The future ............... ?

[mpprh]

Hi

having another idle moment waiting for the traffic lights to change, I started to think of the future of PC's and internet.

Follow the logic :

One day, online communication will be as fast as accessing your hard disk. The communication will be free, paid for by ads.

So, why buy software and store it at home.

Dell will sell PC's without a hard disk. They will not actually sell them (they will give them away and take commissions from software companies).

The OS will be contained in a memory chip allowing access to everything else.

Everything else will be available online (probably supplied by MS or google ?). MSWORD is free, but with ads ?

Is gmail just the start ?

Or am I a million miles from reality ?

Peter

[Sue Dyer]

I think if 25 years ago I'd imagined sitting with a little box on my knee and been able to communicate instantly with friends all over the world and access the amount of info I can now 24 hours a day I'd not believe it.

I think we'll have 1 box very shortly, computer, tv, music system, telephone - in fact my upstairs computer does that now!!

and to think, Dad still can't set his video....

[reddevil]

A box on your knee today - and a small device in your hand that works as a mobile phone/satellite tv in your hand tomorrow?

[Garri]

Mpprh, that future you describe sounds good - no more proprietary software.

That future is already here in the shape of Basecamp, Campfire, del.icio.us, Flickr, Blinksale and like you say Gmail etc. It's just the start.

They all have APIs that allow developers to 'remix' and launch other web services. There's some good and bad examples of 'remixing' but again, it's just the start.

[Garri]

Everything else will be available online (probably supplied by MS or google ?). MSWORD is free, but with ads ?

As if by magic, I just heard that Google has bought Writely (a very good on-line word processor)

http://www.writely.com

Here's The Signals' view of it:

http://37signals.com/svn/archives2/what ... _means.php

[craigkillick]

Also the new AJAX applications:

http://www.ajaxwrite.com/

The futures here....