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Improving Ubuntu's application upload processImproving Ubuntu's application upload processPosted Sep 9, 2012 7:43 UTC (Sun) by danieldk (guest, #27876)In reply to: Improving Ubuntu's application upload process by klbrun Parent article: Improving Ubuntu's application upload process
> Ubuntu is not going to conquer the desktop because it is a "better Linux" (unless the desktop goes
away except for die hard Linux aficionados). The question is, is there a future for the desktop computer? Will it be replaced by the mobile device that plugs in to the big screen and links to bluetooth mouse and keyboard?
For media consumption (regular home users), yes, I believe smartphones and tables will replace the desktop PC and even laptops. Even for simpler productivity applications (simple text processing, time management), we will probably see tablets becoming increasingly popular. I think there are two important causes:
1. The user interfaces of newer mobile devices are radically simpler than their desktop counterparts. Sure, you could port it to a desktop, which changes for mouse/keyboard use. But:
2. Mobile devices are far more flexible in their use. You can carry an iPad around the house, to meetings, etc. You can also dock it, and have a something that almost resembles a very user-friendly desktop.
But I do think there is a feature for the desktop/laptop computer in more heavy-duty production work. For instance, development or movie production.
The sad thing is that not everyone realised that mobile computing and desktop computing require radically different user interfaces. The latter requires good window management and should be focused on mouse and keyboard use. The former is oriented at touch interfaces and simplicity.
It would be nice if the Linux desktop could be focused on what it did best: provide a good environment for programming and other heavy-duty productivity work. No more big desktop adventures, iterative refinement, and finishing all the rough edges. If the Linux desktop focused on just the desktop, things would become much simpler. Now that all the action is taking place in the mobile sphere, it's much easier to catch up with things.
For the mobile market, there's already a big (opensource-ish) ecosystem, Android. Let's focus on keeping Google honest and pushing CyanogenMod, rather than trying to morph traditional desktop environments into mobile environments. It'll be hard to make any dent, and there already is a good opensource Linux-based player.
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mobile computers replacing desktop Posted Sep 9, 2012 18:22 UTC (Sun) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link] When the handheld computer is docked, you have a desktop computer. So this proposition isn't that desktop computers will be replaced by handheld computers, but that the desktop computer of the future will share major parts with a handheld one. That seems really unrealistic to me. The handheld parts are so constrained by the mobility requirement that the desktop would be far less capable per unit cost than if it were made entirely of desktop-optimized parts. Any savings from reusing parts would be outweighed by the loss from weakening both the desktop and the handheld. And do bear in mind that one's data will be accessible by all of the handheld and desktop computers one uses, even without docking. There is a separate proposition that I think some people confuse with this docking idea: most desktop computers will actually be replaced by handhelds. I.e. people will compute on their hands, not at their desks. There will be far fewer big screens and mice.
mobile computers replacing desktop Posted Sep 9, 2012 19:19 UTC (Sun) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]
Who says anything about savings? Pads and "smart docks" with CPU/GPU offloading support can very well be more expensive than traditional desktops.
However, they'll also be much more flexible. Just like laptops versus tabletops - laptops were initially much more expensive, but they have already taken over the tabletop market.
mobile computers replacing desktop Posted Sep 9, 2012 19:43 UTC (Sun) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link] Who says anything about savings? Just guessing at reasons people might think it makes sense to share parts between the mobile and desktop computer. You apparently have a particular configuration in mind that would be much more flexible because the desktop is somehow married to the handheld than if the desktop were standalone. I'd like to hear what you have in mind. In comparing the evolution of the laptop to the evolution of the handheld, I note that the laptop was always just a scaled down desktop. E.g. it ran the same OS and most of the same applications. Every advance was designed to make it more like the former desktop. In contrast, the handhelds have taken off in a separate direction. That should make a difference.
