non computer of the future, today. holograms? portable projectors? invisible pc?

I have been thinking a lot recently about converging technologies and the evolution of the PC and the interweb. Wondering what the average home pc will look like in five and then say ten years. This has all come about because I have been looking into a new pc. I don’t just want your average run of the mill pc. I have a few ideas coming together slowly and will post more on that as things develop.

The flip side is that I am reading some interesting tech articles and have come across a future solution, that is virtually available now. Imagine a small portable AV projector and a laser keyboard, you know, one of the ones where you project a keyboard onto a desk with a laser. Yeah. No I’m serious. When you press the pictures of a key on the desk you interrupt the beam and it can then tell where you have pressed.

OK so take a small portable projector and a holographic keyboard. Throw in a light pen that works the same way as a mouse. Press to click and extra buttons for options as well as special writing options/macros. All right you take these and slip them into your pockets. You’ll look like a bit of a nerd if you put the pen in your breast pocket, but if you have gadgets like these you can probably pull it of, just picture it:

You wander from your snazzy apartment out into the bustle of metropolitan life. You believe in not judging people but that can’t prevent the slight smirk from reaching the corners of your mouth anyway. All these smug ipod toters. Thinking they are the bomb with their little white headphones and portable mp3 doodads. Ah well. They’ll catch on soon for sure.

You pull into your friends coffee shop on the nearby highstreet and set your self up for a busy mornings work blogging. You unpack your tripod and extend the legs, angling the mini projector so it points at the wall across the table from you. You plug the cables into the wall sockets and power it on. The glow of the projector easily covers the 30 inch space in front of you. The glowing red keyboard materialises instantly on the table half in your cup of coffee. You move the coffee and take a seat. Taking the pen you click to open firefox and get to work.

Ah thats the life. So

This wall unit is a thin client device and work exactly just as would a pc really. It gets enoiugh electricity to power itself from the ethernet cable. Plug in the USB keyboard and pen cables and the cable for the projector and login to your workstation.

linkage: celluon keyboard, extreme mobile computing, thin client wallport