A New Look

One thing everyone seems to agree on:

         The PC of 2019 won't look like today's laptops. "I'm not seeing people carrying anything that looks like a book," says Dan Siewiorek, a professor of computer science and electrical and computer engineering at Carnegie Mellon University and director of the university's Human-Computer Interaction Institute. " It would be like a phone or a ring or watch. It will probably take multiple form factors."

         Siewiorek says function will increasingly influence what PCs look like. An older person who needs help with independent living, for example, might carry a PC in the form of a wristwatch and use it as a virtual coach that reminds him about appointments or medicine schedules.

         A technical worker might have her PC in her eyeglasses, allowing her to access and view information through embedded monitors and share what she's seeing with colleagues and supervisors via camera in the glasses. Siewiorek says he can even imagine how PC technology could revolutionize the way, say, offshore crane operators or airplane mechanics do their jobs.