It occurs to me that the true limits on the future of computing will be the imagination of the people who will write the software.
I bought my first computer in 1981 as a word processor, but the real impact of personal computers has come from their use as communications devices, replacing vinyl records, hard line telephones and broadcast television. We’ve been waiting for 20 years for the next killer app, after word processing, spreadsheets, database programs and PIMs. I thought we’d have replaced keyboards by now with computers we could talk to, but some tricks seem to be still beyond our understanding.
I think Moore’s law will just give us faster versions of what we have now. What will really change things is a new paradigm of computing, such as quantum computing or learning how our brains work, but if the past 27 years are any indication, I won’t be holding my breath. We’ll have supercomputers on our laps, but will we know what to do with them besides IMing our friends?
