PC, it's an Acer 18.4" laptop. I suppose the desktop/laptop argument is down to how big a "Laptop" can be before it is in effect a "Desktop." I wouldn't consider having this sat on my lap, I have the 16" version for that, but it does all I want from a PC including playing games and the way I see the up-gradability argument is, that rather then upgrade components every year or two, I will just replace my laptop every three or years, the latest version of this one now has a Quad-Core processor, a blu-ray writer and failrly decent integrated graphics. Cant agree the land line argument, where I live in Wales, there are places still suffering 512 Dial-Up, my mobile signal disappears as soon as I pull into my car park, and Virgin and Sky don't even realize we exist.
Posted by: Mar 11 Nov 2009
Desktops
Even far into the future, desktops will be around - they'll change shape slightly, but more and more people will need a server at home to centralise all their information, can't afford a server and may find that devices such as Synology insufficient for their needs. Desktops will probably have a different name, but in one form or another they will still be there are laptops are screen-tied and cannot operate 24/7.
Posted by: Shao 11 Nov 2009
No More Cables?
I am fairly sure that it is the case that "loose" electricity is a health hazard - certainly has been cited for high voltage wiring - and so the thought of having a house with electric current zooming about is worrying. Then again it may be that I don't understand the technology. In my opimion, desktops are infinately preferable to any laptop - for the reasons stated by the other detractors. Finally - and this might just put me in the same category as Luddites - not everyone either has, or wants a mobile 'phone. I might eventually purchase one, but if I do, I want it to be just a 'phone. A jack of all trades can rarely better, let alone equal, the genuine article - a stand alone camera can not be bettered by a 'mobile talking device'!
Posted by: Michael Abbiss 11 Nov 2009
upgradeable they are not
apparently, the major argument on laptops vs desktops is ignored. laptops, with all their parts being integrated, are not upgradeable. show me a way to build a laptop from scratch by myself, and then maybe I will be less prejudiced against laptops, but only then.
Posted by: hale holden 11 Nov 2009
Landlines
It's all very well for journalists who live in cities with decent mobile coverage to predict the death of landlines: but what about the rest of us?
Posted by: Nick 11 Nov 2009
Not in the real world
Maybe your top 10 is right in your world, and in the world of the toy computers people have at home, but in the big world where the IT grown-ups live, hard disks, tape storage and power cords are far from dying.
Posted by: john 11 Nov 2009
Tape and TV
Tape is still the preffered form for studio recording by people who know what they are doing. Music masters need to be in analogue format to be their best. I would say a safe bet for a soon to be dead technology is the CRT. I am still holding on to mine and I am hoping it lasts until OLED screens are big enough and cheap enough to be a replacement.
Posted by: Stuart F 11 Nov 2009
the smart phone
All the functions in handhold devices will be accessed via wireless technology embedded in clothing as printable electronics costs becomes a commodity product, and wireless dust becomes ubiquitous - even snappy cameras, activated by a wink
Posted by: Ged Parker 11 Nov 2009
Laptop vs Desktop
'Everyone prefers a laptop to a desktop'???? NOT me, thank you very much!!!
Posted by: Steve 10 Nov 2009
Graphics professionals,
who happen to do video also enjoys multiple terabytes of ultrafast storage. Show me a laptop that is comfortable editing uncompressed HD and I'll show you how that money is much better spent on new Porche. I don't foresee *ever* using a laptop for what I do. By the time a laptop comes around that is comfy with 2 megapixel HD the japanese will have already moved to 30(33? was it? can't remember) megapixel TV. I do get your point though, you can browse the web and run office applications on a laptop and for most of the population that will suffice. For professionals who utilize enormous datasets that take a huge amount of processing power to deal with the laptop will never amount to more than a mail-client.
Posted by: b 10 Nov 2009
A different view
OK, take a step back and look at the list from a different angle. 1.) Mobile phones. If you think MP3 players are doomed, than phones are too. All the functions and features we have of all the hand-held devices are coagulating into a single appliance. Therefore, number 2 is ... 2.) Digital cameras Putting aside specialised DSLR jobs, with interchangeable lenses, the "happy snappy" point and shoots will be absorbed into the phone/music/gps/photo/recorder toy. 3.) Televisions. Will stop being dedicated devices that only merely display programmes from TV signals (whether terrestrial or satellite) and will be all-in-one media centres. Receiving the programmes it knows you you want to watch (whatever time they're broadcast - on whichever channel). They will include downloaded content, news that filtered to your situation, and be connected to the "net". Basically put a TV in one end of the Large Hadron Collider and a PC at the other end, then press the button ... 4.) DVD / Blu-Ray players The TV will do all this for you (including a flash memory socket, so you won't need disks) 5.) Remote controls Say "hello" to your TV/media device with spoken commands that will be intelligent enough to pause the playback when they hear your mobile phone ringing - that's if the phone isn't integrated with the unit too, so the sound (and vision?) comes out of it's speakers. Or if it detects no-one is in the room. 6.) Electronic books Even though they're still new, they were doomed from the start (like videophones). Too expensive, too clunky, no flexibility and can't do anything that a laptop can't do. That's all I have for now. Though as an observation, tapes, disks and floppies are all really the same tech: moving magnetic particles.Your observations about operating systems are spot on. No-one cares anymore, they are effectively transparent as none of them are any better / different than any other. They will become like electric motors: ubiquitous, but unnoticed and really not worth thinking about.
