What is the next 'killer app'?

[Winterpool]

I expect this question has been asked before, so if there's a recent thread along these lines, please feel welcome to point me in its direction.

CPU and graphics technology have got to the point where even budget offerings can run most non-specialist tasks adequately. Even cheap integrated graphics gave got to respectable performance now -- I am thinking here of course about the nVidia GeForce 9400M, not Intel. Gamers, video editors, researchers, market traders, etc will always need more power, certainly, but right now the most demanding 'civilian' app appears to be HD video. A decent graphics chip can enable most cheap cpus to run HD video (presuming the right sort of media and player). With the still-growing popularity of notebook computers, 'HD' in any case usually means 1280x720 rather than 'full HD' 1080. As the current AnandTech survey of budget notebooks reminds us, most tech out there is 'good enough'.

Smooth playback of HD video is probably the main reason I upgraded to a Core 2 Duo in my principal workstation (okay, the main reason was the prelapsarian antiquity of my Athlon XP, but we're talking about applications here). Of course it's nice to be able to compile software quickly, edit large images, transcode qualite video, but I do these things very rarely.

Since there doesn't seem much interest in vastly increasing display resolution, video won't require more processing power in the near future. Can any of you think of an application that would compel most users (not enthusiasts, but the typical Western middle-class consumer) to buy superior technology?

 

[RedFiveSW]

With the popularity of the iphone, I'll guess touch screen monitors will hit the main stream in a few years. Or whenever MS gets that desk/screen thing out of concept.

People being able to interact more "hands-on" with their photos/music/etc. will cause people to want whatever it takes to drive it.

 

[KyleGates]

Well, from the Home Theater arena I can say almost anything thats wireless is very compelling. Wireless HD in any manner be it wireless HDMI or just Wi-Fi is veyr much in demand. As soon as that can be doen with no hiccups in full res and with full uncompressed audio (thats easy to use and not gonna totally break the bank)...peeps will jump at it. And it seems Home Theater PCs may be the closest to doing that these days.

 

[TidusZ]

Originally posted by: RedFiveSW
With the popularity of the iphone, I'll guess touch screen monitors will hit the main stream in a few years. Or whenever MS gets that desk/screen thing out of concept.

People being able to interact more "hands-on" with their photos/music/etc. will cause people to want whatever it takes to drive it.

Touch screen monitors would be incredibly tiring to use for most applications and more gimmicky than useful. It makes sense for a phone because you dont have a nice full keyboard and mouse on a cellphone, but for a computer it seems to me like it would be a step backwards not forwards (even though the technology would be a step forward).

 

[Eureka]

Originally posted by: TidusZ

Originally posted by: RedFiveSW
With the popularity of the iphone, I'll guess touch screen monitors will hit the main stream in a few years. Or whenever MS gets that desk/screen thing out of concept.

People being able to interact more "hands-on" with their photos/music/etc. will cause people to want whatever it takes to drive it.

Touch screen monitors would be incredibly tiring to use for most applications and more gimmicky than useful. It makes sense for a phone because you dont have a nice full keyboard and mouse on a cellphone, but for a computer it seems to me like it would be a step backwards not forwards (even though the technology would be a step forward).

Imagine video gaming with a good touch-screen... just touch and shoot.

Where's my 3D screens? I imagine that's the next step up in technology.

 

[Blain]

Originally posted by: Winterpool
What is the next 'killer app'?

Application that would compel most users to obtain superior ?

Hands down...
A better email client :thumbsup::laugh:

 

[corkyg]

Originally posted by: Blain
Hands down...A better email client :thumbsup::laugh:

Echo that! Especially if it included voice mail.

As for touch screens - yechh! I despise fingerprints on my screen!

 

[JackMDS]

There are two main factors in the progress in the computer's arena, Hardware and Software/Application.

Hardware is a steady progress that is usually known ahead since it takes time and scientific know how to Develop.

The touch screen as an example of what is sure to come, and it would be big (especially for certain type of businesses).

Software is less known entity since someone can sit in his dark small room and develop something that would take the world by surprise.

Some of what mentioned here is more of a list of wishful thinking by Gaming and Video addicts rather than a real quest for Killer application.

The most known Killer application was Dan Bricklin invention of the VisiCalc Spread Sheet.

It really changed history (I wonder how many forum members are using it?).

As far as I am concern the current Killer application for me is the Auto Collage.

http://research.microsoft.com/.../projects/autocollage/

A new idea in email (as mentioned by Blain) would be very welcome too.

 

[Zedtom]

Originally posted by: JackMDS

The most know Killer application was Dan Bricklin invention of the VisiCalc Spread Sheet.

I saw older accountants who had no computer knowledge brought to tears when they witnessed this application running for the first time.

 

[coolVariable]

Originally posted by: RedFiveSW
With the popularity of the iphone, I'll guess touch screen monitors will hit the main stream in a few years. Or whenever MS gets that desk/screen thing out of concept.

