2003 and beyond What's next? Smaller hardware, wireless everywhere, and
Feb 05, 2003 (PCWorld via COMTEX) -- For the past 20 years, PC World has kept
readers up-to-date on key innovations in personal computing--at work, at home,
and on the road. So what better way to start off our third decade than by
previewing the technologies and trends we'll be covering next?
We asked dozens of product researchers, developers, and analysts to share their
predictions about the next couple of years. And even though our crystal ball
hasn't always been right on the money in issues past (see "Flashback"), this
time a few common themes emerged.
The Big Trends
Consumer electronics devices such as TVs and stereos should start to communicate
wirelessly and automatically--no configuration will be required with computers
and peripherals. Indeed, one of the major developments of the next year or two
may be seamless, fast, and invisible connectivity everywhere.
You'll also see technology offered in much smaller packages. PCs will shrink;
many more of them will be laptops.
Processing and graphics performance of personal digital assistants and cell
phones will rival those of desktop PCs from only a few years ago. Handhelds will
become prescient, as well--able to determine where you are and to anticipate
what information you'll want, such as the prices of plasma TVs when you walk
past an electronics store (think Minority Report). The Internet will be
everywhere: Even your wristwatch will be connected. But the connections will
happen behind the scenes and automatically.
Although many of these developments won't be widespread at the end of 2004,
products will be available for early adopters. And they will grow commonplace
toward the end of the decade, changing the way you interact with technology in
your office, on the road, and back at home.
In the Office
After years of being confined to executive suites, LCDs are coming to the cube
farm. "Price, price, price. That's the main thing in the industry these days,"
says William Wang, president of monitor maker Princeton Graphics. By 2004, Wang
expects, prices on 15-inch LCDs will drop below $200, and prices on 17-inch
models will fall below $300. By then, LCDs will be outselling CRTs, predicts
Christian Brantley of rival vendor Eizo Nanao Technologies.
Today's CRTs still offer a fuller, more accurate color palette than LCDs for
high-end graphics work. But even that may change by year's end as the first few
high-end LCDs acquire hardware calibration and backlight technologies that could
enable them to match or surpass the color reproduction of CRTs.
Diminutive Desktops
Like bulky monitors, big and boxy systems are due to fall out of fashion,
especially at the office. More and more companies will ditch desktops in favor
of notebooks. And since most businesses never upgrade or expand their desktop
PCs, IT departments that go the desktop route will opt for space-saving models
over large boxes full of empty PCI slots and drive bays. Should expansion become
necessary, soon-to-be-ubiquitous USB 2.0 ports will let users add components
without cracking the case. "You will see 'smalls' from everybody," says IDC
analyst Roger Kay, "and they're getting to be a higher proportion [of overall
sales]." Most office and home computers will probably continue to run a Windows
operating system--either Windows XP or a later version (see "Windows XP's
Successor").
Safest prediction of the year: Processors will continue to get faster. Intel may
rev up the Pentium 4 as high as 4 GHz by year's end. Meanwhile, rival AMD's new
PC processor, code-named ClawHammer, should narrow the gigahertz gap when it
premieres later this spring. ClawHammer will mark the transition from 32-bit to
64-bit desktop CPUs. If that processor catches on, according to Dean McCarron,
principal analyst for Mercury Research, Intel may bring out its own 64-bit
desktop chip which, rumor has it, is currently being developed under the code
name Yamhill. Apple may jump aboard the 64-bit wagon, too: Many industry
watchers expect the company to adopt IBM's new 64-bit PowerPC 970 processor,
which is scheduled to debut in the second half of this year.
New drive technologies such as Serial ATA, with its thin, 0.25-inch-wide cables
(see "Hands-On With Next-Generation Drive"), will help computers slim down
further. IDC hard-drive analyst Dave Reinsel expects that adoption of Serial ATA
will accelerate in 2003; by the end of 2004, it should be the dominant
technology. By then, it may also start appearing on optical drives. Many more
desktop PCs will jettison 3.5-inch hard drives in favor of 2.5-inch
notebook-style models; their performance will improve as the drives move from
today's typical 4200-rpm rotational speed to 5400 rpm and even 7200 rpm.