mobile computers replacing desktop Posted Sep 9, 2012 21:41 UTC (Sun) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] Just guessing at reasons people might think it makes sense to share parts between the mobile and desktop computer. You are still looking on the whole story from wrong direction. This is not about inventing desktop/mobile hybrids. No. This is about attaching large monitor, keyboard and mouse to handheld or tablet. And then inventing desktop/mobile hybrids. Why would anyone do that? Are they geeks or just eccentric? Neither. Let's start with facts. Sales of PCs in 2011: 364 million units, 3.8% growth comparing to 2010 Sales of smartphones in 2011: 486 million units, 63.2% growth comparing to 2010. What does it mean? Well, one simple thing: money are moving in the direction of smartphones (and to much lesser degree - tablets). And fast. Even today there are a lot of guys who have smartphone and no PC (or they have brand-new smartphone and 5-6 years old PC). Tomorrow most smartphone owners will not own a PC - but they will still want to use large monitor, mouse and keyboard. If the dock station for smartphone will be cheaper and will provide usable experience - they'll pick it over PC. And as smartphones will become more and more powerful this combination will be more and more natural. And just like it happened with workstations at some point people will just stop buying desktops and laptops. It's hard to predict exactly when that'll happen, but when this will happen anyone who'll have no presence on mobile will go bankrupt. It's that simple. Now you see why Microsoft is ready to put quite literally everything to win the mobile market? And why Intel spends billions to somehow shoehorn it's CPUs in mobile phones? The writings are on the wall. In comparing the evolution of the laptop to the evolution of the handheld, I note that the laptop was always just a scaled down desktop. E.g. it ran the same OS and most of the same applications. Every advance was designed to make it more like the former desktop. In contrast, the handhelds have taken off in a separate direction. That should make a difference. Absolutely. Laptops were never an existential threat for the developers of desktop software. Handhelds are such a threat. Exactly because there are continuity between desktop and laptops, but no continuity between laptops and handhelds.
mobile computers replacing desktop Posted Sep 10, 2012 1:43 UTC (Mon) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
you are comparing a mature market (desktops) with a emerging market (mobile devices). The rate of growth of mobile devices is going to flatten out in a few years
as for the rate of growth, there's a xkcd for that http://xkcd.com/1102/
while some people will stop buying desktops and laptops, claiming that anyone who only produces desktops and laptops will go bankrupt is rather far-fetched.
That's like saying that since since many people have already stopped buying desktops and instead buy laptops that anyone who doesn't have a laptop presence, and all the companies who only make devices and cards that work on desktops are going to go bankrupt. that's far from true, they can continue to make a nice profit selling there devices.
IBM only makes mainframes and servers, the vast majority of people don't buy such systems, and haven't for MANY years. why didn't they go bankrupt decades ago?
mobile computers replacing desktop Posted Sep 10, 2012 1:51 UTC (Mon) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]
Because IBM sells stuff to entities that think along the line: "the more expensive the better" and "we're not going to use all these new-fangled x86 CPUs, if PowerPC was good enough for Abraham Lincoln it's good enough for everyone!"
mobile computers replacing desktop Posted Sep 10, 2012 2:23 UTC (Mon) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
There are lots of situations where the Power chips are far better than the x86 chips.
The question is if this added capabilities are worth the money.
If you have an application that is easy to split across multiple systems, the answer is probably no, but for applications that are harder to scale, the dramatic improvement in per-thread performance on a Power chip can be worth a LOT.
x86 didn't win because it was better than it's competition, it won because it was more common. It was more common because it was 'good enough' and cheaper than the competition, and it is what happened to be picked for the PC that got cloned.
In many ways x86 is a far worse architecture than just about anything out there. But AMD and Intel have put HUGE amounts of effort into speeding it up. But even with all this effort, it's not the best performing chip available, and it's not the most power efficient chip available
mobile computers replacing desktop Posted Sep 10, 2012 2:35 UTC (Mon) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]
Not really. It's just that IBM is willing to produce CPUs that cost $20000 each (I'm not exaggerating) by brute force (using large dies). That's why they can get to 6GHz clock speed.
That could be easily replicated by x86 using the same methods. But Intel and AMD probably are not interested. It's a niche, after all.
mobile computers replacing desktop Posted Sep 10, 2012 2:48 UTC (Mon) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
I'm not disputing that it's a niche.
However, the x86 architecture is rather poor in many areas (extremely low register count for example)
Sparc, Power, Alpha are all better architectures than x86 (or amd64), but since they can't run the software that can run on x86, and that software is a huge percentage of the industry, they are limited to the server niche.
the highest performing processors always have a large price premium attached to them. IBM makes really good profit margins on the Power line, but they do also include capabilities that are not found on x86 systems. These capabilities are usually not worth their cost, which is why it remains a niche, but if you need them, they are cheap at that price.
