That's kind of old news. On the other end of a spectrum I know quite a few people who are my age (nearing 30 (already?! eh...)) and who never had a PC or had one for some time and then didn't replace it when it broke. They were using, however, game consoles and then early smartphones and then tablets. They wouldn't use Kindle, though...
It's just that not everyone needs the full power and flexibility of a PC. I think in reality just a tiny fraction of users needs one, and as a number of users grows that percentage only lowers. The truth is that a PC always was and always will be much too hard for average user to operate (by design!) while not offering anything meaningful for said average user.
I suspect that tablets and other narrowly focused devices will only gain popularity with time, replacing PCs for most day to day tasks for most users. They are easy to use and they give people something of value without too much hassle. I welcome this trend with joy: it means less calls from family to help them set up/configure/uninstall/clean up things.
There is one thing, however, that I'd like to see included in this future of tablets and similar devices. It would be a tiny, protected with PIN, but mandatory on every single device icon which, when clicked/taped, would invoke a BASIC interpreter (or Lua, or anything similar). I'm worried that while it's getting easier for average user to use these devices, it's also getting harder and harder to hack them. And when there won't be a PC in a household anymore, how children are supposed to learn to love computing? Instead of just using devices...
It's just that not everyone needs the full power and flexibility of a PC. I think in reality just a tiny fraction of users needs one, and as a number of users grows that percentage only lowers. The truth is that a PC always was and always will be much too hard for average user to operate (by design!) while not offering anything meaningful for said average user.
I suspect that tablets and other narrowly focused devices will only gain popularity with time, replacing PCs for most day to day tasks for most users. They are easy to use and they give people something of value without too much hassle. I welcome this trend with joy: it means less calls from family to help them set up/configure/uninstall/clean up things.
There is one thing, however, that I'd like to see included in this future of tablets and similar devices. It would be a tiny, protected with PIN, but mandatory on every single device icon which, when clicked/taped, would invoke a BASIC interpreter (or Lua, or anything similar). I'm worried that while it's getting easier for average user to use these devices, it's also getting harder and harder to hack them. And when there won't be a PC in a household anymore, how children are supposed to learn to love computing? Instead of just using devices...