I have a plan to create a different kind of computer at some point in the future or at least patent some sketches and bullet points I have written down in a notebook so that Microsoft and Apple can't come up with them and patent them before I have the millions I need to really get things going (of course, I'd have some sort of deal where true open-source developers could use the ideas royalty free).
The buzz-word to describe what I imagine (and this has shown up on the Gnome 3 wiki dev notes) is context-sensitive "task-based computing". Gnome-Do, Ubuntu's Netbook launcher, Picasa, Google Desktop, MarkLogic Server, the iTouch, DropBox, SimplifyMedia, and Prizm all have their foot in the door on this concept but none of them really do more than graze on individual pieces of it. It has to be something so simple and easy that a geek would prefer it over the commandline and actually be able to get things done with it faster. That's the real test. Any non-techie can fall for a flashy screen that tries to guess at what you want to do, but to have something that even people that know what they're doing prefer to use it - that's the Holy Grail in my mind. I mean, I often open firefox from the terminal because going to the internet menu takes to long, I don't want to go to the desktop area, and my mouse is closer to the terminal window than the panel (though in the last few days I've started the conversion process to Gnome-Do and I'm quite impressed - it's context-sensitive in both directions, but has a few ugly limitations) And in the future I don't think that we'll be using mice and I don't think that /home will be formatted with ext4, it will need a more database and tag-system enabled/extended fs because using i_notify in the kernel to notify 10 different applications every time that a file's meta-data changes just isn't efficient... or maybe an indexing system that works somewhat like an encrypted folder in that it could be applied to individual folders ~/Pictures, ~/Music, ~/Documents, etc. Technology has advanced beyond the point that we should think of a computer as a type a 'desktop' that follows the same conventions as a desk's desktop that just has random crap strewn about it and is cleaned once every quarter. What good does that do me? Then I just end up using 'locate' to find something that is right in front of me because I don't remember putting it there. And people won't organize a computer like a real desktop anyway because they can't touch it and it's not 3d. It's too much time and effort to go through the stuff. Case in point: Touch screens. Right now touch your LCD screen in different places and imagine you are performing actions that way instead of a mouse. Sucks, huh? Now tilt the head of your LCD at a 30 degree angle and try again. Wow! But no one has invented this yet because no one has noticed that an LCD screen isn't a TV with a bulky CRT that can't be angled and touched. Of course, I think that Linux is the only OS that could support a truly new paradigm of computer because it's the only one modular enough to be able to keep most existing applications as they are and switch out a few libraries here and there to add the rudimentry functionality of what the PC Environment of the future should be until it actually happens and new apps are made specifically to take advantage of it. Anyway, if any of that seems to make sense and you happen to have a few million to throw around or know someone who, let's talk sometime. I'd be happy to drop out of school and become Bill Gates' anti-thesis. AJ ONeal