But the point was that just because they didn't jump on the latest bandwagon doesn't mean that they went bankrupt.
mobile computers replacing desktop Posted Sep 10, 2012 3:08 UTC (Mon) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]
Let me quote the inimitable Linus Torvalds: http://yarchive.net/comp/linux/x86.html
>And the baroque instruction encoding on the x86 is actually a _good_
>The low register count isn't an issue when you code in any high-level
And that's true. ARM folks found out that while ARM is nice and great for low-performance low-power computing, you really need to do all sorts of tricks x86 does once you want to move to high-performance computing. Large register file does not give you much in that case.
mobile computers replacing desktop Posted Sep 10, 2012 5:44 UTC (Mon) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
on the other hand, the x86 design is hard to scale up in speed and efficiently use more transisters. Other designs do scale up better.
mobile computers replacing desktop Posted Sep 10, 2012 6:33 UTC (Mon) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] Not really. There are designs which can cover lower-power/lower-speed niche (ARM and MIPS), there are designs which cover higher-power/higher-speed niche (Itanic, POWER), there are no designs which scale better than x86. That's why most TOP500 computers use it: they need something with the best available performance per watt (wall-power is one of the most important limitations for the supercomputers) and that "something" is either GPU or x86. Often both.
mobile computers replacing desktop Posted Sep 10, 2012 6:56 UTC (Mon) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]
Technically, the latest ARMs have a better peformance/power ratio than x86/64. But they still can't approach the single-core speed of x86.
mobile computers replacing desktop Posted Sep 10, 2012 7:07 UTC (Mon) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
> Technically, the latest ARMs have a better peformance/power ratio than x86/64. But they still can't approach the single-core speed of x86.
which doesn't approach the single-core speed of the Power systems.
each of them has a market, they don't have to directly compete.
Unless you are shipping binary-only software and aren't willing to ship multiple copies. the industry has been in that mindset for a long time.
But in the mobile space they don't have the luxury of having a single binary target, and until and unless they do (which seems unlikely to happen in the short term), we have a real chance for competition between different processors, and for different processors to be used in different places. In the short term it's easier to try and mandate a hardware monoculture, but I don't think anyone has enough power to do so, especially with Android and Linux _not_ mandating it and giving everyone an example and an option to work with when they run into the monoculture limitations.
mobile computers replacing desktop Posted Sep 10, 2012 11:55 UTC (Mon) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]
> which doesn't approach the single-core speed of the Power systems.
It does. Easily.
New Xeons beat all the PPCs except for the top-of-the line POWER-7 CPUs. And then top-of-the line PPCs beat Xeons only because of their humongous die size and clock speeds (with corresponding TDP).
In reality there's no magic sauce that makes PPC to be inherently better than x86. They both use hardware decoders to split instructions into pipeline-able sub-instructions. Sure, decoders for RISCs are easier to implement but the difference in the number of transistors is trivial for desktop/server CPUs.
I'd several run-ins with IBM mainframe guys about a year ago. They told my client how great and fast their mainframes were, that $100000 per system couldn't be wrong, could it? So my client went and leased a 'small' unit - telling how great it would be.
IO turned out to be slow as hell compared to our simple Xeon-based server with a RAID of Intel SSDs. CPU performance indeed was higher, but not by much - and we got one of the fastest CPUs available.
mobile computers replacing desktop Posted Sep 10, 2012 13:16 UTC (Mon) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] But in the mobile space they don't have the luxury of having a single binary target, and until and unless they do (which seems unlikely to happen in the short term), we have a real chance for competition between different processors, and for different processors to be used in different places. Define "short term". We had similar situation on PC, too. Early versions of many programs supported many different CPUs (I've personally used Turbo Pascal on x86-based systems and on z80-based systems). But eventually market settled on "IBM PC compatible" and most other systems died of. Mac survived (barely), but all other IBM PC-incompatible personal computers perished. x86-incompatible systems perished without exceptions. This is why Intel and MIPS are so desperate to push their CPUs in mobile space: they know that if they'll not do that in a year or two they'll lose the opportunity forever. Already the biggest complaint WRT x86-phones Androids and MIPS-based Androids is poor ARM emulation and poor work of many popular programs with binary-only components. In the short term it's easier to try and mandate a hardware monoculture, but I don't think anyone has enough power to do so, especially with Android and Linux _not_ mandating it and giving everyone an example and an option to work with when they run into the monoculture limitations. Bwa-ha-ha. Just want and see. Windows NT also supported multitude of CPUs (), but in the end… market have chosen just one architecture: x86. Short-term? Nope, this is not the question of short-term. I'm not sure who'll win the mobile race (there are still some time left and MIPS and x86 both have advantages: MIPS is free and x86 makes it easy to port software from PC), but in the end it'll be one choice.