By 2004, 3.5-inch hard drives that have rotational speeds of 10,000 rpm and
capacities up to 500GB may emerge. These faster drives will be able to take
advantage of the greater data throughput that Serial ATA provides, enabling them
to challenge pricey SCSI hard drives in high-end workstations and low-end
servers. On the optical storage front, blue-laser DVDs--with capacities of up to
30GB per disc--won't quite be ready by the end of 2004; 9.4GB, dual-layer DVD+RW
discs and drives, on the other hand, should be.
On the Go
Of course, smaller desktop systems will never match the portability of
notebooks. And while notebooks are less powerful, they do have multigigahertz
processors, 3D graphics boards, and high-resolution screens, all of which
provide enough performance and features to replace most desktops. "When people
are reaching the end of their desktop['s useful life], they are considering
notebooks," says IDC's Kay. Stephen Baker, director of IT research at NPD
Techworld, expects notebook retail sales to outpace desktop retail sales by 2004
or 2005.
Even gigahertz-crazy Intel recognizes that customers have a growing preference
for portability over raw power. Though its desktop Pentium 4 processors may hit
4 GHz by the end of 2003, by March of this year the company plans to introduce a
new mobile processor and motherboard architecture called Centrino Mobile
Technology that emphasizes power conservation over clock speed. Even so,
Centrino systems won't be pokey: Intel has not specified CPU speeds, but
spokesperson Shannon Johnson says the new chip "will deliver better performance
than what exists today."
These and other developments will help increase the battery life of notebook
PCs. Howard Locker of IBM says that his company hopes, within the next 20
months, to produce Centrino-based systems capable of 8 hours of battery
life--versus the 4 to 5 hours that IBM's current notebooks provide. Also this
year, Transmeta will launch a new low-power processor, code-named Astro, that
promises to complete twice as many operations per clock cycle as the company's
current, relatively sluggish Crusoe processor.
Wireless, Wireless Everywhere
Another key element of Centrino is integrated 802.11-based wireless (or Wi-Fi)
technology. Analysts expect it to be in virtually all portables by 2004. Aside
from its continued growth in office and home settings, Wi-Fi is becoming an
important component of wireless access for all the locations in between, filling
the void caused by the delayed roll-out of third-generation (3G) cellular
phone-based networks capable of offering speeds of up to 2 mbps. Several
companies are piecing together overlapping Wi-Fi "hot spots" in order to achieve
blanket coverage in major cities. "Our goal for the fall of 2005 is to be in the
top 50 metropolitan areas," says Steve Harris of Cometa Networks, an enterprise
put together by Apax Capital, AT&T, IBM, and Intel.
John Ankcorn, principal research scientist at HP Labs, predicts that future
handhelds and notebook PCs will connect seamlessly to whatever wireless service
is available, hopping from one Wi-Fi network to the next and even jumping
between Wi-Fi, cellular, and Bluetooth wireless networks. To support devices
that are connected constantly or frequently, Ankcorn anticipates, location-based
information services will emerge.
"Imagine walking down the street and getting a consumer rating of a restaurant
or a record store before you set foot inside," says Hank Nothhaft, CEO of
Danger, the company that designed and provides Internet services for the
T-Mobile Sidekick handheld. Nothhaft expects that wireless service fees will
drop steadily to about $15 per month (from around $40 per month today) for 10MB
of data.
It won't be necessary to have a PDA and high-speed data services in order to
pick up information, however. By the end of this year, Microsoft plans to
activate its DirectBand network, which uses ordinary FM radio frequencies to
beam customized information to a multitude of everyday devices--watches, pens,
wallets, key chains, and the like. The network and transmission protocols,
combined with tiny receivers built by National Semiconductor, make up a new
platform called Smart Personal Object Technology (SPOT). Watchmakers Citizen,
Fossil, and Suunto have already announced plans to market SPOT-enabled models
capable of displaying location-specific weather forecasts, for example, or
traffic conditions on the road ahead.
Microsoft is betting that increased mobility will heighten demand for its .Net
initiative, one of several forays into Web services that provide centralized
information accessible anywhere from any device. The company envisions such
scenarios as an injured person using a wireless-enabled PDA to authorize the
transfer of medical records to a hospital. Of course, given Microsoft's
inability to build a secure Web browser, the prospect of entrusting your
personal information to the company may not be entirely appealing.
