Bill Gates: TV As We Know it, Obsolete in 10 years

[Smigit]

Books will never go, especially since everyone nowadays thinks they're a writer.

I'd hate to see books be put to a digital medium. For one, I can't STAND reading eBooks or any of the sort online. The only thing I read online are short articles and forums. There's way too much stress for the eyes to be staring at lit-up screen all day. Not to mention that you can't lay down/relax with it (unless you've got a laptop but still). Now, if there was a handheld device, it'd still be the same with a screen. Hell, I get tired of looking at my cell phone menus. :\

Besides, it wouldn't be the same with a regular book. Books don't need batteries. I'd HATE to have to charge my reading device. Books are meant for the rainy days, relax time, or whatever. Hell, they're my only escape from politics and the digital world.

Yeah but like I said the tech isnt necessarily there but one day it will be. The screen doesnt have to burn your eyes. Also again like I said one day the screen will be ALOT smaller than books are today, you will be able to lie down with it. Im not talking laptops here, I'm talking a screen the size of a piece of paper thats a cm thick max and doesnt have a keyboard. Basically a much thinner tablet pc.

In regards to everyone thinking they are an author then allowing ppl to publish books themselves online bypassing the publisher altogether only helps new authors start up.

Lastly someone mentioned power going out. If power goes out at night theres alot more issues reading from a book than there would be something powered by batteries.

I still havent seen a convincing arguement as to why books should remain. With the way technology is progressing I cant see how books wont eventually be a thing of the past. They are less portable, can be easily destroyed, cant be easily attained (compared to a download), would be larger, deteroriate rapidly with time, self publishing is less of an option the list goes on and on.

Furthermore if books were electronic they could incoprorate facilities foir the handycapped such as the ability to resize fonts, have the book read itself ect ect. The advantages are many and the disadvantages so far few (and I havent see a single one listed here besides battery length and even that liekly wouldnt be an issue when the time actually comes in a decade or three from now)

Theres no real reason as to why youd have to pay to read either. Its not like you have to for books now days and I'm sure systems could be setup to facilitate temporary licenses aka virtual libraries if that was what was deemed appropriate.

[ichi]

Will this be as accurate as when he predicted the lack of relevance of the internet?

I think books wont go anywhere as long as we have resources to make paper from. Sure, alternatives will apear (like epaper) and some will get used to them, but it'll be a bit like buying through the internet: maybe it's more convenient, but most people still prefer to go to stores and check the actual goods.

[benac]

I would like to see a massive merge of tech. TV+Movies+Music+ Everything mereged into one future Computer.

[Miuku.]

Prove it. From what I have read, sales of Windows servers are growing much faster than Linux servers.

Sales != Deployments.

Most companies that I know (and I've worked with some rather large corporations in my time) deploy their own Linux servers (And BSD) by buying the hardware and having their in-house (outsourced) administrators deploy the operating system without it showing on the charts.

But this is off topic for this discussion in the first place and doesn't belong here.

[I am Reid]

intreasting... HD is the way to go now a days. I wonder if there will be a cheeper altertive for those who can't afford a $500-$700 TV. Perhaps offer them "todays" digital at a low price?

Im pretty sure in the USA when they make the switch to digital. That if you dont have a digital tv, then the goverment will give you support to either buy a new one or a box so you can watch the digital signals on your old TV's. But anyways i dont think you are allowed to make TV's anymore that cant accept a digital signal, at least in the USA.

[Fourjays Veteran]

Lastly someone mentioned power going out. If power goes out at night theres alot more issues reading from a book than there would be something powered by batteries.

Batteries don't last forever. Unless some miracle battery is made in the future, I'd sooner run out of battery power on a digital book reading gadget, than a torch.

Another point is the "cosyness appeal". Ask people which they'd rather take to bed with them at night to read... a book or a sheet of plastic.

On a sidenote in relevance to something mentioned earlier, I hate those electronic manuals for games. Their fine, until you want to look something up in-game. You have to either tab out and struggle with trying to run Adobe Reader at the same time as the game, or you have to quit. While if it is a printed manual, you just pause the game while you look.

[999]

The TV as we know it will NOT become obsolete any time soon.

No matter how much TV technology advances, people will always want to come home, sit and watch. The way we choose our programming, and our content style might change, but as long as the couch is not obsolete, the TV stays.

[Colin-uk Veteran]

I think i would agree with him, television will still exist, but i think the majority if not all of it will be streamed over the internet into web-enabled tv sets.

I cant see books becoming obsolete though..

[markwolfe Veteran]

Prove it. From what I have read, sales of Windows servers are growing much faster than Linux servers.

Google IDG and Gartner reports yourself. Linux has been doing double-digit growth for quite some time (just dropped to single digits very recently).

Here is a link (in case you don't want to google yourself) from last year: http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/60035

Just curious where this "from what I read" reference you have is from? Where did you read that? :ermm:

[bangbang023 Veteran]

Im pretty sure in the USA when they make the switch to digital. That if you dont have a digital tv, then the goverment will give you support to either buy a new one or a box so you can watch the digital signals on your old TV's. But anyways i dont think you are allowed to make TV's anymore that cant accept a digital signal, at least in the USA.

