Benson - 9th Generation PC

I was a huge fan of Paul Woakes' groundbreaking 'Mercenary' computer game, which is probably best remembered for its smooth 3D vector and polygonal graphics. What is perhaps less memorable about the game was that your character was guided through the game by a wiseass sidekick called Benson, a so called 9th generation PC. Benson would alert you when you were under attack, communicate with the locals (the Paylars and Mechanoids), etc. At the time I imagined that Benson was some sort of wearable PDA like device - maybe strapped to your arm, for example. I certainly didn't believe that a 9th generation PC was some beige box, screen and keyboard that you lugged around an alien landscape.

So this has got me thinking - what would the ninth generations of PC look like?

1st - Well a first generation PC is easy - your probably still using one on your desk today
2nd - That would have to be the laptop
3rd - I'm figuring that would be a PDA (Palm Pilots, Psions, Windows CE) or smartphone (iPhone, Blackberry, etc.) - If I'm honest these are pretty close to what I imagined Benson would be twenty years ago - only perhaps wearable.
4th - Is it the tablet? Time will tell.

What the 5th - 9th generations are still open for the likes of futurologists and sci-fi fans to debate, but here are some candidates:

I'm thinking that 5th generation PC's will be devices like an augmented reality e-paper displays as seen in the movie Red Planet. Alternatively they could be wearable PC's that display augmented reality information onto a HUD style goggles/spectacles, or as some have proposed, contact lenses.

Further afield is impossible to predict but if I had to have a stab at it then genrations 6-9 would adopt technologies proposed in many sci-fi movies (Firefox, Strange Days, Existenz, The Lawnmover Man, The Matrix, Johnny Mnemonic, etc.) which interact directly with our brains via some digital thought bridge, as scary as that might seem.

The one thing I can be certain of - that the existing first gen PC won't be around forever.

Netbook Blues

Here at the Department of Hopes and Dreams one of the key strategic initiatives underway at present is Kevin Rudd's Digital Education Revolution (DER). In essence this plan involves providing all teenage school students with a netbook computer. Over time elements of the curriculum will hook into the equipment transforming the education experience. I'm no expert in this field but even I can see the potential here so in one sense hats off to Kevin and Julia for the program. More about that later.

A few years ago I gave a hand me down PC to my Mum as she showed interest in getting on the internet. Despite my Mum attending a few computer courses she's still a technophobe at heart meaning that the PC is effectively used for solitaire, skype, e-mail and a little bit of internet. As we now live 9,000 miles apart Skype Video has become by far the most important of these applications.

A few months ago she got a virus ultimately requireing a complete PC reinstall, a new ISP software CD, etc. Long story short is that the outage lasted about 3 weeks and was only fixed by using the services of a PC repair man.

Now back to the DER. Here in NSW some 500 Technical Support Officers (TSO's) - effectively glorified PC repair men - have been hired to support the program. Maybe it would have been better just to pick a better device than an underpowered PC running windows that wouldn't crash so much - say an iPad or a Google Tablet running Chrome perhaps?

Speaking of which, when Steve gets round to putting a front camera in the iPad I figure it'll be just the deveice for my technophobic Mum.