Alex Tolley [11.06.07 05:19 PM]

For all the breathy speculation, this sentence seems to stand out as key to me: "And while a lot of the decline is in household PCs, businesses are also waiting longer to replace their computers partly because recent advances in PC technology are only incremental...".

Pure processing power per application has stalled out, as chips became multicore. The simple fact is that basic, desktop/laptop applications cannot be run any faster on new computers than old ones, so the replacement cycle slows - perhaps to every 5 years. Couple that with the trend to browser based, simpler web applications and the need to upgrade becomes somewhat moot.

  rektide [11.06.07 10:55 PM]

I've never had the privledge of actually seeing one in action, but I want to believe that cheap heads-up-displays coupled (with embedded graphics silicon) is all that is needed to start the long task of ditching laptops.

Also, laptops are only beginning to be carrier data network enabled, so they are pretty far behind the pervasive curve.

  jon [11.07.07 08:10 PM]

Yeah well I'd like to see them type out their term paper on an iPod

  Piedra [11.08.07 02:00 PM]

Yes, and with Google now moving into the mobile phone industry, everything seems to be moving away from the old desktop PCs.

  barry.b [11.13.07 09:05 PM]

@Jon.

of course you wouldn't do that. just like you need a desk-top machine to do quality desktop publishing of somesort (although you could play around with templates, I suppose).

but you CAN use mobile devices to capture speech then use speech to text - to create content.

or use those fold-a-way keyboards.

mobile devices (whether Mobiles, iPods or chumbey's) are enablers and convienance devices. why lug a big fat dell laptop around with you on the train when you can pull out a convienaint device from your top pocket?

We've got the potential to be productive every spare minute of the day - just given the right tools.

horses for courses.