I don't know what the implications are for Ubuntu or Android. But genuine support for a first-class computing experience is one of the few things that would tempt me back onto those platforms.
Maybe it is, but it's not the future I'd like best.
I would like to have a desktop in the cloud, and data in the cloud, and nothing in my pocket; nothing to lose or break or have to make sure it still has juice.
When I get somewhere to work (a client's, a café, a friend's, etc.), I log in to my cloud desktop using whatever dumb machine is available, and off I go. Everything I do is automatically saved, backed up, versioned, synchronized for me.
A portable computer is useful in the subway, but at the office? What benefits do we stand to gain from still having things run or be stored on a local machine?
More and more I want to fully control my data on my terms. Maybe I'd be fine paying a service (linode?) to host my fully encrypted data in the cloud, but Google? Facebook? No thanks.
The future I would like best is a device on the end of my home internet connection.
I could authenticate myself to other online services against it.
It could be a node in a social network (much like diaspora) where I can control all my own data.
It could have access to a NAS at home, allowing me to stream my favourite music and movies to wherever I happen to be.
In the future, with resilient enough networks, the datacenter will be distributed.
It's still in an early state of development but you may join the mailinglist or read the wiki ( http://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox ) if you are interested in this topic.
Hmmmmmm.... I'll sell you one for £500 a year, replaced regularly and managed?
If the software and feature set were stable and mature enough then I can't see you needing to upgrade it very often.
These two futures don't have to be mutually exclusive, and I'd argue we'll see them both on the same device at the same time.
And by "lately" I mean the past decade.
Don't get me wrong, I like the convenience of "the cloud". It's especially helpful in synchronizing all the data that I have on cheap and abundant storage on various devices.
We can have both. Why advocate giving up the one option that makes you independent from third party interference (or simply a lack of connectivity)?
I hope they've thought of this and I've just missed it. They won't be able to sell USB based backup drives for much longer.
For example my Dropbox folder is automatically synced on my mac which is then automatically backed up by the time machine.
While the I/O from those plugged-in devices could still be sniffed, including what appears on a screen, at least you could encrypt your communication when using a portable device.
Security.
I know there's no infrastructure in place (yet) but we're talking about some kind of future, not about today. It's certainly possible though. Even secured.
[1] You say "cryptography". I say "Analog hole".
And about security as in privacy. I don't know what future holds. Perhaps you'd be implanted a token that you can use for accessing the data which can't be faked or copied. Who knows. I just wouldn't rule out the possibility of a "cloud world" completely.
Unfortunately there is no way to verify that that machine is actually "dumb". Fundamentally this is because modern computation and storage are microscopic phenomena. Even today we take it as an act of faith that our freshly produced electronics only do what the manufacturers say - and this is an ongoing problem for US defense contractors that outsource component manufacture to China.
This problem is also experienced by travelers who expect a "dumb browser" at the internet cafe, when in fact they are being key logged.
> What benefits do we stand to gain from still having things run or be stored on a local machine?
There are a few, such as statefulness that is maintained even without network connectivity. But the big one is that, presumably, "your" device is more trustworthy than a dumb terminal because, at the very least, you haven't acted to subvert your own security (although even this is often not the case).
1. Device (basically CPU) - this could be your phone or something similar
2. Storage local cache on your "Device" but sync'd with the cloud in case of it getting lost or damaged
3. Input. Lets face it, we all enjoy a good keyboard and mouse...if you're on the go touch screen does the job but I'll never write a document from one (unless I am super desperate)
You would sacrifice your freedom and privacy for a (dubious) convenience?
>What benefits do we stand to gain from still having things run or be stored on a local machine?
So that you won't be in paralysis when internet is unavailable?
Of course there's a way to go for that. The range of devices that support mobile docks is very small; I would prefer support for tablets with attached keyboards/mice. If they managed to get this working on tablets, I would definitely consider something like the transformer prime to replace my netbook.
I'm going to want to carry a "phone" for sure. Most people who've ever had a smartphone expect to have one the rest of their life.
I'm also going to want (at least) a machine with a keyboard and bigger display than my phone.
Why in the future would I want to tie one to the other? I wouldn't want that today — my computer works just fine without having to do some weird sync/plug-in dance with my phone when I want to use it. Even if this was seamless and even if we ignore concerns like finite batteries, what would I have gained besides a single point of failure?
I of course would like pervasive data sync. But why would I want the hardware of my computer to rely on the hardware of my phone?
Notice that no one is saying that a secondary cloud-tier is excluded from this vision...
No, it really isn't. Manual file transfer is... doable, but still more problematic than it should be. But there is absolutely nothing that will seamlessly keep my phone in sync with my tablet when I don't have network access (i.e. I take a photo on my phone and it's on my tablet, without me doing anything). If you have a solution, link please.
Consider, there are over 5 billion active cell phone subscriptions in the world. That's more cell phones than toothbrushes or toilets. And smart phones are being adopted in the developing world at a surprising rate. For many people, a smartphone will be their first and only computer.
If Canonical can enable desktop style content creation for people in emerging markets who will "leapfrog" over computers, just as they leapt over landlines, the impact could be enormous.
