I don't think playing games or working on word documents in some Microtronic-Neural system that a consciousness is moved to would really appeal to me.
Nor would most of the worlds population be able to afford such a radical change. We will always need something tangable to utilise.
Honestly I reckon we'll always have computers and not things that are implanted because while there are small groups who look forward to a "bionics" and "genetics" age, think you'll probably find more people wouldn't trust technology to that level.
Look at cars as an example, sure they now come with on-board computers that regulate many aspects; but for aspects that directly affect the cars control they can be turned off because people don't like loosing the control they have (even if in most cases that control is small and illusionary). They like to feel they control the technology not the other way around.
With all of these doomsday things lingering constantly about clones, artificial intelligence, genetics and bionics. It would be safe to assume that by-and-large people will always have something external even if it does mean having a "desktop" that fits in your pocket and projects a keyboard and display in 3D anywhere you go.
If anything i think that is more the future for computers, not for us to be integrated but in-fact for them to become less detectable in our livestyles.
I mean think about it, we have the technology for iris-lock, maganetic auto-open doors that wouldn't require any keys. Yet how many people here still have a traditional door with a metal key lock? Same with cars there are a few that are "keyless" which is nice, but majority of them still use a standard metal key system.
Sometimes the advancement of technology doesn't have to mean "we must integrate this to everything", sometime the classic way of doing things is best. Hell printers aren't obsolete despite huge amounts of the world working exclusively digital in work environments, and I doubt they will be in my life time.
Technology will get smarter. Faster computers, and use up less and less space. As far as radically changing though, just isn't going to happen. Otherwise all notebooks by now would be like the IBM Eyepad, which has a keyboard that was simple to use from the forearm; could be worn all day and a display that was a transparent lcd eye-peice. Although the weight and battery power was a pain with them, mobile and bluetooth now make it something that makes perfect sense to have.. those were what a decade ago with no thought to returning.
Mobile phones have had voice activation for going on 6years and almost every new handset released has it. Only a handful of people use it over the keypad or touchscreen.
I honestly don't see any of these creepy post-apocolyptic futures, anytime soon.
That said I'd love it if computers became like those seen on Chobits; would be cool to have a cute little computer that interacted with me. That said still don't see some more traditional tasks like design being changed in the foreseeable future.
For that there will need to be leaps and bounds in interaction as well as acceptance of such changes. The most likely (although personally i don't see it for another 50years atleast) is for full 3D computer display and interaction environments. Where you interact in a room with your computer in full 3D.. that's the most likely real change to the market.
I mean if computers haven't changed how you interact with them much in the last 25years since the invention of the mouse what makes you think that they will in the next 25years.
And before anyone notes about the Wii's control system, the PC has had a mouse that does what the Wii's controller does for about a decade, it never really took off. Just made your wrist ache.
We need something solid to interact with in order for it to not be too exhausting to use for short periods of time.
We also have to think of user safety. At the end of the day you can shut down a PC and restart from scratch if everything goes wrong. It wouldn't be so simple if that technology was actually part of you.
