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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.

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Speaker 1: It's ready, Are you hey there, Tex Stuff listeners. This

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Speaker 1: is Jonathan Strickland and I have got a request for

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Speaker 1: all of you. Now. Chris and I have decided that

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Speaker 1: we're going to try and experiment. We're doing our first

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Speaker 1: crowdsourced episode of tech Stuff and we want to know

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Speaker 1: what your pick is for the worst video game of

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Speaker 1: all time. Now, nominations you can. You can make one nomination.

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Speaker 1: You nominate one game, and you need to tell us

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Speaker 1: the name of the game and the platform it was on.

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Speaker 1: And it could be any platform. It could be an

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Speaker 1: arcade game, it could be a PC, Mac, Xbox, PS three,

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Speaker 1: Nintendo handheld console. It can be web based if you like.

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Speaker 1: But just you let us know what the platform is

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Speaker 1: so we can make sure we count that as the votes.

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Speaker 1: So you can nominate your game either through email, which

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Speaker 1: is text stuff at how stuff works dot com, or

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Speaker 1: you can nominate through Twitter or Facebook. And we're gonna

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Speaker 1: put ah cut off date on this. I want to

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Speaker 1: have the episode go up by the end of September

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Speaker 1: of even so let's say you need to get your

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Speaker 1: nominations in by September eleven, So if you get those

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Speaker 1: nominations into us, we will make sure we include those

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Speaker 1: in the process and we will have an episode where

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Speaker 1: we give you the worst video games of all time

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Speaker 1: based upon the votes of our listeners. Thanks a lot.

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Speaker 1: You can't wait to hear from you. Get in touch

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Speaker 1: with technology with tech Stuff from how stuff Looks dot com.

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Speaker 1: Hello again, everyone, Welcome to tex Stuff. My name is

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Speaker 1: Chris Poulette, and I'm an editor at how stuff works

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Speaker 1: dot Com. Across from me, as he always is, sits

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Speaker 1: senior writer Jonathan Strickland. If you start me up, I'll

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Speaker 1: never stop. Well, I can see you're gathering no moss, No,

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Speaker 1: I am not. So we wanted to talk today about

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Speaker 1: whether or not we are in a post PC era,

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Speaker 1: and I hear you guys asking right now. Hey, Jonathan

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Speaker 1: and Chris, why are you talking about whether or not

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Speaker 1: we're in a post PC era? Well, I'll tell you

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Speaker 1: it's because Mark Dean, the Chief Technology Officer of IBM

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Speaker 1: Middle East in Africa, who is a fellow who worked

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Speaker 1: on the very first IBM PC, said it may be

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Speaker 1: odd for me to say this, but I am also

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Speaker 1: proud IBM decided to leave the personal computer business in

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Speaker 1: two thousand five, selling our PC division to Lenovo. How

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Speaker 1: many in the tech industry questioned IBM's decision to exit

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Speaker 1: the business at the time, it's now clear there a

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Speaker 1: company was in the vanguard of the post PC era.

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Speaker 1: I personally have moved beyond the PC as well. My

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Speaker 1: primary computer now is a tablet. When I helped design

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Speaker 1: the PC, I didn't think i'd live long enough to

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Speaker 1: witness its decline. But while PCs will continue to be

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Speaker 1: much used devices, they're no longer the leading edge of computing.

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Speaker 1: They're going the way of the vacuum tube typewriter, vinyl records, CRT,

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Speaker 1: and incandescent light bulbs. So we wanted to talk about

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Speaker 1: you know what do we think about that? Well, I'll

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Speaker 1: tell you two things that are making a comeback include

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Speaker 1: vacuum tubes and vinyl. Right. So, but what he says

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Speaker 1: is that there are no lot that PCs are no

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Speaker 1: longer in the leading edge of computing. And he does

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Speaker 1: say they will continue to continue to be much used devices.

