There are important changes that we are going to see in the way the computing is accessed by users. Plenty of applications and operations that people do daily with the PC is on the Web (WebMail, Chat, videoconferencing, photo, social networks, books, trips, buy stuff, check for events, join forums and blogs, access information on wikis, check for maps, bank account, etc. etc.
Most of these activities are performed by using a web browser and a mail client that is installed onto the PC that we normally use and that is often customized on ourself (bookmarks, fonts, themes, old mails, folders, etc.). This requires the use of our PC for most of the activities because we have data and configuration stored in there. If we have more than 1 PC, we replicate everything on all of them.
There are many information that can now be brought on the Web allowing people to access them from anywhere by using all PCs that you have. Think at the centralized bookmarks, IMAP Mail storage, web based calendar and contacts, online feeds, photo album, documents, pictures, etc. etc.. Are you thinking at Google, Firefox and Thunderbird? You're right. The combination of these three solutions with their plugins/add-ons allow you to make all of your needed info available on the web: bookmarks, mail for all of your accounts (who has only one e-mail account today???), your photos, documents, calendar information, contacts, feeds, etc. etc. etc. You can then use the functionalities on all of your PCs and you're fine.
What if you are somewhere without your precious PC!!! You don't need to bring your PC, you need to bring your applications with you. So, imagine if you have a USB Pen Drive that you paid about 20€ with ALL of your preferred applications and their settings: you can plug it in a PC and be ready to access the web and the info you need.
What if you need your precious application because you need to download something from a torrent or you want to modify your picture!!! You don't need to bring your PC, you need to bring your 'desktop' with you. So, imagine if your USB Pen Drive has the image of your 'desktop' installed on it: you plug it in a PC and start your machine.
In both situations you do not have to install anything on the pc that you're using, so you do not have to bother anybody but just borrow minutes of their hardware.
All these things can be done today, but not everybody does them. We can configure all our desktops with our settings to be able to access our data on the web, therefore we can move our data on the web rather then leave them on the pc at home. More, we can configure lowcost devices (USB pen drives, external drives, CD-ROMs, DVD-ROMs, or whatever) with our standalone applications to be plugged everywhere and used to set our environment.
What if you are somewhere and you need your powerful PC to be able to run some heavy applications, or because you need to launch some applications to be accessed lately from somewhere else... Here it is! We can bring our desktop on line as well, and access it through the Web with incredible performances. You access the web and choose to either launch your desktop (Windows, Linux, Solaris) or your particular application from any device. You do what you need and just close the browser: your system will continue to work, and you've done this far hundreds of kilometers from your workstation.
Think at these capabilities with a powerful device that you can bring in your pocket, you plug it into an ethernet port or you access a wifi/umts network, and you're set!!!
I do not mention the overall cost savings that these could bring within the enterprises (there should be a dedicated post with all items), but believe me, it's huge!
There are activities going on to achieve the needed results... stay tuned!!!
Even if it's more than 1 month now, I just wanted to thank all of the people that joined my session at the Rome Camp 2008 event, where more than 350 people came to this 'barcamp' event to attend up to 50 sessions with three main objects: Environment, Technology and Society/Sociology.