mobile computers replacing desktop Posted Sep 10, 2012 6:02 UTC (Mon) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] But the point was that just because they didn't jump on the latest bandwagon doesn't mean that they went bankrupt. Oh yes, it does. IBM sold out it's PC division because it was unprofitable and they no longer sell workstations, too. They survived by shifting to other venues, they are doing consulting work, they are selling mainframes, they no longer produce PCs or workstations. That part is gone. The problem with most players in desktop area today is that they have no plan B, or if they do (HP has printers and enterprise software, for example) they are not big enough to support the whole structure. Today they have difficult dilemma: either they will try to shift to mobile or they need to switch to some other field (like IBM did 20 years ago). Desktop will no longer support them. They have time (you right: right now, today mobile apps tend to be very weak at doing any content creation), but it's large shift, I'm not sure they have enough time.
mobile computers replacing desktop Posted Sep 10, 2012 6:21 UTC (Mon) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] as for the rate of growth, there's a xkcd for that http://xkcd.com/1102/ Beep, beep, beep. Bullshit detected. you are comparing a mature market (desktops) with a emerging market (mobile devices). The rate of growth of mobile devices is going to flatten out in a few years I'm comparing two markets of almost identical sizes - that's why XKCD is irrelevant here. They have almost identical sizes (PCs have [slightly] larger installed base, but smartphones already have bigger per-year sales). That's true that growth of mobile devices is going to flatten out in a few years (when there will be more smartphones than peoples on Earth), but why does it matter? We already are talking about big enough numbers to seal the PC fate. IBM only makes mainframes and servers, the vast majority of people don't buy such systems, and haven't for MANY years. why didn't they go bankrupt decades ago? They almost did. You can read about recounting of that era from the guy who saved them from that fate. IBM survived, but not as producer of workstations or PCs. Sure, they sell mainframes and servers - but this not where most of their money comes from.
mobile computers replacing desktop Posted Sep 10, 2012 6:53 UTC (Mon) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link] I'm comparing two markets of almost identical sizes I wondered why you were comparing markets at all. We were having a discussion about whether mobile computing would replace desktop computing, and the figures you cited were in fact only tangentially related to that question. The figures that would help with that are how fast the number of people with mobile computers is growing and how fast the number of people with desktop computers is declining (if at all). The sales numbers totally skip the disposal side of the equation, and the high growth rate of sales is less predictive when you realize there's a saturation point. As for the matter of Lenovo taking over IBM's personal computer product line, I'm afraid I've become lost in the analogies again, and I can't see what that teaches us about whether desktop computing will still be around as mobile computing grows.
mobile computers replacing desktop Posted Sep 10, 2012 13:16 UTC (Mon) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] The figures that would help with that are how fast the number of people with mobile computers is growing. This is what the numbers above show, isnt't it? With market which is growing as fast as smartphones are growing disposal side of the equation is not relevant yet: 50% of smartphones ever sold were sold in the last 18 months. We can safely assume they all are still in use. And how fast the number of people with desktop computers is declining (if at all). It's growing right now :-) Disruptive collapse will happen later. UNIX workstations grew for more then decade after introduction of personal computers. In fact DEC was portrayed as unstoppable force and as pinnacle of business acumen in 1980th. Business Week warned IBM in 1986: "Taking on Digital Equipment Corp. these days is like standing in front of a moving train." This was five years after introduction of IBM PC! As for the matter of Lenovo taking over IBM's personal computer product line, I'm afraid I've become lost in the analogies again, and I can't see what that teaches us about whether desktop computing will still be around as mobile computing grows. It shows what happens when you try to stop the disruptive collapse. IBM owned the PC market. Heck, it created the "IBM PC-compatibles" market. But this happened because this thing was not created by "big IBM" (this attempt predictably failed), it was created by semi-autonomous group. When "big IBM" realized what happened it immediately tried to change the direction to make sure they have control over market. It tried to make sure personal computers will be confined it it's niche and will not hurt sales of RS/6000 and big iron with PS/2 and OS/2. It failed, of course, and IBM eventually relented, but by that time it was too late: ThinkPads were (and are) good devices (as were PS/1), and they are quite popular among some users (ThinkPads, not PS/1), but ultimately IBM was unable to keep up with a PC market.