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Speaker 1: Well so, and ncandescent lightbulbs still much used. So when

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Speaker 1: so when was this? When was this that he made

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Speaker 1: this statement? It was not long ago. It was like

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Speaker 1: in August because David Clark, who was an m I

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Speaker 1: T research scientists who scientists said, actually gave a a

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Speaker 1: talk called the post PC Internet. UM. And I found

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Speaker 1: that out actually because I was reading an article from

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Speaker 1: Sarah Rotman Epps, a forester UM who said that the

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Speaker 1: post PC era doesn't mean and a time when there

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Speaker 1: are no more computers. And that's the way I was

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Speaker 1: interpreting it. Yeah, exactly. Um. She says that what the

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Speaker 1: post PC era means is basically at a time of

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Speaker 1: ubiquitous technology and ubiquitous computing. I should say specifically, um,

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Speaker 1: in which case I would say, yes, we are there,

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Speaker 1: We're there. I agree. See that. That's what The reaction

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Speaker 1: to Dean's uh A statement was was kind of across

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Speaker 1: the board in technology journals and blogs. There were some

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Speaker 1: people who took it to say the PC is dead,

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Speaker 1: which is not what Dean said. He he specifically said

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Speaker 1: that they will continue to be much used devices. That

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Speaker 1: doesn't mean that they're dead. Um. But there were a

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Speaker 1: lot of people who wrote the death of the PC

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Speaker 1: and that I guess that gets eyes on your article,

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Speaker 1: but it's not a really accurate representation of what Dean

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Speaker 1: was saying, uh, but you know there are other indicators

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Speaker 1: that show that this is this is not this is

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Speaker 1: not lightly said. Now, first, you've got the example that

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Speaker 1: Dean himself gave, which is not just not the personal

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Speaker 1: example which is interesting, but the example of IBM selling

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Speaker 1: off its PC division to Lenovo. That that was that

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Speaker 1: that caused some eyebrows to raise back in two thousand five,

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Speaker 1: and it still does in August of eleven if you're

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Speaker 1: recording this, because uh, I was sitting at my desk

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Speaker 1: just sort of going about my daily business when Jonathan

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Speaker 1: dropped me an instant message that said, hey, guess what. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so yeah, that IBM isn't alone August eighteen eleven, which

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Speaker 1: as of the recording of this podcast was yesterday. On August,

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Speaker 1: HP announced it was considering spinning off its PC division. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: That was after and and um enough, well oddly in

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Speaker 1: off because people are are equating the post PC era

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Speaker 1: with um things like tablets and smartphones and other things. Uh.

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Speaker 1: Of course we talked about in the podcast about the

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Speaker 1: history of Palm, how HP acquired Palm for his web os,

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Speaker 1: and I actually recently, probably about a month ago now,

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Speaker 1: had an opportunity to play with one of the HP

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Speaker 1: tablets with the web os. I was wondering, because you

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Speaker 1: have a habit of killing technologies, as I was wondering

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Speaker 1: if you were responsible for this Anyhow, I really enjoyed

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Speaker 1: the web os. When I was poking around on it

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Speaker 1: um in the store, I thought, this was really nice.

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Speaker 1: I really like it. And of course I've got an

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Speaker 1: iPad and I enjoy my iPad UM and I really

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Speaker 1: liked I liked the difference. And I've also used an

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Speaker 1: Android tablet and I liked it too. But I was

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Speaker 1: I'd never actually used the web o s before that,

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Speaker 1: and I thought, well, this is this is pretty neat.

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Speaker 1: I'm glad HP did this well. In the same announcement,

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Speaker 1: HP said that it will it is divesting itself. It's

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Speaker 1: saying no more. While it's not investing it there that

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Speaker 1: would require a buyer. They're actually shutting it down and

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Speaker 1: incurring a massive cost. I saw people commenting that, um,

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Speaker 1: they had bought it for, you know, to eliminate the competition. No,

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Speaker 1: if they bought it to eliminate the competition, they wouldn't

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Speaker 1: have made anything else that used the os um. But yeah,

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Speaker 1: they're shutting down and they are all that unit and

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Speaker 1: and it looks like they're going to divest themselves of

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Speaker 1: their PC holdings as well. Yeah, so that means that

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Speaker 1: they are no longer supporting the continuation of of web

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Speaker 1: Os devices, although they did say that they were hoping

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Speaker 1: to continue software development in some way. So what that

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Speaker 1: means in the future, we don't know. Maybe it means

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Speaker 1: that that eventually they will sell web Os off to

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Speaker 1: someone else, Maybe they'll I hope so, or maybe it

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Speaker 1: just means that for all those people who went out

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Speaker 1: there and bought a web Os device, don't worry. We

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Speaker 1: won't completely drop the support of the existing devices. We're

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Speaker 1: just not going to build any new ones. Right. Um. However,

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Speaker 1: you could argue that that is officially the death of Palm,

