It’s an Era of ‘Information Appliances’
The personal computer is quickly becoming the horseless carriage of the information age. Before the decade is out, the PCs on our desks will be replaced by workstations and PCs everywhere else by a host of “information appliances”--inexpensive, radically accessible, high-performance information tools utterly unlike today’s PCs.
Today’s personal computers are general-purpose tools into which most information is entered via keyboard and cleaned up on screen before being reduced to paper. The features that matter most on these machines are power, ease of use and the availability of software programs designed for particular kinds of tasks, such as word processing and spreadsheet calculation. For the most part, our PCs are stand-alone devices connected to little else than a printer or modem. Local area networks are becoming more common but more often than not are used simply to share a laser printer among multiple PCs.
Workstations are generally more powerful than PCs, but the real difference is connectivity. Unlike PCs, workstations derive an ever-growing value from what they are connected to. The connection might be to a file server shared with a dozen other workstations or to a corporate database on a remote mainframe. Workstations thus become tools for examining and manipulating electronically delivered data, windows to a larger information world.
Eventually, workstations will be like telephones, their usefulness defined above all by what they link us to. A telephone on a desk unconnected to any other telephone isn’t a telephone at all, but a paperweight. Workstations that fail to link us to the right information bases or networks will seem equally useless. There will be no shortage of variety in the power and features offered by workstation manufacturers, but we will choose among these options in much the same way that we select telephone desk sets. Some users will want the equivalent of a light, button-studded speaker phone; others will opt for a simple handset.
The term information appliance is emerging as the shorthand for a new class of computing devices that, unlike PCs, are inexpensive, specialized and dramatically easier to use than the friendliest computer.
Imagine a hand-held device the size and shape of a thick legal pad. Its entire surface is a screen, on which users write with a stylus, their handwriting converted to computer-readable text on the fly. Add a cellular modem, and the device becomes a tool for trading information with one’s office while on the road or using a plain-paper fax machine down the hall as a remote printer.
At first this sounds like the ultimate laptop for executives who dislike using keyboards, but the “feel” of these appliances will be so different from today’s PCs that no one will bother to make the comparison. Some functions will mimic paper-based tools such as calendars and note pads. Other activities will be new, such as a software “agent” that manages office messages or monitors external data such as stock prices and breaking news events.
It will take the better part of the decade to turn this vision into reality, but the first stylus-based laptops are already being sold. Meanwhile, Silicon Valley and the consumer electronics industry are hard at work on other information appliance concepts.
Sony recently introduced the Data Diskman, a $400 hand-held optical disk reader that displays words and numbers on a small liquid-crystal screen. The Diskman is a bit dull, but it hints at surprises to come. Imagine a pocket-sized aircraft maintenance “manual” that uses graphics, sound and motion video to display repair procedures, or an interactive encyclopedia employing the same technology to hold the attention of fifth-graders.
It won’t happen overnight, but the PC is headed the way of the Model T. Workstations will invade our desktops, and information appliances will slip into our pockets, our briefcases and our living rooms. Together, these new devices will deliver the computer revolution promised a decade ago.
