Long gone are the days where people read newspapers to get up to date, write handwritten mails or use landline phones to talk to friends. The world has been changing rapidly in the past fifty or so years, people are ingesting more information than ever. From the initial clunky box that takes up a room, to now a size that is pocktable. Modern computers has come a long way since then, we now live in a world where personal computers and smart phones are universal in our daily lives. Thus, the question is what will be the next universal device?
Personal computers since the 1990s has experienced explosive growth. Into the new millennia, it has become a staple in almost every household, in the forms of a desktop computer or a laptop computer. But around the turn of the decade, it started facing a new rivial: the smartphone. Since 2010, the smartphone has also become a staple in every household, and has had a even wider reach than the personal computer. But what is the next device after the smartphone that will be on the history books?
Companies since then have experimented with devices that are smaller than the smartphone, yet has achieved the former’s success. The smart watch once was a promising device that may will be the phone killer [2]. Yet, since the introduction of smart watches, the device has been relegated to a secondary device, a device in most people’s eyes, a fitness tracker.
The other promising device during the mid 2010s, were smart glasses, which introduces Augmented Reality (AR) technology to the masses. Google has also been experimenting with the smart glasses since then, with the recent release in 2019. While the smart glasses has yet to take off, but is it only because it’s still ahead of its time? Just like when Microsoft introduced the touch screen device in 2003 [3]. If it is, then the smart glasses revolution may just be a few years a head of us [4].
Of course, and then there is Virtual Reality (VR). Which obviously brings us to the buzzword of the past year, the Metaverse. A light weight VR headset that can access the virtual world, where people can do everything without going outside of their homes, will truley be the universal device of the future. But a technology that is just in its infant phase will not be the next universal device in the near future.
In conclusion, the next universal device may very will be a smart watch or a smart glasses that will be a seamless device where people can wear. But the fascinating thing about technological advance is that it never stops surprising you.
Reference:
[1] https://streamhpc.com/blog/2011-05-06/the-history-of-the-pc-from-2000-2012/
[2] https://www.wired.com/insights/2014/08/will-smartwatches-kill-smartphones/
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Tablet_PC
[4] https://ceoworld.biz/2022/02/03/google-glass-to-smart-glasses-what-this-may-tell-us-about-future-technologies/