mobile computers replacing desktop Posted Sep 9, 2012 19:30 UTC (Sun) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] That seems really unrealistic to me. The handheld parts are so constrained by the mobility requirement that the desktop would be far less capable per unit cost than if it were made entirely of desktop-optimized parts. Any savings from reusing parts would be outweighed by the loss from weakening both the desktop and the handheld. Déjà_vu: you explanation replicates reasons which should have kept DEC and Sun viable forever. Just replace "desktop" with "workstation" and "handheld" with "personal computer". Remember these times when first personal computers stuffed everything in one case with a keyboard and used TV instead of big, professional monitor? It's quite literally impossible to put hot, powerful CPU, powerful graphic and all the goodies workstations offered in such a tiny box. Couple of decades later it was supposed to keep laptop a niche product. Today it's supposed to keep desktop alive and well. There is a separate proposition that I think some people confuse with this docking idea: most desktop computers will actually be replaced by handhelds. I.e. people will compute on their hands, not at their desks. There will be far fewer big screens and mice. This will happen to some extent, but I doubt a lot of users will use tiny tablet (10"-11" is tiny when compared with 30" monitor) when alternative will be available. If you'll compare quater-century old workstations with today's personal computers and with personal computers of that era then you'll find that, suprisingly, PCs of today resemble these old workstation more then they resemble these old PCs relics - but it does not change anything: people switched to more affordable PCs when they could and over time brought niceties they lost after said switch while companies which tried to sell these wonderful machines wend bankrupt. Today's phone is not powerful enough to drive today's desktop but it is more powerful then all these old workstations!
mobile computers replacing desktop Posted Sep 9, 2012 22:44 UTC (Sun) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link] I guess I'm not following your analogy. You're saying a Sun workstation is to an Apple II as MacBook is to iPhone?If so, I don't see it. An Apple II is an inexpensive approximation of a Sun workstation. An iPhone does a whole different job from a MacBook.
mobile computers replacing desktop Posted Sep 9, 2012 23:27 UTC (Sun) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] I guess I'm not following your analogy. You're saying a Sun workstation is to an Apple II as MacBook is to iPhone? In sense, yes. An iPhone does a whole different job from a MacBook. Sure, you can use it as phone, as camera, as a music player - but these things are not important here. What is important is that you can use it as a poor's-man-MacBook, too. Well, this is less true for an iPhone, because you can not actually program it on the phone, but with Android you can do that... in many ways, in fact. You can write simple scripts or use Java or C++. Sure, just like CAD or office these IDEs are poor substitute for full-blown analogues found on desktop (or laptop), but there are no reason to believe they will always be underpowered.
mobile computers replacing desktop Posted Sep 10, 2012 1:36 UTC (Mon) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
> And do bear in mind that one's data will be accessible by all of the handheld and desktop computers one uses, even without docking.
That is a dream that depends on having unlimited bandwideth available everywhere, something that is far from true today, and while things will improve, it's very unlikely that it will ever be true.
There are still large areas of the world where dial-up or satellite are the only options for Internet connections
the fact that the mobile phone companies are being greedy with the data usage costs is another strike against this idea.
> That seems really unrealistic to me. The handheld parts are so constrained by the mobility requirement that the desktop would be far less capable per unit cost than if it were made entirely of desktop-optimized parts. Any savings from reusing parts would be outweighed by the loss from weakening both the desktop and the handheld.
I really don't see how a combo device hurts device compared to a mobile device. If you just add a displayport connector to an existing system, you have everything you need to make it work (the keyboard, mouse, and network can attach via USB)
Yes, it will be far less flexible, and far more expensive than an equivalent desktop device, but with laptops we already see that many people are willing to make the trade-off of a less powerful, more expensive device that they can move around. I know of some people who buy laptops, but almost never move them off of a desk at home.
> I.e. people will compute on their hands, not at their desks. There will be far fewer big screens and mice.
unless people's eyesight improves significantly, and their fingers shrink, I really don't expect this to happen across the board. Yes, people who mainly consume data produced by others may shift this way, but people who create data (even if it's only spreadsheets, word processing, or non-trivial amounts of e-mail) are very unlikely to make this shift.
