[clug] The end of the personal computer age is nigh !

[George at Clug]

    Hi,

Call me slow if you want, but I am trying to come to terms with the
understanding that we are seeing "the end of the personal computer
age", and a new age of "Internet computing" is emerging.

I enjoyed the Personal Computer age, with Personal Computers I was
able to edit my photos and videos, write my files, my own programs,
etc, and only share that which I wanted to share, and even then only
with those who I wanted to share with.

I do not want to share my personal identity with large corporations
who will then on sell my personal identity with many other commercial
companies.  Nor do I want that which is personal to me, the photos of
my holidays, my family, my interests, my hobbies to be shared with
everyone in the Internet, e.g. with my friends, and the friends of my
friends, and the friends of the friends of my friends, etc.  I do not
want my tax papers, my plans for my new home, by purchasing habits to
be general information to anyone or any company that now has access to
them via the Internet.

I want a Computing device that is Personal. I don't mind connecting to
the Internet to get email, upload something when I want share it, or
download information that I want to learn. But I want most of my life
(90% ?) to be private.

I do not expect that Apple will provide me with a "personal computer"
for long, they are already into iCloud, and iPads.

Google Chrome books are already, all about online storage and
computing.

If you have not realised, Microsoft is moving from local data and apps
to internet based data and apps, at least that is how I see it.

I had hoped that Linux might provide me a Personal Computer OS, but I
have concerns and doubts.  Ubuntu are trying to introduce a "Cloud
Store", and when I installed CentOS 7 server it had a Tablet touch
screen swipe screen before the logon screen.  From what I can see,
the "Cloud" and "Internet" infection has invaded Linux users and
developers as well.  

The end is definitely neigh.

Anyone want to make comment, or catch up with me and have a good chat
about where personal computing is heading?  Is everyone happy with
the idea of moving all your photos, files, likes, behaviours, ideas,
etc, into the cloud where it is no longer going to be personal?

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/426222/the-personal-computer-is-dead/

When the iPhone came out in 2007, its design was far more restrictive.
No outside code at all was allowed on the phone; all the software on
it was Apple’s. What made this unremarkable—and
unobjectionable—was that it was a phone, not a computer, and most
competing phones were equally locked down. We counted on computers to
be open platforms—hard to think of them any other way—and
understood phones as appliances, more akin to radios, TVs, and coffee
machines.

http://readwrite.com/2011/09/12/tablets_smartphones_killing_pcs_2015

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predictions_made_by_Ray_Kurzweil