Mobile data is the worst, by far, but if we're talking about pushing the performance envelope then we're talking about PCs. Mobile is constrained by power consu

Mobile data is the worst, by far, but if we're talking about pushing the performance envelope then we're talking about PCs. Mobile is constrained by power consumption as well as network bandwidth, so you're not going to see blazing fast continuations of Moore's law there. I really think Google Fiber nationwide would lead to killer apps that would revitalize the PC and the high-end chip market. I'm thinking of rich constant collaboration, virtual reality, next generations of MMORPGs where you can really richly interact with the world's physics (e.g. shaping materials, in-world chemistry, etc.), tele-presence, digital telepathy with brain-computer interfaces, distributed supercomputing, ... lots of stuff. All those things are things that are CPU-hungry. Many are embarrassingly parallel, so they can utilize many-core chips efficiently. If Intel, AMD, Dell, Apple's PC/laptop division, IBM, etc. knew what was good for them they'd get together and invest in gigabit+ broadband nationwide. It's also got to be network-neutral, since all the things I mentioned above are at least somewhat P2P. The PC industry is spiraling down because of a lack of killer apps for high-end boxes. Most of these are waiting on fast networks.