BETA
This is a BETA experience. You may opt-out by clicking here

More From Forbes

Edit Story

Windows 8 Proves That The Death Of The PC Is Greatly Exaggerated

Following
This article is more than 10 years old.

Every now and then we hear rumors of the death of the PC. The rise of the tablet, and especially the iPad, makes these rumors far more common. Take this article in the New York Times, titled "As New iPad Debut Nears, Some See Decline Of PC."

To be fair, it's a reasonably balanced article, noting in the end that it's much more likely that tablets and PCs will simply become more indistinguishable. This is certainly true, especially with Microsoft's touch-centered Windows 8 operating system.

Windows 8 is designed to be used across many devices. Far from abandoning the PC, Microsoft is trying to anticipate its future.

It's odd to me that so many people seem eager for the death of traditional PC computing.

A tablet has its place and is good for all sorts of things, but I fail to see how it can adequately replace a mouse and keyboard in terms of productivity for all sorts of sectors - including, for instance, blogging. Or gaming. Or film and music editing. I can see how tablets might enhance all these things - but not how they could replace them.

More likely, we'll see a tighter integration of mobile devices and station-based computers. We'll see more touchscreens across all device categories, and there will be more ways to network and switch between all your  fancy gadgets.

Science fiction is helpful here.

Below is a screenshot from James Cameron's blockbuster, Avatar. One of the neatest things about the film, I thought, were the screens. Too many science fiction films and TV series have lacked vision when it comes to the future of mundane things like computer displays. They have flashy spaceships equipped with screens that look old a year or two after they're made.

Avatar was far from my favorite film, but it's screens were neat. They had similarly translucent tablets, and you could swipe data or programs off a screen directly onto a tablet and walk off with it. I have no idea what the future of the computer will be, but it seems much more likely that we'll see tablets and PCs designed to work together rather than a push to replace PCs with tablets altogether.

Remember the gloved Tom Cruise in Minority Report? That was a neat use of motion-based screen technology, but with the Kinect those gloves seem almost old-fashioned.

(More: The Future Of Screen Technology)

Of course, that film focused on the potential overreach of a state that could predict crimes - but it was the screen technology and motion-censor tech that caught my attention. These almost mundane things are usually the way tech evolves: touch and motion technology rather than jetpacks or moon bases.

In any case, the future PC may look and feel very different than the ones we have now, but the concept of the machine isn't going away. Mobile, on-the-go technology serves one purpose; stationary tech serves another. Using the two together, and expanding the concept of computing into more and more areas of our lives, is what I see when I peer into my crystal ball.

With foldable screens just over the horizon, things are changing at an incredibly fast pace. Start piecing it all together - folding screens, better touch, advances in motion with the Kinect, new operating systems that take into account multiple devices, such as Windows 8 - and you can piece together a snapshot of the future computing environment.

Follow me on Twitter or Facebook. Read my Forbes blog here.