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> In contrast, desktop computers for general-purpose needs are already adequate. This falls down on the word "general purpose". What is general purpose? And wh

by swombat 10y ago

> In contrast, desktop computers for general-purpose needs are already adequate. This falls down on the word "general purpose". What is general purpose? And what is general purpose today vs tomorrow? I put it to you that high definition VR and AR, which currently stretch the best consumer machines, are going to be part of "general purpose" as soon as people can put out affordable mass market hardware that supports it. General purpose expands to use the hardware it has available.

astrodust 10y ago
Not really. This is the fundamental principle of technology disruption. At some point one paradigm over-serves the market to such a degree that a new, less functional entrant comes in and starts to steal away market share. This happened most dramatically with hard disks, where 8" drives lost way to 5 1/4" even though they took a hit in storage capacity. Later 3 1/2" drives nibbled away at that even further, with the same penalties. Notebook-sized drives ate away at that, too, despite their limited capacity. Every time the driving factor was not performance or capacity, but convenience. Lugging a twenty pound hard drive around in your laptop wouldn't make any sense even if it could hold 400TB of data. Desktops yielded to notebooks, notebooks yielded to phones and tablets. General purpose migrates to the most convenient solution that's adequate for their needs.
- gaius 10y ago
  Except that the 3.5" disks were not only smaller but higher capacity and more robust than 5.25".
bobajeff 10y ago
I put it to you that VR and AR are not going to be general purpose, at least not in our lifetime. I even doubt there will even be a significant niche for either technology as they remain at best a novelty and at worst an expensive gimmick. What people want (and have always wanted) from VR* will be out of reach for some time. *You can't feel virtual objects or move freely in a virtual world (without being hendored by the physical world).

by swombat 10y ago

astrodust 10y ago

Not really. This is the fundamental principle of technology disruption. At some point one paradigm over-serves the market to such a degree that a new, less functional entrant comes in and starts to steal away market share. This happened most dramatically with hard disks, where 8" drives lost way to 5 1/4" even though they took a hit in storage capacity. Later 3 1/2" drives nibbled away at that even further, with the same penalties. Notebook-sized drives ate away at that, too, despite their limited capacity. Every time the driving factor was not performance or capacity, but convenience. Lugging a twenty pound hard drive around in your laptop wouldn't make any sense even if it could hold 400TB of data. Desktops yielded to notebooks, notebooks yielded to phones and tablets. General purpose migrates to the most convenient solution that's adequate for their needs.

gaius 10y ago
Except that the 3.5" disks were not only smaller but higher capacity and more robust than 5.25".

bobajeff 10y ago

I put it to you that VR and AR are not going to be general purpose, at least not in our lifetime. I even doubt there will even be a significant niche for either technology as they remain at best a novelty and at worst an expensive gimmick. What people want (and have always wanted) from VR* will be out of reach for some time. *You can't feel virtual objects or move freely in a virtual world (without being hendored by the physical world).