I don't own a tablet or smartphone, and I bought myself a desktop and a gtx 970.

Didn't microsoft just re-desktop their OS a little bit after having tabletted it too quickly ?

As a slight aside, this is a very funny, but from what I've seen devastatingly accurate, account of what it's like to actually work as a programmer these days...

http://www.stilldrinking.org/programming-sucks

#2 My point was that previously there wasn't any system-wide control for privacy. Since Win 8, there is for every WinRT / UWP app.

#4 But that is only perception damaged by many apps being so badly designed, not something inherently bad with the actual UI. It also didn't help that most apps were based on the default templates, and that the entry curve for beautiful UI design is higher than the standard Win32 UI because you have to take into account scalability, portability, and many different input devices.

@rtcvb32 (post 5): Good post.

@the kuribo:
"For example, instead of having all your computers in the house connected to the outside, you could have only a couple select terminals that are able to access the WAN."
->If I remember properly, your solution is called "airgapping" (putting a gap between a computer and the Internet).

"You guys have to remember, these really are the frontier days of technological interconnectivity."
-> That isn't always a good thing. Being connect to a network = likely vulnerable. If a device or part of a device doesn't strictly need to connect to a network, it shouldn't be.

"when humanity looks back on this time period, it'll be with similar awe to how we might look back at the American frontier days when governance and rules were just beginning to take shape"
-> There are plenty of (and perhaps) too many rules and too much governance, all of them are just used against the average person while corrupt government and mega-corporations almost never see any consequences for breaking them.

@Solomon:
"Technology never stands still. Welcome to shaking your fist and screaming "In my day...." at the younger folks."
-> There's nothing wrong with technology or advancement. The main problem is that big government and big corporations are manipulating the ways in which technology advances such that they are empowered while the average person gets screwed over. Reminds me of the Reapers in Mass Effect placing mass relays everywhere (and throwing in the Citadel as a bonus) so that advanced civilizations develop their technology around paths that will make them most vulnerable to being taken over by the Reapers.
It's no different with the modern insidious big government-big corporation paradigms. Big government (and sometimes big corporations) can almost dictate in some cases how technology is put into practice, and society develops along the paths that the government and big business want.
Also, while a lot of useful science comes out of research institutions, most of it never gets put into practice because of commercial inviability.

@rtcvb32 (post 8):
"Some technology is phased out and shouldn't be because the cord they generally use is metal clamps and welding..."
-> In those days, the technology resulted in straight upgrades, vastly superior in almost every way to the previous standard.

These days, I'm seeing a lot of sidegrades where you win some, you lose some. For example, Windows 10 is (at best) a sidegrade from Windows 7.

@Starmaker:
Yes, it's the joke thread. DivisionByZero.620 and Starmaker walk into a bar. Starmaker gets thrown out for singing about SPAM, SPAM, SPAM way too loudly. DivisionByZero.620 laughs and points at the "No Spam" sign at the door.

@Telika:
"I simply think that tablets will progressively become the standard. Whether we want it or not."
-> That's the problem - when the corporations can force technological sidegrading no matter what the population wants. The problem with the tablet paradigm is that mobile devices tend to be more restricted and in some cases the OS quality can be much lower.

@DieRuhe:
"Too much money involved, too many dumbed-down people over the years. It's like anything else - people figure out how to get rich off something and suddenly it's not an "everyman" thing anymore."
->QFT and +1

@nightcrawler:
"I would also put in from my side that the main problem is people themselves. The technology is only there to serve."
-> When a new device/OS snoops on you to increase corporate profits, it's debatable if it's serving you.

"Its the old road to hell paved with good intentions. People are too lazy to type in commands, so invent software where they only have to point and click, that becomes inherent and people get lazier, now its just swiping a screen etc. Too bone idle to download some files and back them up, why not use our easy to use client software, and you can even chat to your "friends" as your to lazy to walk out the door and goto the pub."
-> There's an old programmer adage: "Being lazy is a virtue" - because if you're too lazy to do something, you will just find a way to automate it.

@Brasas:
Good post.

