Where's the Desktop?

 The desktop as a paradigm has dictated our view of computing devices for the past two decades, but the industry is in the midst of a massive transition, in terms of the types of devices available to consumers, in the way those devices are used, and in terms of those devices' capabilities. As computing power becomes cheaper and embedded systems become more versatile, and particularly as wireless communications becomes both ubiquitous and fast enough to rival broadband technologies, new ways of thinking about what these devices are and what they mean to us are needed.

In fact, much of what we see today is artificial in nature, and the sea changes are only beginning. We are standing at an inflection point in the industry's progress: technologies like 4G networking, increasing use of location and social graph data open up possibilities that will completely change our thinking about "computers" and "communications devices".