Overview
Personal computing might seem to be nearing a sort of maturity. The beige box you buy today is faster, and has more data storage capacity, than the PCs of fifteen years ago, but most people are still running the same basic applications that we ran on those early machines: spreadsheets, word processors, databases, and of course the latest games.The real growth in PC power, however, is not in the box on the desktop, or even in the notebook-sized device that we carry with ease. The real explosion of power is in the devices that plug into our PCs, turning them into intelligent hubs for refining and storing richer forms of data.
New digital cameras, for example, combine raw image sensing with editing and artistic options that used to require a high-end graphics workstation. Instead of making you wait while the camera stores the image, the newest cameras have generous memory buffers that let you capture an action sequence.
You can take the next step to full-scale digital video: you can either capture bits to begin with, using new digital tape formats, or you can digitize your old home VHS tapes with a simple MPEG compressor. One 100 MB Zip disk can hold seven minutes of broadcast-quality video, or you can go to larger-capacity storage devices and store hours of memories in durable form.
Digital voice recorders now capture the level of detail that's needed for reliable speech recognition, while page scanners come with ever more accurate optical character recognition software: either option reduces the need for typing. Wireless connections, and intelligent protocols like Sun's new Jini, will let us interconnect these smart devices without cumbersome plugs and sockets or complex configuration.
Whether the goal is to inform, or to entertain, future PCs will make it easier.