“In three years time, desktops will be irrelevant,” says John Herlihy, European Director of Google’s online sales.

Sorry, but I just can’t see that turning out to be true. Three years is an eternity in the tech world. Surely we’ll have things that haven’t even been thought of today, but I don’t see any of them replacing the desktop, or some form of it.

Less people see movies in theaters than used too, but that’s not because they can download them to the iPhones, it’s because larger TVs, better sound, and crisper pictures has created a better home viewing experience. Recently, 3D movies in IMAX have upped the ante again, but home entertainment has been quicker than ever in catching up.

Sooner or later computers and TVs may meld into a single entity, they’ll have HD and 3D capabilities, with 17.1 surround sound, maybe smell will be integrated, maybe you won’t even have to use a keyboard, but the size of the screen will be larger, not smaller.

I use a 17-inch notebook, which is larger than most, but I still prefer to use a larger desktop monitor whenever possible. I have experimented with my TV and it is better to watch YouTube on, but I won’t be using it the next time I play Minesweeper.

The smaller screen is simply too limiting. It’s crazy to track all those Tweets and Facebook updates though a tiny little screen, even if you can have them all open at once you are then limited in your options.

It’s not just video, you can forget about writing a research paper on any kind of smart phone.

Herlihy continued, “In Japan, most research is done today on smart phones, not PCs.”

That makes sense. Smart phones will be used more in the future because they allow the internet to be taken anywhere. To be able to access Google, IMDB, or the latest sports scores comes in handy numerous times daily. Amount of time used or searches on a smart phone will likely be higher for most people than those on a desktop, but the quality won’t be.

I can never see myself reading a thousand word article on a four-inch screen.

What do you see for the future of screens? Bigger or smaller, or both?

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Comment by Glenn on March 8, 2010 at 11:33am: "What do you see for the future of screens? Bigger or smaller, or both?"

Who says we'll be using screens in the future? I'm thinking lazer-projection 3-D images. And there are others on the horizon:

5 Intriguing Future AV Technologies

The future of the human-computer interface

If you want to consider computer interfaces in the not-so-near future, you might want to read the "Otherland" series by Tad Williams. There are some computer/Internet interface concepts in those books (4 in the series) that will send shivers up and down your spine in anticipation!

"maybe smell will be integrated,..."

I've been waiting for "Smellavision" for years upon years now! :-D

Comment by ionflux on March 6, 2010 at 8:19pm: fellow geekdom and loyalist geekdom gentleman and gentle lady good night im sleepy night good night professor imax from software libre cool man neo

P.A.L. foe ever
peace and love

Comment by Josh on March 6, 2010 at 7:50pm: They're here to stay. Not everyone likes to carry the whole world in their pocket. Of coarse bigger is better. This is America damn it. I don't want one device when I can have every device. Some people still have a traditional aspect to home making too. The home office is the place where the work is done. Nobody wants to mix working into the man caves and family rooms. That's family time. Also however much memory you can put into a hand-held device a bigger package can always hold more hardware. The devises won't look like that old box that makes that noise. Apple has already changed that time and time again. But you do see more things coming in like DVD players that can show youtube or rent movies from netflix. So computing will continue to invade all. Just business will never be conducted in the room with the kids shows. We have smart phones and smart cars now. You can see the houses becoming smarter every year as well. I just think that the office will always need a computer on the desk and bigger is better. So long live the desktop. I'll always have room for one.

Comment by Jon Riley on March 5, 2010 at 5:32pm: I think everyone will eventually have a "media center" which is everything we have now combined together, along with a smartphoneto carry with them, though it may not be anything like the smart phones today. Maybe it's a video screen that you put on like a contact lens and then it reads your brain waves to help navigate the os. Some people may say a chip in the brain, but then what happens when it's time for an upgrade, or the chip goes bad, or any number of other unforeseen events? Anyway, I think home tech is going to get bigger media with smarter tech and personal tech is going to get smaller and smaller.

Comment by Ian Singleton on March 5, 2010 at 3:07pm: Desktops will always be around in some form. But you may not not be able to by them off the shelf from your local store. I think build it your self kits will become much more popular for people who still want a desktop, so they can make it exactly for what they want it for. I don't really have a need for a Laptop or a Smart phone at the moment, so I built my own PC to play the occasional game on and use it for email and office tasks. Also I can't see big companies in call centres giving their employees a laptop to use, because they only need it for customer data and letter writing. So I think that for some people all they want is a PC and are more than happy with a desktop

Comment by Nate Neben on March 5, 2010 at 9:00am: If by desktops you mean display devices, I agree. People will always like a bigger viewing experience. But when I think of desktops, a big bad noisy box comes to mind that I can't take with me. These will go the way of the dinosaurs...

I envision a future where the handheld(read: cellphone) will become our all in one device. They are powerful enough to set up a fast wireless Internet connection, authenticate us(see www.phonefactor.com) and run software to connect us to a remote desktop in the cloud. No worries about backing up a local hard drive, installing the latest security updates, etc. There will just be 'connection kiosks': You'll walk up, sync your divice to the wireless display, keyboard, and mouse and you're good to go. Same thing at home. Everything will be dumb terminals, the connection to the cloud will be in your pocket.

Ever wonder why in the heck they enable phones to play TV??? Who wants to watch on a tiny screen?? But allow your phone to send a wireless HD signal to your 52" flat screen that it picks up via your 4G connection ala IPTV and guess what? You have just bypassed your cable provider for TV service that you can take with you. No sling box needed. No more cable bill, no more internet bill, waiting for the technician to come out and hook up your service - it's done- you carry it in your pocket.

Watch it happen...

Comment by Mme Moxie on March 5, 2010 at 1:54am: I see both, being in our future. As noted, a bigger screen size isn't necessarily good for all game playing and watching TV on a 4" screen doesn't cut it, either. Smart phones will continue to get smarter, but, there will still be limitations, due to the it's size.

Comment by Daniel Boone on March 4, 2010 at 10:34pm: I just read the same article and while I'm inclined to believe that the Desktop is here to stay, the way we use it and the items we use more are indeed changing and will continue to do so.

What would be absolutely life changing would be using all of the spare CPU cycles on all of the mobile products on the market for other research. Take cloud computing to the next level so to speak. Charles Stross delved into that in one of his books (I'll try to find the title later), and it is an extremely novel idea, not a new one, but his implementation in fiction was feasible in the modern world, though we would have to increase wireless access speeds considerably to take true advantage of his scenario.

Anyway, this dude is keeping his desktop, I'm about to shell out around 750-1000USD for a new set-up and I'm currently typing this on a MacBook Pro purchased in September. While I've grown accustomed to the screen size (and I love the resolution more) I miss my three monitors, trackball, Wacom tablet, and cool knees. The desktop may change its form, but it will be around for years to come. The only way I can see me getting rid of it, is if they can embed the damned thing in my head, that I can't destroy easily and I have a feeling it won't matter where I'm at or what I'm doing then, I'll be able to use it how I want. Just sayin'...

Comment by Sean Britannia on March 4, 2010 at 9:10pm: Google would wan't you to think that so they can usher in their own systems ?

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