People being able to interact more "hands-on" with their photos/music/etc. will cause people to want whatever it takes to drive it.

touch screen on a pc/laptop is just awkward - it works great in vista/win7 but you will not use it.
Put touch screen in the gimmick category.

 

[JackMDS]

Originally posted by: coolVariable

Originally posted by: RedFiveSW
With the popularity of the iphone, I'll guess touch screen monitors will hit the main stream in a few years. Or whenever MS gets that desk/screen thing out of concept.

People being able to interact more "hands-on" with their photos/music/etc. will cause people to want whatever it takes to drive it.

touch screen on a pc/laptop is just awkward - it works great in vista/win7 but you will not use it.
Put touch screen in the gimmick category.

I do not think that we are talking about touch screen for Laptops, it is already existing for years it it has its own segment of users that see it as a very big blessing (Scientific research, warehouse maintainance, CAD work, etc.).

We re talking this, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...eature=player_embedded

It called Surface Touch Screen

 

[Winterpool]

Interesting... the responses so far have not been at all what I was expecting. Touchscreen tech seems the most popular choice, but I'm uncertain if that's an 'application' (I guess as an input/output interface technology, I'd compare it to... mice and monitors?). In fact a big source of the debate over the relevance / utility of touchscreen tech is... our debate as to what applications would actually become more useful, responsive, capable, etc using touchscreens. Personally I can't think of many in a desktop context myself... Some sort of 'multitouch' pad a la Apple's notebooks becoming available on / next to keyboards seems more useful than reaching out to smudge my screen all the time.

The question of touchscreen apps reaffirms my original question: what's the next killer app? And what perhaps I didn't stress sufficiently in my OP, what new application would compel most users to feel more powerful silicon is neccessary? What do you foresee rendering your Penryns, Nehalems, and Denebs obsolete?

Touchscreens reinforce my impression that current advances in personal computing are less to do with horsepower than with factors outside the chips. For example, I've read a number of times recently that, in our networked world, most users would probably rather have 5x more effective download speed than 5x faster cpus. And I'd personally be more productive with an excellent scrapbook / note-taking app than being able to crunch numbers in Excel 25 per cent faster.

 

[Blain]

Originally posted by: Winterpool
And what perhaps I didn't stress sufficiently in my OP, what new application would compel most users to feel more powerful silicon is neccessary?

You were crystal clear in your OP...

Originally posted by: Blain
Hands down...
A better email client :thumbsup::laugh:

 

[KyleGates]

Where's my 3D screens? I imagine that's the next step up in technology.

3D still just isn't quite there yet. For HT or gaming. Mitsubishi/Nividias latest offering is nice but still has issues with high fps stuff. Headaches after long usage still abound as well though I have never had that issue myself.

 

[JackMDS]

The regular course in computers is.

1. The users Dreams.

2. Core hardware development that has to with the scientific/engineering advancement and not with user wishful thinking (Dreams).

3. Applications that follow the new technology to boost Business, Academic, Scientific, and similar endeavors. A pure commercial segment that try to make some from following the wishful thinking of End Users.

Think about it, if a theoretical rule would be put on the use of Cell phones by banning the use of the words "He said Like you know oh my god" ,or any other combination of these, the Air Time of Cell phone use would drop into half, and the industry would collapse not matter how advance is the technology.

 

[WildW]

I'm actually quite happy with everything my computer does . . . I'm waiting for the infrastructure to catch up, particularly internet capacity but also just the various industries themselves.

We're getting to the point where just about everything is delivered by internet now - music, movies, games, reading material. . . it's just that the distribution medium is a pain. The internet service providers moan if you download too much. My ISP has taken to blocking Steam connections at peak times. Great.

I don't really consider HD video to even be a PC application - it's just an extension of television that the industry as a whole is taking too long to sort out. HD video should be managed by a box under your TV, like a VCR/DVD-player. The only reason we do it with a PC is that it gives us the closest we can get to proper video-on-demand.

Seriously, does anyone doubt that all those 1TB+ hard drives that are being sold to consumers are being filled with ripped DVDs/Blurays/etc? PCs are being turned to the job of providing this video-on-demand service on an individual basis, because people want to be able to watch whatever they want. After you fill a bookshelf with a couple of hundred DVDs you start to wonder if there isn't a better solution than a bazzilion bits of optical media with 2 hours on each, and the media centre is born.

And it will disappear again, and all the TV/movies piracy will stop, and BitTorrent will go away, when the whole industry gets together and makes a flat-rate, on demand video service with _everything_ available on it, and with the infrastructure to stream it to your house instantly without dropping out or a 30GB per month bandwidth cap.

