Mad predictions, my head in the clouds again.

So what is the future of computing going to look like in 5-10 years? Usually it's only a mad man or a fool who would predict the tech world. Ok, so I'm mad. ;)

I am going to stick my neck out and say that cloud computing is the future. Cloud computing enabling technology trends are converging. I see more and more lower powered computing products that have great connectivity appearing such as netbooks, and touch based tablets. Future cloud products will be greener, they will have a great battery life because they are so low powered, and will become incredibly portable.

All the heavy lifting is being done by powerful servers 'in the cloud'. Just a few weeks ago I would have said that cloud computing would be a niche because it would be impossible to play demanding 3D games or edit video purely using cloud based server technologies. I was completely wrong.

Look at the advantages:-

• Your computer will weigh almost nothing.
• It will last 20 hours on a single charge.
• You will be able to play Crysis 5 on every device you own.
• The difference between a desktop and laptop computer will just be the size of the display.
• Computer's will get much cheaper than the cheapest netbooks are today, since there is no need for a beefy processor or much if any storage.
  
• You will have 128 cores at your disposal in the cloud. In fact the number of cores your computer has will dynamically change depending on what processing needs you have.
• It is green computing in the extreme.
• Who could afford a top of the range gaming rig with 4 SLI extreme graphics cards to play their games with? Everyone can have one if it is part of your subscription to the cloud gaming service.
  
• Once you have edited your video, it can be instantly posted on every site you want since it is already compressed, and already uploaded.
• Want an extremely powerful computer games system to play on your 3D TV in the lounge? That will cost the price of two games. It might even be free with the subscription service to play games via any device in the house.
  
• Full data redundancy, no need to ever back up. You already have all your data spread amongst the cloud so that it would be impossible to loose anything.
  
• No need to ever upload anything, as every bit of content you generate is already out there. Instant links are simply created to the same data using smart tagged meta data.

The key to this working is the open cloud consortium and open id, if all data is inter-operable with every service then it does not matter if a service is unavailable for a few hours downtime. For instance if flicker goes down, simply access the same photos using the same account from another service that is working.

Having your data hosted by a datacentre is far safer than having it on your computer, even if you are careful enough to have local backup storage. How many of us have an off-site backup? Drives may fail in a datacentre, but no data is at risk on large industrial Raid storage systems.

Now for the really far out stuff

I believe Microsoft Windows' consumer market share will continue to decline. Microsoft (if it has any sense) will move into the cloud business big-time, to offer businesses and consumers back-end services.

Windows will all but disappear on the desktop, as Microsoft moves into back end cloud services. Linux finally gets its day as the desktop of choice for many people and is used almost exclusively in business on the desktop. Apple specialises in the very best consumer cloud computing kit and moves much of its software into the cloud, it also produces specialist computing kit for content production such as for film and video work. The apple experience will be delivered through OSX, Safari and Sproutcore and the iPhone will play a large part to show that cloud computing could be just the normal way computing is done in the next decade.

The sorts of software we already use day to day include many cloud services already. This blog is a cloud service, I started writing it on my Mac upstairs, I wrote some more on an Acer netbook, finally I checked it and posted it using my Ubuntu powered Sony laptop, everything created and posted in the cloud. This is normal, why would it be such a stretch to imagine many other computing tasks done in this way?

Entertainment and indeed work will just become subscription based services. The seeds of change have already been sown. Once you can play Crysis in the cloud on a netbook, anything is possible!

Linux is ready for the desktop?

After testing the new beta of Ubuntu Linux 9.04 I am convinced that it is more than ready for the desktop. I will certainly be installing it as the primary OS on my old Sony laptop.

The ease with which you can install Ubuntu on a variety of hardware is even better than Windows Vista / Seven. Windows does an extremely good job of automatically finding drivers, and yet Ubuntu manages to better this! Very impressive indeed. It literally takes a few minutes to install proprietary drivers (if needed) and the codecs used to play your favourite content using Firefox 3.

The whole process is seamless and automatic, not requiring any manual hunting or downloading from various websites. Ubuntu is pure class. Couple this with the fact that it comes with an extremely sensible set of applications including a full office suite and you are on to a winner.

Another huge advantage (of which there are many) of using Linux is that not only is it free, but it can be updated to the full next release without needing to re-install from disc. So install the OS once and it will update itself to major new releases forever. It is also incredibly fast and efficient.

The future of games!

I have seen the future, and it is kind of fluffy and cloud shaped!

An amazing service has been announced that if successful could improve the gaming landscape for all computer users, it could even have an impact on how companies provide us with software in the future.

Here is the idea... Run a server farm which has thousands of games installed on thousands of virtual computers, stay with me on this one. The user is able to connect to this gaming service, play the latest 3D games using any computer Mac, PC, Linux, netbook, perhaps even PSP or iPhone in the future. The gamers input is collected and passed in real time to the virtual machine running the game, the video and audio output is compressed and streamed in real time back to the player.

• Play Windows games without needing Windows.
• No need to keep updating your graphics card every 6 months to play the latest games.
• No need to ever install a game or have a hard disk big enough to store all the game data.
• Episodic gaming will be simple, as the game makers simply update the game in the cloud.
• No need for gigabytes of memory or fast processors to support complex games.
• The very best and latest games available to play through your TV with an incredibly cheap set top box. All the box has to do is collect your movements through a controller and stream HD video. This will almost instantly kill Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft games consoles.
  
• Social gaming would be great. Video of your exploits can be shared, any user with any computer can play any game with any other user!
  
• Start playing a game seconds after buying it without a huge download.
• Play as many demos as you like instantly
  

This has already been demonstrated playing Crysis (a particularly demanding game) on a netbook with minimal ram!

For the doubters out there, cloud computing is going to be massive. It is going to revolutionise many things, not only games.

It is possible to stream 30fps 720p video now on many broadband connections. As our internet connections get faster we will be able to play full screen 1920x1080 games at 60fps through the cloud.