Battery isn't going to be a problem either. With today's solutions you could just plug in one cable which connects to the monitor and charges the phone. Tomorrow- your desktop will have a surface to put your phone on that will charge it (like your toothbrush charges), perhaps authenticate with NFC, and then connect to your display with WiDi or similar, and your keyboard.. yes, seamlessly. Another thing you will have gained is you won't have to buy a second device. Of course, we here are likely to be the last to give up a computer-proper.
[1]: other than the obvious trust, reliability and privacy issues-- there is currently no solution for most applications-- licencing issues? many companies are likely to drag their heels here. And when there finally is a technically perfect and complete solution; how are you going to pay for this? advertising, $, or selling your data. Or, you could just keep it in your pocket, yourself.
As for paying, this is a non-issue, you are going to pay either way.
When I talk about licencing i'm talking about the future: where you could use the cloud to access full fat programs like photoshop (after getting over any technical issues with remote installs). AFAIK there aren't provisions in current licences for such things.
Even if you have to spend for (more) local storage/backup, it is very likely to be much cheaper, and i would have a strong preference for the buy-once (and own) rather than rent monthly model.
This will be extremely asymmetric multiprocessing.
The general trend of hardware is that it gets smaller, faster, and more efficient simultaneously. It is highly likely within 10 years you'll be walking around with a smartphone more than 10 times as powerful than the fastest 16-core desktop PC you can buy today, and possibly desktop PC's won't even be sold by then because there won't be any need for them.
The scale of a desktop fits and works. Like how we could make a TV the size of a watch, but we don't because the large 60 inch plazma format, while immobile, has benefits worth the tradeoff.
Full featured mouse / keyboard, larger screens, surround sound are all perks of stationary desktops (I guess you could attach all these peripherals to a laptop, but then you are partially defeating the point of being mobile.
I laughed.
Desktops are by no means "rare". Cell phones have just become ubiquitous, theres a difference. (Laptops too for that matter.)
One of my problems with current generation laptops and netbooks (Besides costing almost twice as much for the same performance.) is that despite being "mobile" computers I end up having to set it down on a flat surface every time I want to use it. Walking around and using your laptop at the same time? Not going to happen. (Unless you buy one of those chest-strap things I saw in the first splinter cell...) The OLPC solved this pretty elegantly with the handle on the back, which is made just perfectly so that you can actually hold the computer with one hand and operate it with the other. (This mainly works because the OLPC is more netbook than laptop.)
And then you get two more problems I have with the laptop form factor: Trackpad vs Mouse, "Keyboard" vs Keyboard.
Trackpads, even when you have a responsive one, are awful. They're like touch screens, but not as cool. If you have anything on your hands, it gets on the trackpad when you use it. Trackpads are too slow if they're set at a speed where your mouse can actually point, and uncontrollable if the speed is turned up.
The "Keyboard"s that comes with most laptops barely qualify for the word. Traditional desktop keyboards can have keys with a height greater than five millimeters. (I'm exaggerating obviously, but laptop keyboards are very flat.) and I much prefer this to keyboards that feel like I'm tapping on a piece of plastic cardboard. I'd almost rather forgo the keyboard entirely and just push down on the little gelatinous circles underneath directly. And don't get me started on replacing one of those keys if they break. (Which they often do.)
And no, touch screens aren't the answer. On laptop screens, touchscreen == dirty display. I already have a rant here about touch screens on mobile devices. On displays bigger than a laptop, you better not have been planning to sit more than an arm's length away from your monitor. Oh right, the future doesn't have big screens in it.
Desktops might not even be common in a decade, but they'll be there. If for nothing else because theres people like me who still like to sit down to a (awesome) computer setup.
1) People without smart phones exist. I'm one of them.
2) Nobody is going to be satisfied with phone hardware to control both their phone and their sit-down setup. At least not for a few more generations of Moore's law, and Moore's laws current method for increasing power, stacking cores, is a battery vampire. People who want their phones to actually run for a non-trivial length of time will end up under-utilizing their hardware while on the go. (Hardware that they still payed money for.)
3) So lets say we still have the sit-down setup in the form of the base station. This brings up it's own set of questions:
[A] Where is data stored? What if someone steals your phone? What if you don't have one?
[B] Where does the computing power come from, is this just a shell for the phone or does it have some power on board?
Now we can wrangle over these questions for a while, but I'm quite confident the answers are "The base has an internal HD" and "The base has computer parts inside." at which point I have to ask; how is this that different from what we have now?
I mean, sure my desktop is a little heavier to move than a "base" might be. But unless this base is going to be like the old 90's laptop bases (Huge flat thing with peripherals that plugs into a smaller top.) I can't really see myself moving it. If it has a full fledged keyboard, monitor, and mouse, I can't see myself moving it. If it doesn't, then it's a laptop. With all the problems laptops entail. (Which can only be fixed by "desktopifying" it.)
Of course, marketing conquers all. That is what everyones always going after right, true marketing? Or was that true love? I think it was the marketing...
Desktop PC's will always find a niche, but they're already a niche today. Laptops by far outsell desktops, and smartphones+tablets by far outsell laptops. Right now you have to be a geek to buy a desktop, because regular people don't buy those anymore. I don't know anyone "normal" who bought a desktop in the last two years. The idea to buy anything other than a laptop simply doesn't arise. This happened in 5 years. Why couldn't a smartphone-centric transition happen in 5 years as well?
That doesn't mean portable devices won't replace them. Laptops began to replace desktops a few years ago, the same way PCs replaced mainframes.