The Singularity fascinates me. Soon the newest Ivy Bridge processors will be the size of a grain of sand and fit in our ultra-small cellphones, enabling the entire power of your desktop in a totally mobile device.
Obviously we're going to get to the point this decade where the entire power of your computer goes with you everywhere. Even scuba diving. Most people will no longer own desktops anymore, they'll just plug their phone into a monitor at their desk(s).
The conflict here is that for handheld gadgets to get any more useful than they are in the current smartphone configuration, they're going to need to perfect the expanding screen. I know a couple of companies are working on this and I've heard of three approaches.
All three would start with a typical smartphone shape, perhaps a little smaller. Then they would either:
A. FOLD open, doubling their screen size. This has the ugly tradeoff of a black line down the fold but they're making it very thin. I see this as a temp fix, because screens don't get big enough this way to be a full workstation.
B. SCROLL out some flexible OLED screen. Sony is working on this but if the height of the screen is only 5.5 inches tall, then it doesn't matter how wide the screen goes, it's never going to be shaped like a desktop either. -Of course it might turn a cell phone into a great tablet. Look for these next Christmas.
C. PROJECTING the monitor. They can project a high-quality display on a nearby wall right now, but the power supply in the smartphone isn't big enough to keep it going for long. There is also a way to project the KEYBOARD on the desk in front of you too, so you can type full-speed with nothing but your cellphone in front of you. This obviously would suck more juice too, so in order for C to happen they'll need to drastically up the efficiency of Li-on batteries.
Luckily MIT has found that if you inject LI-ON with bubbles it does just that. Battery prices should start dropping by next Christmas too.
After that? I'm guessing the next form factor will be in glasses. You'll see the keyboard and the monitor in the air, but they only exist on the screen of your lenses. The whole PC will eventually micronize down to simply fit inside the glasses' frame, but the power supply will once again be the holdup. (Not to mention it'll get warm!) But we've solved bigger problems than these before, so I'm going to expect my full-PC pair of glasses with 3D display by 2030.