As a result, all the computers used for people's work are unlikely to be replaced by handheld devices, but they could be replaced by dockable mobile devices the same way that they are frequently being replaced today by dockable laptops. If you go into a large company nowdays and walk the cube farm, you are at least as likely to see docking stations or bundles of cables to plug into a laptop as you are to see a desktop. As mobile devices get more powerful, they will start to become 'good enough' when docked and the trend can easily continue to see the laptops replaced by mobile devices (very probably eliminating the phone on everyone's desk in the process)
But these people are not needing to run mobile apps at the office (which tilt heavily towards content consumption and games), they are needing desktop apps that can create content. Mobile apps tend to be very weak at doing any content creation.
mobile computers replacing desktop Posted Sep 10, 2012 3:14 UTC (Mon) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link] And do bear in mind that one's data will be accessible by all of the handheld and desktop computers one uses, even without docking.That is a dream that depends on having unlimited bandwidth available everywhere, Connection to the Internet is not the only way to have data accessible by multiple computers. Proximity replication works too. If every time I walk into my house (or hut) my pocket computer and desktop computer replicate with each other via Bluetooth, I have the same data accessible by both computers (and I don't consider that that docking). And there will have to be not many, but huge numbers of people — people who matter — who can't share data between computers for the new computing paradigm for the world to assume that data is tied to some physical entity, meaning it makes more sense to plug a keyboard into that entity than have duplicate hardware just to attach to the keyboard. You know, I once thought the computer in my house would some day be wired into every appliance and work station in my house. As it turned out, every appliance and work station in my house has its own computer now. Sometimes it works out that way.
mobile computers replacing desktop Posted Sep 10, 2012 5:42 UTC (Mon) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
Unless there is a significant breakthrough in battery technology, you aren't gong to want to have your mobile device auto-connect to your system and act as a hard drive without plugging it in. It's also not going to be an option to do a complete copy of your files as mobile storage grows (it will just take too long)
And if you plug it in, you may as well take advantage of being plugged in for your communications (and possibly other things) as well.
I also don't think that the idea of just moving the files around is really going to work that well in practice. The incompatibilities that creep in between versions of software make it hard to have two machines that will always work with the same file.
not to mention the fact that people like to leave work open when they suspend/undock and move to a new location. you can't do that if you just move data.
> And there will have to be not many, but huge numbers of people — people who matter — who can't share data between computers for the new computing paradigm for the world to assume that data is tied to some physical entity, meaning it makes more sense to plug a keyboard into that entity than have duplicate hardware just to attach to the keyboard.
here I disagree with you. As long as things 'sometimes' don't work, the new paradigm is not going to take over and shut down the existing one., even a smallish minority of people not accepting the new way will keep it from becoming 'THE' way to do things.
mobile computers replacing desktop Posted Sep 10, 2012 6:52 UTC (Mon) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]
We already have wireless charging that can work at distances up to 3-5 meters.
>Unless there is a significant breakthrough in battery technology, you aren't gong to want to have your mobile device auto-connect to your system and act as a hard drive without plugging it in. It's also not going to be an option to do a complete copy of your files as mobile storage grows (it will just take too long)
Probably you won't even _have_ much local data. It's already happening. All my code is on GitHub, all my photos are on Picassa, email on GMail, music on Google Music, etc. I've a backup of everything on my small NAS and I'm even going to get rid of it in favor of Amazon Glacier.
>not to mention the fact that people like to leave work open when they suspend/undock and move to a new location. you can't do that if you just move data.
> here I disagree with you. As long as things 'sometimes' don't work, the new paradigm is not going to take over and shut down the existing one., even a smallish minority of people not accepting the new way will keep it from becoming 'THE' way to do things.
mobile computers replacing desktop Posted Sep 10, 2012 7:02 UTC (Mon) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
please go back and read the thread
I say that the 'cloud' is not going to be good enough to keep your data all there
I get a reply that the person doesn't mean the 'cloud', they mean carrying a physical copy of the data.
I point out the problems with that and the reply is that the 'cloud' makes that obsolete
so go back up the thread and read the problems with that.
If you are moving the computation along with the data, you are back to the docking station that we were talking about before the claim was made that it was better to just move the data.
> Nope. Smallish minorities will be swept by the change. As usual.
nope, minorities that are happy with how they do things get ignored by people who want to claim that everyone has changed how they do things.
mobile computers replacing desktop Posted Sep 10, 2012 7:09 UTC (Mon) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]
>I say that the 'cloud' is not going to be good enough to keep your data all there
It's _already_ good enough. And it's going to become even easier in the future.
