How the PC of the future is closer than you think

Keyboards are becoming optional, and incoming research could render them redundant. Instead of using a pointing device, you might just point, wave or blink.

There were Ultrabooks using NFC, enabling you to pay online by tapping your credit card against your PC; and gesture control, where your Ultrabook's webcam offered gesture recognition to control on-screen components.

The spotlight thanks to Apple's Siri

It's back in the spotlight thanks to Apple's Siri, however what makes that system interesting is the back-end: instead of the familiar model of voice recognition, where the speech data is stored and processed locally, Siri is cloud-based.

For example, HP has tried very hard with its TouchSmart devices, which are among the very best designed touchscreen Windows PCs you can buy, nevertheless Windows 7's touch features are an afterthought, not part of the DNA. That means that in spite of HP and Microsoft's best efforts, the touch control is fiddly, not fluid.

Windows 8's UI may change that slightly – its Metro interface was designed exactly for touch, and on suitable hardware like Lenovo's IdeaCentre A720, which has a hinge that turns it from desktop PC into something more like a tablet with a nearly-horizontal surface, it should be a joy to use.

Here's a question: what is a PC? It stands for 'personal computer', clearly, however to most people it's a very specific kind of personal computer: a desktop, laptop or all-in-one running Windows, OS X or Linux. Afterwards that, things get to put it more exactly murky.

Let's take three examples. First up is the Ultrabook. Is it a PC? It looks like a PC, it's packed with familiar PC elements, and it runs Windows by default. There's no argument: an Ultrabook is a PC.

Our second example is a Chromebook, a Google-powered laptop. Purists might quibble because they run ChromeOS, however in nearly every respect bar the OS, a Chromebook is identical to a Windows PC. Refusing to accept it as a PC seems in other words pedantic.

And we can't discriminate on grounds of OS, because we've already let Chromebooks into our party and they're nibbling at the canapes. With Windows 8 tablets on the horizon, if lack of Windows is the deal-breaker, it won't be for long. As Dave Rogers says, until now we've focused on the 'computer' bit of 'personal computer'. Now it's time to pay more attention to the 'personal' bit.

The key driver of change

"'Personal' is the key driver of change," he says. "Once upon a time, the PC was a device where to use it, the user needed to adapt to it. As research continues to advance, and the performance of devices continues to increase, it is increasingly possible to build devices that adapt themselves to the needs of the user."

Microsoft is taking a big gamble with Windows 8. Whereas iOS and Android are designed solely for mobile devices and don't try to offer everything a desktop OS does, Microsoft wants Windows 8 to deliver the full Windows experience across a wide range of devices.

One of the most intriguing of these is what Microsoft calls the convertible. In its list of Windows 8 tablet specifications, Microsoft says that the convertible form factor is "defined as a standalone device that combines the PC, display and rechargeable power source with a mechanically attached keyboard and pointing device in a single chassis. A convertible can be transformed into a tablet where the attached input devices are hidden or removed, leaving the display as the only input mechanism."

If Lenovo's IdeaPad Yoga 13 is any indication, convertibles could be quite special. The Yoga 13 is a modern twist - no pun intended - on Microsoft's Tablet PC from the beginning of the millennium. It's a 13-inch Ultrabook running Windows 8, but should the contingency arise to standard Ultrabook mode it as well offers extra options: tent mode, an upside-down V for watching video or reading; and tablet mode, where the screen swings around and turns the device into a tablet, complete with multi-touch.

The Ultrabook form factor

The Ultrabook form factor and Ivy Bridge processor means it isn't too heavy or power-hungry to be a successful tablet, and Windows 8 means it can offer a stripped-down tablet interface nevertheless also do the grown-up PC stuff when you need a Windows laptop. Many devices promise the best of both worlds, yet the Yoga looks like it might just deliver it.

The convertible form factor as well supports a modular approach, with the tablet as the main device and the keyboard and other elements as optional extras. We've seen Asus and Motorola tablets with keyboard docks containing additional ports, full-sized keyboards and additional batteries for longer life, and we're likely to see Windows tablets embracing similar ideas pursuant to this agreement the Convertible banner.

Tablets have another trick up their sleeve: mirroring. The approaches differ - some tablets use HDMI cables, during others employ wireless research like Apple's AirPlay, or the combination of DLNA and UPnP embraced by Sony's Tablet S, and we'd expect some Windows 8 tablets to embrace Intel's WiDi wireless-TV system when they ship later this year.

Android tablet

We mentioned previously that we'd seen Skyrim running on an Android tablet. It wasn't running locally; even quad-core tablets don't have the hardware heft for such a demanding game. It was running on a Windows 7 PC connected to the tablet via Splashtop's streaming software. It was played on the tablet, with commands streamed to the PC and the visuals beamed back via Wi-Fi with no discernible lag.

The PC running Skyrim was local, however if your broadband connection is good enough it needn't be - and that's where services like OnLive come in. OnLive delivers decent streaming gaming to relatively low-powered devices like netbooks and tablets, enabling them to punch way above their weight in PC gaming. It's no substitute for a tricked-out gaming PC, yet for casual gaming it's fine.