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Speaker 1: which you know, we we did an episode on the

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Speaker 1: history of Palm and we talked about how it was

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Speaker 1: the web Os was kind of its end and uh,

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Speaker 1: its legacy that was living on an HP and how

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Speaker 1: it looks like that's no more, which is just kind

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Speaker 1: of sad. But so let's talk about some of the

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Speaker 1: things that have led to this post PC era. Keeping

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Speaker 1: in mind again, we should say, first of all, let's

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Speaker 1: talk about what roles that PCs are going to continue

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Speaker 1: to fill. Let's do that first, because we need to

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Speaker 1: get out of the way. Otherwise people are going to

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Speaker 1: write in and tell us how important their PC is. Again,

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Speaker 1: we're not saying PCs aren't important. We're just saying they're

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Speaker 1: no longer the forefront of computing. Uh. There are roles

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Speaker 1: that PCs are are always going to be, or I

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Speaker 1: shouldn't say always, but for the foreseeable future, will be

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Speaker 1: the best device to do certain kinds of tasks. Song.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, like your typical office work. I don't think

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Speaker 1: that's going to go away from most PCs for a while.

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Speaker 1: It's just that that's a very efficient and easy way

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Speaker 1: to manage a lot of office work, things like tablets,

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Speaker 1: if it's anything where you're doing a lot of data

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Speaker 1: entry or anything along those lines. We're still not quite

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Speaker 1: there yet. Now. It's it's rather a pain in the

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Speaker 1: neck to try to write a paper on a tablet,

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Speaker 1: because trust me, I've tried, and it's it's doable, but

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Speaker 1: it's not nearly as easy as it is with a computer.

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Speaker 1: And sure, you could get docking stations that have keyboards

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Speaker 1: on them and everything, but they're they're just not quite

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Speaker 1: as versatile as an UM laptop or a desktop computer. Yep,

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Speaker 1: then we've got gaming. Now. You can play lots of

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Speaker 1: very popular games on tablets and smartphones. There's no doubt

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Speaker 1: about Angry Birds has shown the world that a simple

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Speaker 1: game can really dominate the market. But if you are

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Speaker 1: a hardcore gamer, someone who really likes to play uh

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Speaker 1: the cutting edge uh graphically intensive games that are out there,

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Speaker 1: the ones that take a lot of processor power just

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Speaker 1: to to play, not just for the graphics, but for

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Speaker 1: the gameplay itself and the physics engine and all that

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Speaker 1: kind of stuff, then a desktop PC or laptop is

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Speaker 1: not going to just go away from you because the

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Speaker 1: other devices that are out there just don't have that

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Speaker 1: process and capability of running those games at that level

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Speaker 1: that that that the elite gamers expect. So if you

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Speaker 1: are into media creation or editing, the PC is not

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Speaker 1: gonna go away. I mean, you can do some some

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Speaker 1: of that on on some tablets. There are applications that

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Speaker 1: lets you do some work like that, but it's shoot,

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Speaker 1: you can do some of it on smartphones, yeah, but

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Speaker 1: it's um, it's limited. You're not gonna be able to

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Speaker 1: You're not gonna have nearly the versatility that you would

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Speaker 1: have with a full desktop computer. Um. And also depending

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Speaker 1: on what you're doing, it may take it's going to

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Speaker 1: either produce something that's of a lower quality than what

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Speaker 1: you expect or it's going to take a lot longer

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Speaker 1: to complete. Well, I can tell you from personal experience

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Speaker 1: that that shooting high definition video and editing that work

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Speaker 1: on a computer, um, the end result will you know,

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Speaker 1: stretch into gigabytes of space, if not terabytes, depending on

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Speaker 1: the length of the project. And you're not going to

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Speaker 1: find that on a table that amount of space on

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Speaker 1: a tablet or a smartphone. So I mean, there there

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Speaker 1: are certain things that you can use to do that

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Speaker 1: with and I would argue that all the different types

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Speaker 1: of devices can be useful in working together towards the

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Speaker 1: completion of a project like that. But you can't actually

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Speaker 1: do that level of editing with that, you know, with

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Speaker 1: that level sophistication on something like a tablet. Sure, So

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Speaker 1: now we can talk about I mean, those those are

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Speaker 1: just a few examples. There are others. I mean, obviously,

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Speaker 1: if you're talking about uh doing some heavy duty processing,

