Bill Gates Says DVDs Have No Future

Well, in the future seemingly storage will be via some sort of central repository. So I guess when this happens we'll merely purchase a licence to be able to view a movie - which we'll then merely stream into our homes via some sort of wireless system (Bandwidth ought not to be a concern at this point of course). More than likely it'll probably be some sort of renewable licence at that.

the answer is simple....jack into the mass Petabytes of grey matter between your ears....interface with your optic nerves....all you need is an interface to your network/PC/etc....

Your thinking a little too far into the future there ether.real, we may not even be alive to see such a thing. Either way, I sure wouldn't let someone jack into my brain for their use or my use. Either way. For lack of better words, screw that. =D

there are also blue lasers which are supposed to be able to put like five times as much data on the discs that we already have......or so i have heard.

Well guys, i think the way forward is the portable memory sticks are the way forward, They are small, light and very easy to carry around, almost like having a pen in your pocket!!

They are becoming popluar here in england

Also an other brilliant, i mean brilliant storage system if it was brought about as a storage medium is the ipod, At thie minute it only holds music files (i think) but these have up to 40GB of storage space in one little handheld device. I think they have a harddrive in them. Although these things are deseptive in weight and quiet heavy these would be a great new storage device.

Maybe not for the top pocket, they would fit in the pocket or clip on the belt.

Someone Close (aka Someone)

Wasn't he the one who said "640k ought to be enough for anyone"?

Especially since we don't know where they stick the jack in.

/me covers his wazoo...

He didn't actually say that, but was misquoted. Unfortunately it stuck :=).

Anything to make Bill look bad, huh?

I think that 640k quote was probably taken out of context. Maybe enough for the computers and what they did at the time, but he probably did not envision the games, videos and other amazing things we are doing and will do.

I wonder if Bill is going to eat his words with this DVD thing though, though I do believe him later down the road.

Well, I've no reason to doubt Bill. By obsolete that could mean something better has taken its place, but it doesn't neccessarily mean that DVDs will no longer be produced or available. Ten years is an awfull long time in technology terms.

Maybe we won't need a portable storage medium

I think what he might be saying is we just won't need a portable storage medium at all except for our personal recorder/players. In ten years you'll probably be able to have thousands of movies, songs, etc, right inside your computer, portable player or tivo type movie/music box, and if you wanted to transfer a movie, song, game, or other data, you could probably do it in a few seconds to anywhere else in your house or the world for that matter. In fact you would probably have only one box that does it all- music, games, movies, telecommunications, etc. and have terminals in every room with individualized voice controlled access. With super high speed data transfer and ultra large storage capacities who needs discs? That's a possibility I think.

I guess Bill is right. Most people dont like dvds - they dont want to buy new drives, most of them DONT need GB's for common use. what is the idea of burning dvd with a single song or few pictures?

IMO we will have some kind of flash sticks (10+gb, faster than present hard drives), possibly in the size of a wrist watch or credit card, with no wires.
This could be simple disks or full computers. The problem with them is the interface, cause we can't make a keyboard of that size. Screen is not a problem - lasers may put the image on any surface, including common desks or tables. input could be made similar way - virtual keyboard shown on table/desk and a laser tracking our hands. mouse could be replaced with a ring, tracked the same way we use in tablo.

other option is: we keep only a memory drive (flash stick), which is compatible with ANY computer. Thus: we have our system files and everything we need held on our wrist

the last option i can imagine is: NO drive. All we need is a good Internet connection and a way to encrypt it. All the data stored on our home server.

The problem you haven't noticed is the power supply. We have shrunk processors, but battery technology is far behind.