Even without Web services, you can access all of your computer's data if you
carry it with you. Last year, OQO previewed its eponymous handheld PC, a Windows
box that isn't much larger than an IPod; another company, Vulcan, is developing
its similar Mini-PC.
But while some computers will start to look like handhelds, many handhelds will
acquire PC functionality. Later this year, Intel will introduce a mobile phone
chip, code-named Manitoba, that integrates the company's XScale PDA processor
with flash memory and even some analog circuitry. Intel spokesperson Manny Vara
expects that Manitoba-based "gamer's cell phones" will appear next year.
Integrated chips will permit phones to become smaller and more power
efficient--critical improvements in the hardware, since battery technology isn't
expected to make great strides in the near future.
Intel's XScale chip, together with a new Microsoft platform called Media2Go,
will appear in handheld personal video players (from Samsung, Sonicblue,
ViewSonic, and possibly other companies) that should debut by the end of this
year. "Think of it as snackable video for a bus ride, or 2 or 3 hours on a
plane, or for a road trip with the kids," explains Intel spokesperson Bryan
Peebler. Non-Intel chips will power similar video players produced by companies
such as RCA.
At Home
Some of the most exciting technology changes, however, will be in the home,
where new hard drive-based products and PCs will distribute digital
entertainment wirelessly to TVs and stereos anywhere in the dwelling.
Discrete recorders such as ReplayTV and its rival TiVo should continue to sell
well in the next few years, but they will face new challenges from media-savvy
PCs equipped with TV tuner cards and Microsoft's Windows XP Media Center Edition
or Sony's GigaPocket software. These systems enable you to perform such tasks as
changing channels, recording programs, playing music, and clicking through
digital photos via a TV-style remote control.
Home Broadcasting
Most people don't want to watch television and listen to music on a PC--or lug
their PC into the living room. But high-speed home networks can obviate these
issues, combining the storage and processing power of a PC with the convenience
and simplicity of consumer electronics.
This was evident at the Consumer Electronics Show in early January, where CD3O,
HP, Linksys, Motorola, Pioneer, Prismiq, Rockford Fosgate, Sony, Yamaha, and
other companies launched products that bring digital music or images to a stereo
or TV.
In the living room, technology companies increasingly will deal with customers
who have no wish to spend hours configuring a home network. Fortunately,
Universal Plug and Play technology, introduced in the first generation of media
receivers, allows all devices on a wired (ethernet) or wireless network to
detect each other and set up relationships automatically.
Eventually, UPnP should appear in a wide range of devices, including printers,
scanners, digital cameras, televisions, and stereos.
Prior to that--and well before the end of 2004--Intel expects to deliver a
wireless media adapter design to manufacturers for use in products that
cost-conscious consumers can use to connect existing PC and CE devices through
standard jacks and inputs. Linksys recently became the first company to announce
a product based on the Intel design.
The first waves of wireless products, already starting to appear, use the
11-megabit-per-second 802.11b standard, which lacks the bandwidth to transmit
video (though music and photos are not a problem). But when the
second-generation products show up next year with faster 802.11a or 802.11g
wireless standards (the latter backward-compatible with 802.11b), streaming
video could become a killer app. Apple's new notebook computers, which were
introduced in January, already have built-in 802.11g capability.
The Big Picture
Using UPnP over either an 802.11 or a Bluetooth connection, you'll be able to
send pictures from a digital camera to a printer, burn them to CDs and DVDs, and
display them on a TV--without ever touching the PC. Of course, this will also
sidestep computer software for tweaking the appearance of photos; some of these
functions, however, will move into digital cameras with onboard software for
tasks such as color correction and detail highlighting.
Dramatic price drops will encourage the digital camera boom. Greg Young,
director of imaging for Sony, expects 5-megapixel models to sell for under $500
by the end of this year and perhaps for even less in 2004. By that time, most
high-end digital cameras will be around 8 megapixels.
But digital photographers will probably continue to refine and organize their
shots on a PC. And that takes us to a final (daring?) prediction: PCs will
remain at the center of your digital universe for many years to come. Not only
do they offer the most power, but they have the flexibility to incorporate new
technologies as they emerge. Two decades from now, when we predict even more
dramatic innovation, we expect still to be writing about PCs.
Copyright (C) 2000 PC World Communications. All Rights Reserved.
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