Tech Reaction

As technology forks the future picture evolves, and I thing significant changes hit about every six months. I want to offer a new lexicon for computing terms with which you are already familiar. Not what each of these things are, but why they are important. These are biased by my world view, and you can read more about that here on TechReaction or at my hideout.

Digital Convergence | Yes. Two axes. Mobile Personal Assitant & Home Group Assistant | The mobile personal assistant is currently split into a range of devices from laptop to cell phone to media player, near term collapsing to Xphone plus mid for consumers and Xphone plus Ultrathin for mobile professionals | The home will fall to platform companies = companies with the good sense to build hardware with a regularly updated software stack to keep them relevant. Companies failing to create platforms are creating bricks and consumer are catching on.

USB 3.0 | DOA ?| Xntel and others have other plans?

Light Peak | Yes. Thin, lightweight, USB 2.0 compatible. Tethers Xphones & mids. The wire for the digital home has been revealed and you better pay attention. The ability to deliver upstream video and downstream content changes the potential of the Xphone, the mid, the laptop, and the PC. It speeds digital convergence as defined above.

Eyefinity | Yes. Multiple displays in one room today. Multiple displays in many rooms one day. Much work to be done but so much benefit upon introduction that’s its truly a marvel.

Ethernet | Yes. In the home makes for a mess as consumers try to plug everything into the network and expect it to actually solve problems in a consistent and reliable fashion. Some wild cards here. #1 Wild Card – Cloud-based rending & decentralized mini-platforms. Wired home networks may be short lived. Central PC talks to router. Router has wireless for all other devices. If only Europe didn’t have stone walls.

Cloud Computing | Yes. OnLive & cloud-based rendering brings the cloud into the living room. How does a console maker prevent their box from becoming an OnLive portal. Funny!

PC Gaming | Yes. OnLive plus stubborn free-thinking enthusiasts plus web-based gaming continue.

Consols | Yes. Next gen evolutionary. Delivery of web content to big screens is the #1 capability change in gen 2. And faster. And cheaper. Normal cycle. Video telephony, gesture gaming, the death of brick & mortar media outlets, PC replacment, world domination. Their mouths are open wide but its a lot to swallow.

Crowd Computing | Yes. More people collaborating online. More people collaborating @ home. Large screens connected to app-bearing platforms make it innevitable. More here http://links.amd.com/eyecndy

Remote | It’s a problem and has been for a long, long time. No solution. Many remotes.

DisplayPort | Yes. 1.2 will be a big deal. HDMI will evolve to support I/O and downstream connectivity or become a legacy connector like VGA was to PC’s. The future of interconnect is convergence. I/O, HD, Audio all in one cable over long distances. That’s the market requirement. If your interconnect does that its got a shot, otherwise, gone. Unlike LightPeak it’s got an install base and the cable can be cheap.

Multi-Session | Yes. The big guys have a lot of work to do. But no other application needs what Moore’s law will bring. And BigSoft needs a big vision with a big challenge.

Multi-Room | Yes. See above.

Netbook | Current generation sucks. UltraThin delivers on the user experience promise in ways a netbook to too stupid to fathom. Now, next generation with Android >2 plus dual core plus more capable media processor? Jury’s out.

Mobile Person Assistant |Yes, See Digital Convergence above.

Central Group Assistant | http://links.amd.com/eyecndy and particularly the prior entry in the series.