@Smannesman:
"So we'll all be going back to terminals and mainframes?"
You would be surprised. The "terminal and mainframe" paradigm is no different from cloud apps in principle.
-Back in ancient times (70's and early 80's), computers were large and could take up entire rooms. The conventional wisdom was to have dumb terminals (character-cell display and a keyboard) wired to the mainframe.
-In the late 80's and early 90's you had C64, Amiga, early Apple computers, and PCs. Instead of having terminals and one mainframe, the average person was empowered to have a personal (self-sufficient) computer that needs no Internet connection.
-In the late 2000's: Mobile device revolution. Mobile devices lack the CPU power to run heavy-duty tasks, so they outsource that do "the cloud" - no different from terminals and mainframes

@Elenarie:
"#1 Transparency in software development has never been better.
#2 Privacy through obscurity is not privacy.
#3 Software development practices have never been at a better place and understanding.
#4 User interfaces are going to continue evolving and we are going to leave behind the old and tired more-static-than-a-zombie icon based interface."

No offense meant but that post mostly sounds naive.

#1: There's nothing transparent about almost all commercial software. If they were transparent, people would find all the vulnerabilities and they would be fixed promptly. Also, companies want to hide their proprietary algorithms and libraries - they aren't going to just give them away to competitors.

#2: Yes and no. If you maintain a low Internet profile, no one can digitally track you.

#3: Yes and no. There are plenty of good and new software development practices, but often they are ignored. Just because the tech exists doesn't mean that it's being used.

#4: Well, Microsoft had better not be in charge of it (see also: the disaster that is the Metro interface)

@nightcrawler (post 22): Good post and +1

That nearly brought me to tears (in a funny sense), the quote:
“Doing this all day leaves you in a state of mild aphasia as you look at people's faces while they're speaking and you don't know they've finished because there's no semicolon.”

Are you serious? Mobile devices are powerful, and run everything locally. What is commonly called cloud apps also run locally, they simply store data remotely.

(It's rather ridiculous to mention 80's home computer and then claim that mobile phones, which are thousands of times faster than these computers, are underpowered.)

What a poor mobile world we live in. My poor Surface Pro is barely able to run VMs, WoW, and Hearthstone at the same time. /s

I don't think that's what's happening (the corporations-enforced change against the people's will). I think most people make a usage of leisure computers that is similar to a book's (just more audio-visual). And are happy to be able to treat it the same way, that is, to carry it in a bag, pop it out in the sofa or read/browse/watch it in bed. That's all.

I'm not worried about personal computing because that is still an optional thing for many people. They use it but they could survive without. For myself, I can only see positives:

-cheap hardware prices, you can buy an acceptable low end laptop for $300 and even run some new games on it with low hardware requirements. Plus emulators to play just about everything that is old from any system ever.

-many awesome individuals have kept old games alive and keep fixing them in their free time so that one can play them on newer systems; and now that even commercial stores are keeping old games alive and in the case of GOG sell them with support, things are even better

I'm more concerned about how incredibly dependent on computing public life and commerce etc have become. Buses, parking garages etc are often running on Windows PCs for their info displays, believe it or not - funny thing is, once in a while you'll see a blue screen which isn't the end of the world but just think how vulnerable society at large is to cyber attacks and many countries don't even have a cyber defense branch in their military, or if they have such a branch it's two people sitting in a little office. Think about all the crucial services and sensitive infrastructure that depend on computing and the chaos that would ensue if there is a major breakdown. ATM machines and banking in general, airports, electric services & water supply, even nuclear power plants can be attacked.

That's why we need good IT management, and not let companies run dozens of years old OSes on their mission critical systems.

Which goes back to the point that IT needs to have a bigger role in companies' everyday doings.

Well, seeing as nobody else has: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-LBI4wUA8k

I haven't seen any hologram computers yet either; and I think actually the golden age of dedicated game consoles is over.

Nice thought, I can picture the scene floating away on a yacht watching the numpties furiously bashing out tweets for help, or googling "how to survive a volcano", updating their facebook page to uncomfortably warm, or just taking selfies of themselves with some lava in the background. Its the little things in life which make me happy :o)