As the computer industry has grown, I’ve noticed two different approaches to PC designs. PCs are either being pimped as all-in-one solutions – PCs that can be used for word processing, gaming and multimedia OR PCs that have a specific purpose – a UMPC that is for on the road use and doesn’t replace a desktop and Home Theatre PCs that are never more than a metre from a TV.
The difference lies in the marketing spin as much as the design itself. The reality is that computing is permeating into more and more aspects of our daily lives. The hardware itself is also becoming more and more affordable. Sometimes I wonder how low can it go? How do we expect chip companies to actually stay afloat?! But that’s a topic for another blog.
These days it’s not uncommon for households (in the developed world) to have more than one PC – more than two actually. In the future we should expect to have desktops, laptops, home automation and entertainment units throughout a home as well as very portable devices, cousins of the UMPC. The notion of the all-in-one PC will be dead in the water, if it isn’t already. After all, manufacturers need you to buy more than one PC and more than one type of PC. And aside from that, as I’ve said, we’re using PCs in an ever increasing number of ways, mainly because of our reliance on the Internet.
In the PC World line-up, there’s a bracelet that acts as the base unit for a PC that you then view via a small portable screen. A wearable PC in the future seems perfectly logical to me. I also like the folder that’s actually a flat tablet-type PC with a twist. Then there’s the mug that doubles as a news reader. I’m not sold on the practicality of that one – you can hardly read the news with the mug at your lips. The interactive map book with blogging utility though, is a clear winner in my mind.
PC World calls their collection the 15 Offbeat Computer Designs – though I suspect that at some stage people will just view a lot of these things as Internet devices and not computers per se.