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Japanese Trends Predict Future Without PCs
Will we find other ways to watch television?
Japan is one of the countries that eyes often turn to when considering the future trends of technology. What people are finding when they look to the country today is that there is a trend towards decreased interest in PCs. Changes in technology have made it so that people are far more interested in spending their money on mobile gadgets which have video capability and high speed Internet connectivity.
quote:
“Japan's PC market is already shrinking, leading analysts to wonder whether Japan will become the first major market to see a decline in personal computer use some 25 years after it revolutionized household electronics — and whether this could be the picture of things to come in other countries.”
Sales of both desktops and laptops in Japan have declined consistently over the last five quarters. However it may be jumping the gun to think that the same thing will happen in the United States. The trend in Japan seems to be to convert all Internet to small mobile devices while moving video-viewing over to large flat screen televisions. With the heavy importance placed on watching video online right now, it’s unlikely that Americans are going to be switching back to home TVs anytime soon. On the other hand, Larry Roberts (who helped create the Internet) says it isn’t designed for watching television and that Internet changes need to take place soon ... so perhaps the trend isn’t so impossible.

Most recommended from 36 comments



Tzale
Proud Libertarian Conservative
Premium Member
join:2004-01-06
NYC Metro

2 recommendations

Tzale

Premium Member

Limits?

Perhaps it is because the average person has reached a level in processing speed with their home PCs that it doesn't make sense to go buy a new one like was the norm for so many years.

For most people, a PC can now last a lot longer than it did a decade ago because of the power that these computers now contain.

-Tzale

AnonProxy
Premium Member
join:2001-05-12

2 recommendations

AnonProxy

Premium Member

Cultural differences

If your apartment was the size of my bathroom and cost 4 times as much you wouldn't want a PC either. You would want something that was almost wearable and entirely portable because you would not want to stay in your apartment at all.

So for the mobile nation that is Japan the PDA/Smart phone makes a lot of sense.