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Speaker 1: like things like when you're folding proteins. Uh, then you're

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Speaker 1: gonna need some they're so small. But then in that

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Speaker 1: case you're talking about using actual computers, and not necessarily

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Speaker 1: the processing needs are greater than what the mobile devices

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Speaker 1: are capable of delivering. But in general, those are just

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Speaker 1: some examples. Now let's move on and talk about the

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Speaker 1: things that make the post PC era possible. From a

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Speaker 1: hardware perspective, we already touched on this, but mobile devices

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Speaker 1: are really the the chief element here. So smartphones and

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Speaker 1: tablets are really what we're focusing on. These products have

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Speaker 1: really hit it big in the consumer marketplace over the

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Speaker 1: last three years or so four years, Uh, starting with

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Speaker 1: really the Apple iPhone, I would argue, I mean there

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Speaker 1: were smartphones on the market before then, but at least

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Speaker 1: in the United States. Uh, the smartphone market was really

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Speaker 1: just kind of limited to executives and a few early adopters. Well,

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Speaker 1: it sort of depends on how you look at it now.

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Speaker 1: I mean, there there were tablets before to the Windows

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Speaker 1: based tablets, I don't really catch on. Well, no, they

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Speaker 1: The thing is, these things sort of laid the groundwork. Um,

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Speaker 1: but the thing is, you'd have people like doctors, Uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, especially people in the medical industry were really

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Speaker 1: using tablets, but they were big. They were like laptops

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Speaker 1: that had been flipped inside out so that the screen

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Speaker 1: was on the outside. They weren't heavy. They're still around.

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Speaker 1: I've seen some um and you know the palm pilot

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Speaker 1: where you had the device in your hand, which gradually

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Speaker 1: became a smartphone. But you're right, they were primarily these

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Speaker 1: were tools that the executive would use or the you know,

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Speaker 1: the business professional would use, not things like the iPhone,

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Speaker 1: which sort of broke that wall down. It was really

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Speaker 1: aimed at the general consumer who wanted to have essentially

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Speaker 1: a portable computer that they could that also acted as

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Speaker 1: a phone. Uh. Sarah Rotman Epps said that one of

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Speaker 1: the delineators is that it's more of a casual experience

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Speaker 1: and it's more are intimate than it used to be,

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Speaker 1: rather than being something that was set on your desk

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Speaker 1: and you'd have to go to your desk to do it.

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Speaker 1: Even with a laptop, you know, you have the keyboard

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Speaker 1: and the screen up, and it also gives you the

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Speaker 1: opportunity to interact with your environment no matter where you are,

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Speaker 1: as opposed to like if you have a computer if

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Speaker 1: it's a desktop, then you are limited to the desk

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Speaker 1: unless you unplug everything and you move that desktop over

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Speaker 1: someplace else for some sort of land party or something.

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Speaker 1: Then party laptop is a little more portable, but not

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Speaker 1: so portable that you're gonna be whipping the laptop out

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Speaker 1: just casually wherever you happen to be. I've worked with people,

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Speaker 1: Sorry interrupt, I was gonna say, I've worked with people who,

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Speaker 1: even in the laptop era, had a sling for their

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Speaker 1: desktop PC so that they could carry it to land

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Speaker 1: parties because laptops didn't and I would argue, to some

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Speaker 1: degree still don't have the kind of processing power that

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Speaker 1: you can put in a desktop PC. Yeah, you can

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Speaker 1: find some gaming laptops out there that put my desktop

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Speaker 1: to shame, but they are still like, compared to the

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Speaker 1: cutting edge gaming PC are still still behind. And it's

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Speaker 1: because you know, you can only fit so many components

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Speaker 1: into a laptop case and not have it melt. Yeah. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean we while we've talked about it many times,

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Speaker 1: how processors, especially very sophisticated high end processors, generate a

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Speaker 1: whole lot of heat and uh a lot of the

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Speaker 1: gaming PCs, you know, some of them are liquid cooled. Uh,

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Speaker 1: many of them require multiple fans to keep their innards cool.

