by Mike Stanley

Created on: May 14, 2009   Last Updated: June 05, 2009

Remember watching TV and movies while growing up? Do you ever think back on the technology that was shown in those shows? It's fun to look back and think about the flashing lights, big buttons, and monochrome tube monitors. It's amazing how much has changed since then, isn't it? Shows like Star Trek dared to guess what technology would look like in the future, and now that we are upon that future, it's amazing to see how much of it came true, and how some of it even surpasses what they had imagined. The flip communicator became the Motorola StarTAC mobile phone, the viewers are reality in the form of LCD displays, and wireless earpieces are commonplace in the form of Bluetooth.

Our technology is influenced by our needs, and in turn, our needs are a lot of times influenced by our technology. In the 1960's, researchers developed computer systems to fit their needs. These systems filled entire rooms. Later, in the 1970's they would create smaller systems that could sit on a desk, and would eventually come to be the most widely adapted form of computer still in use today. Although the idea of the desktop was created in the seventies, desktops have undergone many major upgrades in their technology. In order to understand where our advances in computer technology will take us, we must understand where it came from, and how those changes came about.

Throughout computer history, two major things have driven our technology to evolve; necessity and luxury. In the beginning, mostly necessity was the largest motivator. As time moved on, it was necessary for systems to be faster and store more data. Later on, people would want their systems to be more powerful just for the bragging rights. People also wanted systems that were more portable, and this would lead to the development of laptops. As the Internet grew in popularity, ways to view the Internet would also start to push the evolution of computer hardware. Some people did not need a computer, but still wanted to surf the net. This would lead to an array of newer technologies that would bring us much closer to the world of Star Trek.

Today we have desktops, laptop, netbooks, PDAs, smart phones, digital music players, digital cameras, digital picture frames, and much more. You name it, and there is probably a digital version, at least in the makes. Mobile phones are becoming the do-all technology. No longer chained to the task of making calls, phones now come standard with the ability to send SMS text messages, email, instant messages, surf the Internet, install applications, write documents, and just about anything else you can think of. The screens are getting larger, keyboards slide out, and touch screens are common. These devices are taking over the mainstream of computing in today's social world.

It's clear to see that time marches on for computer technology, and as people need to use it in new ways, it will adapt. In the future, I see people being far less dependent on full size desktops, and at a slower rate laptops. I see phones and other devices like netbooks becoming much more prominent for the average user, and laptops and/or thin clients becoming the mainstream for most businesses. Our society has displayed a constant desire to make everything smaller and more mobile, and I feel computer technology hasn't reached the end of this trend.

Beyond the next two decades, our technology will become so integrated that we will likely wear it as clothes, sunshades, and it will be embedded in just about everything imaginable, and some things that aren't. At some point, we may not be carrying computers around at all. Computers were invented

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