I want Fedora in my future, but is it possible?

[Temlakos]

On 03/20/2013 05:44 PM, Ralf Corsepius wrote:
> On 03/20/2013 09:32 PM, Temlakos wrote:
>> On 03/20/2013 03:58 PM, Joe Zeff wrote:
>>> On 03/20/2013 12:50 PM, Gordon Messmer wrote:
>>>> There will continue to be high-end workstations with whatever features
>>>> you want that aren't in mobile devices,
>>>
>>> Like keyboards big enough for touch typing?
>
>> Think that's the stuff of science fiction? Well, hold onto your seat,
>> because voice command is already a feature of most smartphones
> Nothing new - It already was available for PCs 10years+ ago.
>
>> that use
>> the i- and Android OS and, I presume, the WinPhone OS, too. From command
>> to dictation is a step that I predict will take not more than five years
>> to take.
> That's what Dragon told us 10years+ ago ... They have been proven 
> wrong. "Command to dictation" is a _huge_ step, nobody so far has been 
> able to overcome.
>
>> Now will someone tell me again that smartphones will never replace
>> laptops?
> Yes. They might be able to replace laptops for those folks who don't 
> need much more than a mediaplayer/phone/webbrowser, but for anybody 
> else, esp. those in the professional field, smartphones are no 
> alternative to desktops.
>
>> What am I missing here?
>
> Try to insert a 4 TB HD, try to extend its RAM, try to replace the 
> CPU, replace the battery, try to ... ? You say, you don't need this - 
> Likely, today. ... 2 years ahead, you likely would want to be able to 
> do so, instead of having to throw away your smartphone ;)
>
> Ralf
>
>

Ah, but I never said a smartphone would carry terabytes of added 
storage. The pundits are saying that you "won't need all that storage." 
All your data will stay on The Cloud, and you will access it with a 
username and password, same as you do for any subscription service 
today. You will create and save documents on The Cloud, with a back-end 
word-processing application. Then you will send e-mail for a short 
document, or if it's much longer, you'll send a read-only link to your 
book-length manuscript that will stay on The Cloud, at your designated 
directory, and you will need your username and password to get 
read-write access.

Turbo Tax for Business will go the way of Turbo Tax for individuals: 
completely on-line. Smartphones might bring back the stylus, so you can 
draw your cursive signature to attach to any document that needs one. So 
you sign your tax return and send it to the IRS (or Inland Revenue, or 
/Der Finanzwaltungen der Länder/, or whatever tax office have you).

For really important documents, you print to the nearest print device 
having a wireless connection to The Cloud. Typically, such a printer 
will reside in the office of a local Notary Public or Justice of the 
Peace, or in a courthouse or law office.

That's the vision. Now I realize that many of you simply can't believe 
that things will ever come to that pass.

Now what else do you need 4 TB of storage for? The usual large file is a 
video for a one-, two-, or three-hour motion-picture or television 
program. The next size down is a music track. The idea here is that 
everyone will subscribe to one of a handful of services. Pay a fixed 
amount, say 20 USD or 15 EUR; get a link to play a certain movie title, 
or album, to your smartphone wherever you are, whenever you want. (And 
maybe 1 EUR or 1.3 USD for what we call a "single" -- one track.) No 
more CD, DVD, Blu-ray, or other optical medium. No more ripping.

Now the one thing the pundits have not addressed adequately is: 
security. They define security strictly in terms of "accidental loss of 
data." Against that, The Cloud is getting better every year. In ten 
years, it might be well-nigh impervious.

And "accessory to copyright violation" will go away, if everyone now 
subscribes to digital content, as I described above.

But: what about "unauthorized access to data"? And what about "malicious 
destruction of data"? Maybe The Cloud can guard its servers against 
brute-force erasure or corruption. But what about the one who 
maliciously corrupts the user database, so suddenly The Cloud forgets 
who you are? Or worse: hijacks your account so that you can't even tell 
The Cloud who you are, and your data, finances, etc. are in the hands of 
an impostor. Here in America we call that "identity theft." 
(/Identitätsdiebstahl/)

And--I realize this is almost totally off topic, and beyond scope for 
many of you, but I'll say it anyway--there are classes of individuals 
who keep /very/ sensitive data, in the form of political broadsides or 
plans of preparation against economic and social collapse, that they do 
/not/ want known. Especially by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, 
Scotland Yard, /La Sureté nationale/, /Der Bundeskriminalamt/, Interpol, 
etc. I think you can well imagine that members of that class of computer 
users will feel threatened as they never felt threatened before. And 
they won't be able to afford a "private Cloud."

OK--those are the two sides of the debate on whether mobile devices will 
ever totally supplant laptops and desktops, and who would, and who would 
not, /want/ that change to happen. And those are the issues I have seen 
raised, and that I have raised when no one else did.

Temlakos
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/users/attachments/20130320/f712244d/attachment.html>