1.1.1 More Personal

PCs will continue to become more personal. The price of a PC has dropped from US$2000 in 1980s down to about US$400 in 2006. This trend will most likely continue. For general purpose computing, it is possible that a PC can become as inexpensive as US$100 in the near future.

What this means is that in a household, every member of a family can have a PC. The configuration (hardware and software) of each PC can be fully customized to its owner.

Another aspect of becoming ``more personal'' is the size of a PC. Notebook computers are, generally speaking, more expensive and have less capabilities than their desktop counterparts. While this difference will continue, technology will be able to pack more processing power into notebook computers.

Combined with a concept called ``thin client'', PCs in the future can be devices as small as a cell phone. The screen will be integrated to a lightweight headset gear, and the ``keyboard'' will be a device that monitors hand/finger motion. We'll talk about thin clients at the end of the semester.