The excellent LogMeIn

There are as well remote access apps like the excellent LogMeIn, which let tablet users remotely control their PCs and Macs from anywhere with an internet connection.

But you can outsource more than software. Increasingly we'll be outsourcing our storage too. It wasn't so long ago that when you made a telephone call, you didn't call a person - you called a building in the hope that the person you wanted to talk to might be there. We're nevertheless at that stage with our data - your music, movies, photos and files as a general rule live locally, and if you're away from your PC, you're away from your content too.

What mobile phones did to landlines

Cloud services should do to local storage what mobile phones did to landlines by delivering in fact personal computing: your stuff follows you around and is available from anywhere.

Take SkyDrive, one of the key Windows 8 features. It runs through Microsoft's OS like the word 'Blackpool' through a stick of rock, enabling you to upload data to and download data from Microsoft's massive servers. You'll be able to sync settings across multiple devices, store files, access photo albums in short on.

The only big firm banking on the cloud

Microsoft isn't the only big firm banking on the cloud: Lenovo's at it with the Lenovo Personal Cloud service, during Acer's AcerCloud and Apple's iCloud as well offer cloud-based storage and synchronisation. There's as well a thriving industry of third-party offerings like Dropbox, SugarSync and FilesAnywhere.

File clouds are in substance Windows Explorer in space: they present your data using the familiar combination of files and folders, letting you access and share your content from anywhere. Dropbox, Windows Live Mesh and SkyDrive fall into this first category.

The second category

The second category, device clouds, effectively hide the folders from you. "These clouds work behind the scenes so people can easily buy and use multiple devices - working or playing across them without thinking about where content is stored," Shahine says. "Today, device clouds are often proprietary to a brand or OS. The best known example is iCloud."

Netflix and LoveFilm streams movies and TV programmes, Apple's iTunes Match streams music, and Amazon's Kindle ebooks flit from phone to tablet to PC whenever you fancy something to read. They're clever services and work in effect well - if your connection's up to the job.

If you're connected to wired broadband, things are looking up: BT Infinity's roll-out of fibre-optic broadband is ahead of schedule, Virgin Media has announced that its 50Mb clients will be upgraded to 120Mb broadband this year, and during things aren't perfect - some rural areas nevertheless struggle with sub-2Mbps speeds, and even some faster services are subject to traffic management while peak periods - the average UK broadband speed is creeping up.

Broadband.co.uk reported in December that its users had an average speed of 7.58Mbps. The weak link in many homes is wireless. During 802.11n Wi-Fi is technically capable of speeds up to 300Mbps, real-world speeds are considerably lower - and the more devices you have on the network, the more the speed suffers.

Issue if you're hooking an 802

That's not an issue if you're hooking an 802.11n router up to an 8Mbps broadband connection, however when you're measuring speeds in tens or even hundreds of megabits, you might not get the maximum speed.

802.11ac, aka 5G Wi-Fi, is set to change that by delivering gigabit speeds over wireless networks. As with other wireless technologies, 802.11ac will be somewhat slower than advertised, nevertheless at this year's CES Buffalo demonstrated a router achieving actual throughput of 800Mbps.

The open air

Things are less exciting when you venture in the open air. During much of the rest of the world has 4G Long Term Evolution mobile broadband, the best the UK can offer is 21Mpbs 3G HSPA+. Once again that's a theoretical maximum, and in practice 3G users average speeds of around 1.5Mbps.

4G promises to take speeds into double figures, with average speeds of around 15Mbps, nevertheless it'll be a while previously that happens. Bickering between mobile operators in October forced Ofcom to delay the UK's 4G spectrum auction by six months, and during the regulator is adamant that the auction will anyway take place this year, that means it'll be 2014 or 2015 previously significant numbers of us have access to 4G mobile phone networks.

PCs and cars don't broadly speaking go at the same time. High-tech cars tend to use embedded systems like Windows Embedded Automotive, which powers services like Ford SYNC, Kia UVO and Fiat Blue&Me, or rather than fully-fledged PCs, nevertheless that may change as our cars become more connected.

Intel's already working on it: "Take for instance, the scenario that you have a smartphone with calendar information in it and that you have an appointment somewhere outside of your normal routine," Dave Rogers says.

"Maybe you would want that smartphone to send that information to your car's sat-nav, which would at that time search the best route based just in time of day, roadworks in short on, and have it ready for when you left. This is an example of what Intel calls a Compute Continuum, where devices - all of which have compute capability - can interact with each other in a seamless, secure, and unobtrusive manner."

We've already seen smartphone apps supplant standalone hardware for many uses. Smartphone navigation apps can be as good as dedicated devices, and in-car wireless hotspots could help bring car and computer closer at the same time.

Volkswagen has bigger ideas: its Bulli concept minivan used an iPad to control nearly everything bar the driving. The docked iPad controlled the heating and air conditioning, the navigation system, hands-free calling and even the hazard lights.