I've been a long-time subscriber to the Napster flat-rate music subcription service. I love the idea of paying a fair price and getting access to everything. If only it had everything. All the media companies need to get together under one roof, with a service that has ALL the content you can imagine, streaming into a little box under my TV through big fat optical fibre. And those are the days worth living for.

 

[myocardia]

I'm going to disagree with everyone who's posted so far, and say there won't be a 'next killer app', at least in the near future. With the type of uses that the vast majority of PC's on the planet are subjected to on a regular basis, nearly all of them are already major overkill. From what I hear (from the average unknowing PC buyer), the #1 reason to buy a new computer is because the newer one has a larger hard drive. Sad, but true.

 

[Winterpool]

We're a small sample, of course, but responses thus far reinforce my original impression: there is no next killer app. Well, of course there will be one someday, but right now even enthusiasts don't seem to have a very good clue what it will be.

Video, HD or otherwise, by which I include all sorts of animation, is what convinced me to get interested in computers again in the mid '90s. (And then of course the WWW blew the Internet wide open.) It doesn't take a lot of processing power to display text, but compelling video is probably the single biggest factor convincing me to buy better cpus, graphics chips, etc.

I enjoy watching HD video on my Pioneer KURO as much as any other cinephile, but probably 75+ per cent of my video watching is on my computer monitor. I'm a bachelor! Video editing and transcoding are probably the apps that stress my systems, but their performance improves incrementally with advances in silicon.

I could imagine 'gesture' technology (eg MS Project Natal, or Tom Cruise in Minority Report) might require a lot of processing power, especially if it gets very subtle, but I don't know anything about it, really.

Suspect most of us agree with average users that we'd have have improved technology outside the computer at this point (eg bandwidth!) rather than more powerful silicon within.

 

[cparker]

Next killer app: A personal secretary. It will talk, have a face/body on-screen, and it will handle all your messages/phone calls/etc. It will be able to filter all inputs, and, of course, pass through anything from anyone who knows "the secret password", or who's on the "a list". Over time, it will develop a relationship with you (and some of your contacts as well) but that evolution will be the next, next killer app.

 

[jsedlak]

Visual Studio 2010 Team Suite w/ ReSharper.

Have fun running 4 instances at one time on a current generation CPU.

 

[Winterpool]

Meanwhile, killer app or no, Intel feels it's high time your company got off its lazy recessionary excuses and bought some new Intel kit.

Intel: it's well past time for IT to upgrade hardware

Of course, Windows 7 plays a role here; in fact, Intel seems to believe it could compel many enterprises to buy new hardware.

Maloney says that Intel actually has data on the number of systems that are three years old or over, and that it's in the hundreds of millions.

Intel is currently trying to convince companies that it makes "overwhelming sense" to replace a three-year-old PC because of the increased cost of maintaining such old hardware, and in this respect he sees Windows 7 as a "big positive."

"In the US and Europe, there is a massive, massive number of three- and four-year old computers around," said Maloney. "I don't think it's physically possible to put Windows 7 on them."

Wait, didn't Vista come out three years ago? And isn't 7 supposed to be able to run on hardware that wasn't sufficent for Vista?

Edited: I especially enjoyed Intel VP Maloney's suggestion that real IT experts will be needed to tell the architects and engineers who execute 'shovel-ready' stimulus projects that, yes, you do require the latest (no doubt Nehalem-powered) tech to build that bridge and dig that ditch.

 

[JackMDS]

Originally posted by: Winterpool
Wait, didn't Vista come out three years ago? And isn't 7 supposed to be able to run on hardware that wasn't sufficient for Vista?

Ths is a more complicated situation that can not cover with simple short statement.

Agility wise Win7 run a little better than Vista. It general Win7 performance is more a long the line of WinXP.

However Microsoft actually raised a little more the Hardware demands, especialy in the Video/Graphic area.

Many old computers that can run XP with 3D Video would not do hardware 3D with Win 7.

Once Win 7 detects that it is an old computer with old Video card, it installs default VGA Graphic drivers.

These drivers are OK for Internet and text, but they do not do 3D. So from this perspective Win 7 can not do what XP can.

In desktop you can put a better Video card and get very nice Win 7 performance from old P-4 computers.

In old laptops it is an issue since the Video card is usually Not upgradable.

 

[Blain]

There's always got to be one Poindexter in the crowd

 

[jsedlak]

Originally posted by: JackMDS
In old laptops it is an issue since the Video card is usually Not upgradable.

Definitely true. I run Windows 7 on my Dell Inspiron 8600 from 2004. Runs decently (and much better than Vista did) but running the aero tests seems to lock up the system because of a hardware limitation of the card.

 

[KeithP]

For me it would be something that would greatly speed up video encoding. I have a bunch of DVDs (legally purchased) that I would love to encode 2 copies, one for viewing on my home theater, the other for my iPhone.

I would upgrade/change my video hardware if cuda/openCL support in handbrake came out.

-KeithP