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Speaker 1: They might have multiple processors, well, most of them do graphics,

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Speaker 1: high end graphics processors, again generating more heat. Um so,

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Speaker 1: I mean there are things that you but but you

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Speaker 1: can do a lot of work with that, a lot

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Speaker 1: of computing work. Well in games, yes they're games, but

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Speaker 1: they're doing a lot of processing work, computing work to

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Speaker 1: render that information that you see on the screen. So

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Speaker 1: if you're not doing that, if you if you want

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Speaker 1: to be able to interact with your environment easily, then

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Speaker 1: a smartphone and tablet that that makes perfect sense. Like

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Speaker 1: you're walking around town and you wanted to look up

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Speaker 1: the address of a place because you think, oh, that

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Speaker 1: that restaurant I heard of is nearby. I know it's

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Speaker 1: near here, I just don't know exactly where it is. Well,

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Speaker 1: that's where that kind of thing comes in handy. And

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Speaker 1: once people really started to embrace that, the app world

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Speaker 1: exploded and we suddenly got all these apps that let

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Speaker 1: us interact with our environment in ways we never really

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Speaker 1: thought of before, like augmented reality. Augmented reality is a

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Speaker 1: great example, and of course augmented reality goes beyond just

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Speaker 1: smartphones and tablets. We've seen that incorporated into handheld gaming

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Speaker 1: consoles as well. And we should also add that even

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Speaker 1: though we're talking about smartphones and tablets right now, we

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Speaker 1: should there are other things we can talk about, like

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Speaker 1: set top boxes or even just TVs that have computing

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Speaker 1: elements built into them that people are are using to

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Speaker 1: interact with the digital world far more frequently than they

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Speaker 1: are with a PC. I'm sorry, well, I was gonna

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Speaker 1: add on to something that's married to this idea of

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Speaker 1: the mobile device and the things that you have around you. Uh,

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Speaker 1: there are two other related concepts. There's the ecosystem, the

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Speaker 1: idea of creating a digital ecosystem where your devices can

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Speaker 1: interact with one another in a fairly seamless way so

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Speaker 1: that your experience like you're you're playing a game on

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Speaker 1: your smartphone, let's say, and then you switch over to

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Speaker 1: a tablet and you are able to pick up exactly

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Speaker 1: where you left off on the smartphone, and now you're

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Speaker 1: playing in a tablet, and you know, that's a that's

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Speaker 1: a pretty powerful message you can send to a consumer.

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Speaker 1: But married to that is the idea of cloud computing.

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Speaker 1: Cloud computing has really done a lot too to bring

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Speaker 1: on the post PC era, because before cloud computing, you

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Speaker 1: essentially had to have a device capable of doing whatever

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Speaker 1: processing needs you had all on its own, right Like

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Speaker 1: you you had to have if you wanted to play

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Speaker 1: a particular game that was on the store shelf, you

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Speaker 1: needed to have a PC that had the stats that

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Speaker 1: that game required at bare minimum. Otherwise you're like, well,

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Speaker 1: I would love to play this game. I've got the

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Speaker 1: money to play this game, but my computer is not

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Speaker 1: capable of running it. Now, cloud computing, at least theoretically,

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Speaker 1: what you would do is you create a very low

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Speaker 1: powered browser window or or framework on your computer which

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Speaker 1: doesn't require a lot of processor speed. Um that would

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Speaker 1: be what would be run on your computer. Then you

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Speaker 1: would have a high speed Internet connection to the cloud

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Speaker 1: service operator, which would be running the game on its end,

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Speaker 1: and you would essentially be accessing it through the framework

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Speaker 1: that's on your computer. So all the heavy lifting is

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Speaker 1: being done on a computer potentially thousands of miles away

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Speaker 1: from you, and it's only that you're when you press

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Speaker 1: a button like instead of pressing a button and your

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Speaker 1: processor tells the game okay, jump, you're pressing a button

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Speaker 1: in the your your computer sends a message to this

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Speaker 1: computer that's thousands of miles away that tells its processor okay,

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Speaker 1: now jump now. Getting the lag time down, the latency

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Speaker 1: time down, so that that doesn't become a factor in

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Speaker 1: the game. That's important. But we're seeing that happen. I

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Speaker 1: mean there are business is built around it. Online is

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Speaker 1: built around that business. So you've got once you have

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Speaker 1: the cloud computing agent there, it means that you no

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Speaker 1: longer have to go out and buy the newest computer

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Speaker 1: in order to access some of the coolest software that's

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Speaker 1: out there. So that has taken away the the the

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Speaker 1: incentive to go out and replace your computer every couple

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Speaker 1: of years just to stay up to speed, assuming that

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Speaker 1: the things that you need are available in the cloud.

