Do you think that there will be a day when desktops are obsolete?

Absolutely. Technology is fast advancing towards hand-held and wearable computing; take the iPods for instance. A single iPod is as powerful as the desktop computer I used to own back in 1995. It has as much space (8gb), more memory, and is much faster than that old computer. Additionally, my fiancee and I are both very much into such technologies. She's going to college to be an electrical engineer for the express purpose of building wearable computer hardware, and I'm learning programming languages to write the software for them. And that's not even scratching the surface of things that are being built now and things that we're close to having the technology to build. Now, we have computers that can read electrical signals from your brain just by wearing a special headband; controlling computers with your thoughts isn't that far from having the beginnings of a neural interface. It sounds like science fiction, but these breakthroughs are actually happening today.

I wouldn't doubt it. With the demand for mobile, smaller, and thinner computers the laptop/notebook industry has gotten a lot of sales. I thin it would be cool to have only laptops but at the moment they can put more memory and CPU power into a desktop (to my knowledge).

In this day and age technology in computers is getting smaller and smaller everyday. Yes in the near future desktops will soon be obsolete, most computers nowadays are with laptops, now cell phones, smaller devices that look like a broadband modem and now considered desktops the cases are so small they look like mini dvd players. It's going to come to a point where wireless will be taking over and most of the time there won't be any need for cabled wires. Speaking of artificial intelligence yes that will be in process in the near future -- Japan already has it.

That would be kind of weird, yet cool. I think that one day lots of things will change technologically speaking. It's only a matter of time, however I think that we still have a way to go. It would be really interesting if all we had to do was think of what to type and it will appear on the screen.

That is a very good question and it is hard to answer that because a lot of the older generation people still use desktops,and probably always will,I to use a desktop because it is easier in my opinion to use than a laptop,but I do agree that in the future that the computer will somehow be linked to the human brain,so you will be able to move the mouse,and whatever you think will be put on the screen,and I think that would be pretty cool,I also think that laptops will be made to be smaller,and maybe even run on solar power.

probably, but not in the nearest time. desktops will probably be smaller and lighter and easier to modify to whatever specs you want. i think more people are going towards diy comp. mix and match stuff. so future computers will probably go towards that trend. laptops are not up to that level yet. wait till we can get low power sucking, low heat releasing nano technologies available for cheap price for laptops before desktops disappears

Yes! i think there will be day... where there will be no desktops.. and only some notebooks, laptops, palmtops etc... Right know we can see most of the desktop pcs are with LCD & TFT screens instead of big CRT monitors.. So its not too far that we will see a world without desktop computers.. I also heard of laptops which cen be folded and carry in our pocket.. with the help of artifficial intelligence its possible..

I think that the future of computing is somewhere being done by some people. I would suggest that you look up Croquet which is what Alan Kay is doing. A lot of activities are already online and desktops are not as important as they used to be.

Well, it's definitely a very likely scenario. A little bit before I was born computers were so slow and just beginning, now they're probably the equilvalent of 300-500x what they used to be , if not higher! We're advancing so fast that it's a strong possibility that they could even become obsolete in our lifetime(I'm 19) & something much more advanced will take it's place. Even as we speak, almost every day it gets faster and faster . One of these days someones going to step across something that's just way past what we are today, and when that day comes I definitely want to check out that sucker, ;D

This topic had me in quite a lot of thought. The size of desktop computers has been the same more or less for 20 years. There have been smaller devices, but with much limited specifications and capabilities. So i think the near future will keep computers at the same size, at least those made for high performance. After some time, things will surely change. They might add computes to our brains or something.

I don't think so. While laptops are constantly improving in terms of efficiency, processing speed, weight, battery life, and the like, so are desktops. There are flat screen and touch screen monitors now. There are lighter, smaller, more compact and more powerful towers as well. In a way, desktops are no longer what they used to be before. So I think there's still a market for these in the next few years to come.

No, I don't think desk tops will be obsolete. There are still "main frame" computers running and far too many problems with laptops for that to happen. But, to get real... I think there will come a day when personal PC's and laptops might be gone. Our home land security may do that to us.

of course what it can be...but imagine more.... if marx teach us some, is what here is a lot for invented and create

It seems like just about everything that isn't as basic as a floor or a ceiling will become obsolete. I agree that if we are all on earth for a while we will get that sort of technology that you speak of. I am sure they have gotten that far, or are close to getting that far, and just don't want to give us the technology yet- since they do make a lot of money off of us with the smaller upgrades one at a time.

As computer components become increasingly small desktops will slowly decrease in size. Currently, there are a number of really small "desktop" systems, and have been for a number of years. The major drawbacks of these smaller units is the fact the user cannot buy upgrade or replacement parts off the shelf yet, they must be special ordered. Because they require special ordering they tend to be slightly more expensive than those items you can buy off the shelf. Currently, Dell calls these types of units "small form factor", or "very small form factor", and "ultra small form factor". Additionally, Macintosh systems don't come with a tower at all, everything is installed inside the monitor. This is very handy. Bottom line is that eventually our desktops will evolve into ever smaller units with larger monitors. Eventually we may have the monitor in the desktop itself, with an ability to raise or lower it, have monitors embedded in the walls, etc. The largest obstacle to change is the fact businesses, colleges, and government would need to change out all of their PCs and Macs in order for this to become the way of the future. Costs hold advancement back. Everyone at home could buy smaller units, or innovative units, but it is business, educational and governmental agencies which will truly eliminate the old ways of computing. Until these three leap on board we will continue to have systems exactly as they are today. However, once these large system buyers begin moving to smaller and more innovative units parts will begin to show up on the shelves of stores. In addition, Online stores will need to stop charging a 15% "restocking" fee to move Internet sales forward. The combination of ease of shopping inside of store you can walk into and pull products off the shelf continues to dominate our buying methods. Once the Online stores get it through their heads that they need to change some of their practices Internet sales will begin to go into the stratosphere and systems will quickly begin to migrate to these tiny, compact, all-in-one monitors. The reason we won't completely replace desktops with laptops is the fact laptops do not work well as servers. Servers need a bit more storage area and power in order to provide the items they do. Eventually we may have extremely small servers, but they won't be laptops. Servers do not need to be portable, and in fact portability would be a security risk. So, as long as these types of machines are needed laptops will not replace desktops. They will continue to grow ever smaller. Remember when mainframe severs filled entire rooms? What use to take a huge room full of computers can now be accomplished with a half dozen extremely small systems. This will continue to shrink and become more portable, but never laptops. By portable I mean easily picked up and removed from a building in case of a catastrophe.