Posted by: Pete 09 Nov 2009
Tape Storage
Read your comments with interest and a certain amount of horror. Do you honestly believe that tape should be consigned to the bin and that hard disk and other forms of storage offer a better answer for data storage? Have you tested LTO4? Have you attempted to recover data from a damaged hard disk or memory device? Whilst I can see some drawbacks with tape, the durability of the medium makes it still a good bet for long term data storage for serious business applications.
Posted by: Mark Sear 09 Nov 2009
The Desktop PC?
The desktop PC has many advantages over the laptop which are not going to be solved any time soon. With a desktop machine, you can specify the machine yourself from the components that you need or want. You can do this yourself or allow someone else to do it. Gamers have machines that are optimised for high speed video processing. I have one optimised for lower power consumption. If you try to do this with a laptop you find your options limited to what the manufacturer wants to offer. You don't get a choice, and even if you did, how long would a laptop with an overclocked video card/processor last before it melted? The desktop also has ergonomics on its side. I find many of today's PC keyboards horrid, but the ones on laptops are even worse. Once again with the laptop, you do not get a choice of which keyboard you want. Similarly, the arrangement of the screen on a laptop means poor adjustability, and the smaller screen sizes do not necessarily benefit those who have problems with their eyesight. With a desktop you can have a much bigger screen and move it somewhere that it is comfortable to look at. The laptop is also more prone to damage, and can more easily be stolen or lost (as government in this country appears keen to demonstrate). Their limited size also means that you cannot load them up with 1Tb disks, at least not without causing a back injury. And one other thing I prefer about the desktop and the reason why I have not bothered upgrading my laptop... I do not have to pay Microsoft for their crappy software. Try buying a laptop without it and you will quickly find that the only way is to buy second hand whereas if I build a desktop myself, I can load what I want on it. Right now, I cannot see the point of having a laptop. If I had a need to move around, then maybe, but it is a poor quality substitute for a desktop system and not something that I would want to use continuously for any length of time.
Posted by: Ian 09 Nov 2009
Desktops
To be honest, I don't see the desktop dieing out to the laptop all too soon. Something else that was not mentioned in the article is the custom-ability of a desktop. Technically, if you have a case that will fit the components, you can continually upgrade a desktop (unless some radical designs change in the computer world). Anything that goes out in a desktop can be scrapped and replaced for a lot less money than buying a new unit. Laptops can't (generally) be upgraded. I know my laptop already has the most upgrades I can do to it: another 2GB of RAM and a larger faster hard drive. Wooo... Also, desktops are a lot cheaper. I know I can build a nice, powerful machine for $1000, whereas trying to buy a laptop for that price is generally going to get me sub-par system, making the desktop the clear choice. I don't see desktops going out...what I see is mass use of the laptop as a portable solution - and possibly the netbook as well - while the desktop remains the primary component at home. Anyone who does anything on a computer other than web surfing, e-mail, and word processing will most likely prefer a desktop computer. It certainly would be the smarter choice unless you want to spend a bunch of money every few years to replace the dinosaur on your lap. Oh, and laptops are more fragile. Some of the hell that I've seen laptops go through...By leaving a desktop on your desk it most likely won't fall over and quit working, but a laptop runs the risk of being dropped on its side every day that it exists for the fact that it is mobile.
Posted by: Koji 08 Nov 2009
Agree partly
I agree in part of the items, but have difficult doubts on the inclusion of the Power Cable and the Landline phone, and the exclusion of the Dial-up connection and the Dot-Matrix printer. Here are my reasons: 1. Using the same arguments used for the dial-up connection, there are many areas in the world that won't see wireless power for many, many decades. And sorry to say, but people in these areas use power cables and landline phones much more than dial-up connections or dot-matrix printers are used all around the world. 2. Dial-up connections depend on landline phones, so if the second disappears the first will disappear as well.
Posted by: Helio Diamant - Editor, Mobilityfreak.co.il & BornMobile.co.il 07 Nov 2009
Desktop PCs will evolve like the dinosaurs
I agree with the article about the desktop PC being nearly extinct except for high end graphics...but passes that feature off as a niche market - it's not. If you've every held a gosling (baby goose) in your hand and looked closely you'd marvel about how much dino remains alive and well in the present day. Likewise the future of large format video entertainment has its genome strongly based on desktop DNA - strip away the 60 inch screen and high end speaker system and you'll see the next generation desktop PC.
Posted by: Consultofactus 07 Nov 2009