Computing in the long future

"Ultimately, there are only two natural kinds of computers: embedded systems and mainframes." 1

What types of computer are there?

  • Mainframes
  • Minicomputers
  • Microcomputers
  • Personal computers (desktops, laptops)
  • Mobile computers (phones, tablets)
  • Embedded

Things requiring large amounts of computing power or large amounts of storage tend towards mainframes. Personal computing tends towards mobile devices that are terminals to mainframes.

Now that the cloud provides most services regular people need (communication, personal data storage) they no longer reuire personal computers. If game streaming goes mainstream then users will no longer need to maintain powerful personal computers - they will be able to rent more powerful rendering engines and own a mere window to that power.

There are other power users: video editors, sound engineers, 3d graphics artists, data scientists. I believe that all these users would be willing to rent computing power instead of run it locally, provided the experience was better. Not having to run your own hardware and keep it up to date is a better experience.

Embedded

There will be always be a niche for devices that need to fit into a small physical space. There will be little pressure for them to become more powerful as they will offload most of their processing to the cloud. They need just enough computing power to run some data collection logic, a network stack and encryption. They need just enough storage to make up for intermittent connectivity (which will become less intermittent).

Mobile

While there might be similarities between embedded and mobile computing, the latter is much more about a UI. High definition video, VR/AR, voice recognition and motion based interaction. If VR/AR takes off on mobile devices then there will be a pressure for high performance computing on the device.