Sunday 14 July 2013

BEAM ME UP SCOTTY




BEAM ME UP SCOTTY


PC companies like Dell  need to do some serious morphing and think of the PC as more of a hybrid, because the PC of 2030 –and beyond – will be a computer, a personal assistant, microphone, and  an ear piece, which will talk to a “virtual computer  in the cloud”.

This is according to Christopher Riley,CEO of The Notebook Company, the Pretoria-based notebook and accessories retailer. “Ultimately, “he said, “is that users will have access their own virtual PC in the cloud.”

He said the user would access, and store, everything in the cloud – including diary schedules. “Right now the PC already equates to a PC, a laptop and a smartphone. The blurring of the lines will get more and more blurred- and increasingly rapidly,” he said.

If a user wants to access his diary to check his meeting schedule for the day he will verbally engage with his “PC” and ask:”Susan, what is my diary schedule for the day?”. Then Susan, or Sue, or whatever the user wants to use as a nickname,  the virtual PC in the cloud will reply.

“Susan,  Sue, or Siri, will be like an artificial intelligent assistant (AIA)- and this is looking more and more like the future PC.  This scenario,”said Riley, “is also not that far off”.

“Maybe we should call our AIA Scotty, like Scotty from that iconic science fiction movie from the 1970s, STAR TREK? And say: ‘beam me up Scotty’ ’’Riley quipped.