There are talks of government subsidization, though nothing is set in stone. As for legal matters, any set 27" and up that includes an NTSC tuner is now required to have an ATSC one, as well.

[Azusa]

Television as we know it today will become obsolete in the next 10 years, said Microsoft founder Bill Gates

lol what a stupid thing to say TV of 10 years ago is obsolete so of course TV now will go the same way

[Mike Frett]

Riiiight... Like I want to tote around a 32" TV. :rolleyes:

[Nexus]

You couldn?t carry it with you

Well thanks anyway Bill, but I dont want to carry my 65 in HDTV with me. I would rather have my large screen than portability.

[aberflasm]

TV networks will become more youtube-ish where instead of packages, you subscribe to the shows you want. The shows will then be avaible to you through whatever medium you choose such as cell-phones or ipods. The tv is a seperate entity currently from internet which may not be the case in the future. The tv /pc monitor will be merged into one where you can watch a show, click on the screen and in PIP you could see more info on a product placement, or pehaps an actor, etc... All you have to do is look at the various technologies required. MP3 players are doing to cds what cds did to tapes and ecords, which they did to 8-tracks. There was a time not so long ago that people couldn't share pictures, documents, etc with everyone in the world.

[fuel925]

I don't agree with the book comment, personally I dislike reading large amounts of text on a screen.

[kylejn]

Books will never go away because people like the tactile sensation of turning pages, although books might become a premium item, similar to a collector's edition of a DVD, with the regular version being digital.

As for televisions, it's possible that there might be an integrated push towards a new type of television. I think that as more and more people buy larger televisions (42" and up), that we'll eventually have one or two large, theater-esque televisions at home, and smaller, portable devices to take with us on the go. We'll be able to wirelessly download shows to our portable devices and either watch them on there or dock it at home with the big screen and watch it on there. Furthermore, the docking device will double as a DVR and allow you to sync your portable device with it, taking recorded shows on the go as well.

[Lt-DavidW]

Anyway if we do replace television lets give all of our old TVs to countries with violence problems. People will be too stuck to the tube to do anything violent then.

You're forgetting that television and video games are the cause behind why people go killing on murder sprees, etc. :rolleyes:

[revvo]

So I also guess that 640k ought to be enough for anybody? :rofl:

[XerXis]

So I also guess that 640k ought to be enough for anybody? :rofl:

gates never said that, it's a myth

[ThePitt]

Bill Gates: TV As We Know it, Obsolete in 10 years

Bill Gates, the (false?) prophet. (yea, I remember when he said the same with the DVD)

[Lawrens]

So what he mean is that in 10 years we'll all be using monitors instead of tvs?

:blink:

:) I think tv will still be around in 10 years, we'd still have thin screen whatever technology is out at that time and be watching tv on that.

Books I could see being obsolete but only if there're some kind of portable like mp3 players with text reading ability (with good resolutions), because I still prefer getting a book then reading anything on a computer and I don't like palm pilots.

[dagamer34]

Sigh. You people aren't really understanding what he said. The TV model will be dead in 10 years, meaning that you probably won't be getting channels from over-the-air, or through cable or satellite. You'll probably get it through the Internet. The actual TV will be here for years to come, but how you get your content will change.

For example, in 10 years, it will probably be possible to solve what I like to call the "hot show" problem. Essentially, someone discovers a cool show while flipping through the channels but they watch it during the middle of the new season. You're then faced with a dilemma. You could either wait for the DVD to come out to watch the episodes up to the new one (which probably wont be until the NEXT season), or go the illegal route and download them from off the internet. Being able to stream the episode directly to your TV would solve the problem.

You can see that the industry is taking it's first baby steps with Apple's announcement of the iTV.

For those who hate reading long posts, here's an easy summary: Gates said that it's likely in 10 years, we will be able to stop building our schedules around the time a show comes on and just have it come to us.

[remix17]

I'm sure he's right about TV. Don't know about books though. I think they will be around for at least another 25-30 years until fully replaced.

[Coolme]

I don't know, he said tablets were gonna be a hit. But it's pretty much a flop, even with the introduction of origami pcs.

[Smigit]

I don't know, he said tablets were gonna be a hit. But it's pretty much a flop, even with the introduction of origami pcs.

Theyre becomming more popular just slowly and if you ask me its a technical and price issue more than it is consumers being shy. I would LOVE to get a tablet instead of a laptop as it can do everything a laptop can and more but why would I get a tablet pc when an equivalently specced laptop is roughly 1/3 the price.

Origami is affordable but it also has its drawbacks. First the battery life sucks, we need a new battery tech and fast (and that applies to laptops, mp3 players ect too). It's also designed to run any windows app but to be honest it lacks the power to do alot of what people would want. Storage is also a huge issue last time I looked with the base models being 20GB. I havent looked for 6 months or so but.

Again its cheaper to get a base level laptop than an orgami and the laptop will be more powerful most likely too.