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Speaker 1: Not not everything you need is going to be there.

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Speaker 1: So a lot of this comes down to personal choice

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Speaker 1: about whether or not you are there certain things that

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Speaker 1: you just don't feel like you that you feel you

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Speaker 1: can do without. Like I know that I can't access

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Speaker 1: this particular program without having a fast computer. Do I

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Speaker 1: need that program? If I don't need that program, I'm

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Speaker 1: just going to go to a cloud based system and

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Speaker 1: buy a cheap computer, or maybe not even a computer.

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Speaker 1: Maybe I'm I can access it through a tablet or smartphone. Uh,

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Speaker 1: and that has really helped urge on this this post

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Speaker 1: PC era. Yes, right now, we don't need these these

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Speaker 1: desktop computers are laptop computers in order to access some

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Speaker 1: of the cool applications that previously would have required them. Well,

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Speaker 1: it's just good to know that more about what the

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Speaker 1: post PC era means to those people who have described it.

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Speaker 1: I think it's easy with a name like that, or

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Speaker 1: it's unfortunate that they chose that description because people seem

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Speaker 1: to think that that was the death knell of the computer.

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Speaker 1: But uh, obviously, I mean computers are in so many

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Speaker 1: different kinds of things. Uh, you know, it's it's just

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Speaker 1: going to evolve, and it's it's become easier to do

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Speaker 1: these things. It's become more cost effective to do to

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Speaker 1: put computers in different devices. Um. And uh, I mean

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Speaker 1: we have the Internet of Things where your fridge is

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Speaker 1: talking to the internet. Um, you know, it's it's Uh,

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Speaker 1: it's good to have some description about what's really going

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Speaker 1: on and what people actually mean by that, because um,

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Speaker 1: I think it should probably I think we've not only started.

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Speaker 1: We've been in the post PC era for a couple

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Speaker 1: of years anyway. Yeah, it's just it's right now. It's

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Speaker 1: it's I think a lot easier to recognize and to

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Speaker 1: acknowledge the fact that we are in that era. I mean, um, again,

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Speaker 1: it doesn't mean that you're gonna walk home and realize

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Speaker 1: that something all your computers don't work or they've disappeared. Uh,

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Speaker 1: they've all run off. They don't have a little gem

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Speaker 1: blinking indicating that they need to be on the run,

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Speaker 1: because otherwise the computer executors are going to show up.

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Speaker 1: And yeah, so, uh well, I don't know if anyone's

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Speaker 1: going to get that joke. If you do, let us know, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: some of you will. All right, all of you old

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Speaker 1: timers out there who get that joke, don't yell at

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Speaker 1: me for assuming that you're you're young or young timers

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Speaker 1: who who have seen it. That would just blow me away.

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Speaker 1: I know there's remake coming anyway. Okay, I'm getting off track.

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Speaker 1: Let's wrap this up. Yes there is. Let's wrap this up.

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Speaker 1: We are going to uh say that, yes, we're in

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Speaker 1: a post PC era. No, it does not mean the

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Speaker 1: computer is actually going away. And I think I think

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Speaker 1: I'm comfortable with that. So if you guys have any

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Speaker 1: topics you would like us to talk about anything that

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00:22:19,800 --> 00:22:24,040
Speaker 1: you specifically think needs to be addressed, You can write

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00:22:24,080 --> 00:22:27,480
Speaker 1: us an email our addresses, text stuff at how stuff

404
00:22:27,480 --> 00:22:30,320
Speaker 1: Works dot com, or drop us a line on Facebook

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00:22:30,440 --> 00:22:33,639
Speaker 1: or Twitter, or handle it. Both of those is Text

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Speaker 1: stuff H. S W and Chris and I will talk

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00:22:36,680 --> 00:22:41,760
Speaker 1: to you again really soon. Be sure to check out

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00:22:41,800 --> 00:22:44,959
Speaker 1: our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join how

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00:22:45,040 --> 00:22:47,560
Speaker 1: Stuff Work staff as we explore the most promising and

410
00:22:47,600 --> 00:22:52,280
Speaker 1: perplexing possibilities of tomorrow. The House Stuff Works iPhone app

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Speaker 1: has arrived. Download it today on iTunes, brought to you

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00:23:00,040 --> 00:23:03,360
Speaker 1: by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camry. It's ready, are

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Speaker 1: you