"The Screen is what I believe the future end-state for
personal computing will eventually become, likely within the next
10 years, or possibly even less, due to the commoditization of
hypervisor virtualization technology combined with a renaissance of
the centralized computing paradigm (the mainframe never died folks,
he was just sleeping and waiting for this moment to arrive) and a
maturation in virtual infrastructure management platforms. These
otherwise enterprise-targeted technologies will will trickle down
to the end-user via the standardization of rich desktop delivery
thin-client protocols (such as Novell's Compiz-enabled NOMAD for
Linux RDP or Red Hat's SPICE), low-power device chipsets, broadband
and high-speed wireless deployments, and adoption of High
Definition/Digital TV.
"Okay, forget the buzzword bingo for a minute. What is The
Screen? I don't think it has been well defined what the interface
or the experience really is going to look like, but I have a very
good idea. Certainly, I'm not expecting anything along the lines of
Minority Report or even something like Microsoft's "Surface",
although it's certainly possible that some day, people might use
UIs like that for certain niche applications. Initially, early
versions of The Screen will almost certainly look very much like
the platforms you use now -- Windows, Mac, and definitely
Linux.
"The only difference is you won't own the computing hardware it
runs on -- all you'll really need is a screen (an HDTV with HDMI
inputs) mouse, keyboard and broadband, and you'll be buying your
computing services like a utility, just like you pay your electric
or Cable TV bill today. And like your Cable TV bill, you'll
subscribe to computing "Channels", complete with applications and
hosted data, with balls to the wall clouded backup services to
match."
