Mauricio Leal's Blog

The beginning of Tomorrow's Computer

Think about tomorrow’s computer and what is the first picture that comes to your mind ? A faster computer ? A smaller computer ? A little device talking to you because you asked where is the next theather ?

Well, I think tomorrow’s computer is NOTHING. We’re not going to have any computer at all, because software will be everywhere and you won’t notice. Maybe part of your clothing, your shoes, your wallet….everything will be part of tomorrow’s computer and those “things” will be communicating with each other, giving information all the time and also reading us everything that we do and feeding back us with more and more. It certainly will be excited moment when we reach that point.

I just can’t say when exactly we’re going to have tomorrow’s computer in our hands but I think we’re facing what it can be the beginning: Sun SPOT’s.

Those are little devices with plenty of sensors like compass, accelerometers, light sensors and etc. It doesn’t have neither a display or a keyboard, but you do can use it Java on it. Those devices can be used in a more different ways and it’s totally worth looking it.

So far, it costs US$ 550 and it’s only available in the US, which it’s a bit too much for my taste but I’m pretty sure that costs will get lower as people gets more interested on it.

Right now in JavaONE, there are plenty of sessions and I’m can only hope that people will transform their software project into a hardware project, so people start developing tomorrow’s computer….right after on this Saturday, when JavaONE is over 

Comments

• hey Mauricio,
  
  I think the Spots are great, but would agree the price point is hard for the hobbyist.
  After getting over the shock of JFX Mobile, and looking back at the other announcements, I realized there may be a way to get some of the coolness of the spot, JavaME, and the openness of Java.

  With PhoneME, we may be able to port that easily onto the gumstx. (www.gumstix.com) Currently there is the JamVM for it, and while that is cool tool, having "real" java and open java might be fun. At $129 for the motherboard and

  Well best wishes, and safe travels back.

  -Shawn

  Posted by: sfitzjava on May 11, 2007 at 10:50 AM

• Whoo Hoooo!!!!
  Towards Ubiquitous Computing!!!!
  

  Posted by: alegomes on May 11, 2007 at 03:42 AM

• Hi Mauricio, I believe in this tomorrow's computer point of view too!
  Enjoy the last days in JavaONE!
  --
  Bruno Ghisi

  Posted by: brunogh on May 10, 2007 at 09:22 PM

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