here is what i think, and would want the future to be...

as we move towards living on the cloud...here is what i think, and would want the future to be.

1. Everything lives on the cloud - all your data, all ur processing, everything lives on the cloud, managed by someone like Google or Amazon.

2. No personal computers. Local storage, local processing will be a thing of the past

3. Instead their will be devices. my definition of a device...at the minimum, it will have a very long lasting battery, a way to connect to the net, minimum (about 32 - 64 gigs) storage to save the most important information that you don't want to share with everyone, a very light weight processor for continuous authentication. (if i am not holding the device, it doesn't work kinds)

The devices, will be touch screen, voice enabled, maybe in the future will have the sixth sense technology, they will be small, more towards iphone sized then a netbook sized, light and highly portable. They might also be user agnostic, explained further on.

4. A universal account - like ur thumb print, will be ur passport to everything.

5. A very very reliable ISP, where you are always connected to the net through either Wifi, mobile tech or someother way.

6. Because of the net becoming pervasive, their won't be any mobile phones or SMS. this will be taken over by services like IM, Wave and Skype.

In addition non computing devices, like ur TV or your fridge or your walker, will all have some amount of intelligence and will also be connected to the net. All these could be personalized, or rather entity-ised, meaning a home device will get settings for that home, over which can be overlayed settings for a particular person.

eg - a walker, home as an entity will give settings such as 'go to sleep mode between 11 am - 7 pm' where as user as an entity will be give settings such as 'continue yesterdays program'

or a tv - Home entity says 'give me these channels', child entity says 'i cannot watch these 5 channels, block them for me'

and so on.

How it will work:

You buy a device. At the minimum you will buy along with it a data service, which will be 24x7x365, but will be limited by amount of data you can transfer. Along with it, you get would also be able to buy bundled services like Storage space on the cloud, IM services, et al. This could be optional and will surely be upgradeable.

Once you have bought the device, by default you will have to log in. The log in will be authenticated at the device level and then verified by a online centralized service. Once verified, this account in turn will authenticated to other services. So you basically live with only one account.

Once authenticated, you are live.

The device may or may not hold ur personalized information.

Now here there will be two ways

1. A device has no personalization at all, in which case whoever logs in, the device is their. Unlimited users, even the basics live on the net. A rental ownership could be followed.

2. A device can hold multiple containers, its like the PC's of now, where who ever logs in, the device becomes theirs. Limited number of users. Imaging a home device meant for a family.

This will grow to a point where the device is an extension of you, and in most cases, ur existence without the device will be difficult.

looking forward to that future.