There was a thing running around the net a while ago where bloggers would outline their ideal computer, so here’s my attempt. It’s a phone/handheld which I can dock to gain features such as more processing power, better graphics, a larger screen, keyboard mouse etc. Key features would include
- handheld form factor should be similar to those of the high-end smartphones with similar functionality i.e. phone, gps, touchscreen,3G, Wi-Fi etc
- significant handheld storage capacity* (100 Gb plus), which should be capable of booting a dock system and acting as storage for it
- the docking workstation should be dumb i.e. only provide processing and graphics power but no storage to reduce security risk from docking
- same software and OS to be available on both desktop and handheld. With full featured versions for use while docked and less functional versions available while handheld
- dual file formats with both full and portable versions, so that I can manipulate the data on a mobile without the overhead of unnecessary formatting, full size images etc
- the handheld should allow for the connection of external devices such as flip-down keyboard, card reader, printer etc
- high-level encryption with biometric access control so that it remains secure when I inevitably lose it
- live sync to the cloud
* I know the future is supposed to be cloud based but until we have truly omnipresent wireless data network, I want my data and processing to be available locally.
At a conceptual level none of this too fanciful.
- storage is cheap and xml file formats mean that dual format files are relatively simple to achieve and practical to store
- high speed docking options such as USB3 mean storage performance when docked shouldn’t be an issue
- the iPhone, Android and even Windows Mobile have all proven that portable devices can offer functional software which with a few tweaks should readily scale to desktop resolutions
- hardware such as the ARM processor are powerful enough to handle portable needs. Versions tuned for performance rather than battery life or multi-processor systems could handle desktop duties. Thereby simplifying the task of developing software and OS for a single architecture.
A secure mobile device capable of holding most of my data which I can dock to a generic workstation with no security concerns would meet most of my computing and communication needs with one device carried in my pocket.