Bill Gates Says DVDs Have No Future

[Nic]

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.

 

[Rick77]

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.

 

[paroov]

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.