>nope, minorities that are happy with how they do things get ignored by people who want to claim that everyone has changed how they do things.
mobile computers replacing desktop Posted Sep 10, 2012 7:14 UTC (Mon) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
>> I say that the 'cloud' is not going to be good enough to keep your data all there
> It's _already_ good enough. And it's going to become even easier in the future.
It's only good enough if you live in an area with good Internet connectivity and don't need to use mobile networks much.
If you are not so lucky, the cost (in time, and sometimes in money) of moving the data back and forth to the cloud makes it impractical.
Game companies are giving up on cloud based DRM, and customers are rebelling against game companies that want to have even their single-user games require full time Internet connectivity.
that hardly sounds like it's "there" now.
It's Ok to have your stuff take advantage of good connectivity if it's there, but if you make it _require_ good connectivity, you are abandoning large parts of the market.
mobile computers replacing desktop Posted Sep 10, 2012 10:20 UTC (Mon) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] It's only good enough if you live in an area with good Internet connectivity Well, this is where all the PCs live. In areas where you don't have good Internet connectivity (such as Africa) you don't have PCs, just mobile phones so all these discussions are even less relevant. and don't need to use mobile networks much. Huh? What this has to do with anything? If you need to use mobile networks then you use them via your phone. How can you use them with a PC? Game companies are giving up on cloud based DRM, Source? and customers are rebelling against game companies that want to have even their single-user games require full time Internet connectivity. Customer's complain. A lot. Yet they still buy more games if could-based DRM is used thus I doubt it'll change. Some customers don't want to have anything to have with such DRM schemes, but these can be served later. First you sell games to a new customers with DRM and all other lockdown schemes and then, years later, GOG (or someone similar) sell unlocked games to the rest of the public. It's Ok to have your stuff take advantage of good connectivity if it's there, but if you make it _require_ good connectivity, you are abandoning large parts of the market. Sure, but these are less-affluent parts of the market. If you can squeeze more money from the ones who don't mind always-on requirement then this is still a net win.
mobile computers replacing desktop Posted Sep 10, 2012 12:42 UTC (Mon) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
>> It's only good enough if you live in an area with good Internet connectivity
> Well, this is where all the PCs live. In areas where you don't have good Internet connectivity (such as Africa) you don't have PCs, just mobile phones so all these discussions are even less relevant.
sorry to surprise you, but it's not just places like Africa that don't have good connectivity.
It's also places in the US.
And it's not even limited to things like people living on farms. I live just outside of Los Angeles and the best I can get is 1.5Mb down. There are people within 10 miles of me who cannot even get that, and who don't have any cellular network coverage at their houses. In some cases these are million dollar houses, so it's not just the poor people who are impacted. I'm not even talking 4G/LTE coverage, I'm talking 3G and voice covereage that is spotty.
I have a friend who lives within 5 miles of the Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena who can get cell coverage from outside his house, but inside it usually doesn't work
mobile computers replacing desktop Posted Sep 10, 2012 16:34 UTC (Mon) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] In some cases these are million dollar houses, so it's not just the poor people who are impacted. It's not the question of how much money a given person has. It's question of how much a given person is ready to spend on the internet, phone and all other goodies. If s/he does not want to spend enough to get a good internet in their home then why do you think s/he'll be ready to spend substantial money on software and hardware?
mobile computers replacing desktop Posted Sep 10, 2012 17:17 UTC (Mon) by Jonno (subscriber, #49613) [Link]
> If s/he does not want to spend enough to get a good internet in their home then why do you think s/he'll be ready to spend substantial money on software and hardware?
Because "substantial money on software and hardware" is only about €5'000, while a good internet connection cost about €10'000 per km away from the nearest ISP junction. You know, not everyone live in big cities...
mobile computers replacing desktop Posted Sep 12, 2012 18:46 UTC (Wed) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
It's the UK too. Whole villages (and some towns) have full exchanges, no cable modem fitted yet, no new broadband installs, and DACSes landing on lines everywhere -- and the first person to ask for broadband gets hit with the full cost of the exchange upgrade. Oddly everyone there survives on high-latency hyper-expensive horrors such as satellite broadband (more expensive for 1Mb/s 4Gb/month, metered, HTTP only than I pay for two lines 40Mb/s 250Gb/month on domestic ADSL), or goes without.
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