PCs have come a long way in the 25 years since the MITS Altair graced the cover of January 1975's Practical Electronics magazine, convincing Harvard student Bill Gates to port Basic for the fledgling machine and inspiring Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak to launch Apple Computers. But if you think the last few years have been impressive, they're peanuts compared with what's around the corner.

In the next two years we'll have flexible screens, intelligent home appliances, fast permanent connections to the internet with our mobile phones, and PCs that could really know what's on your mind.

Screen stars
Computers may answer back with speech in the near future, but the vast majority of data communications will remain visual, and that means they need a screen. Already the display market is moving towards thin and flat, with the former influencing conventional CRTs to a point where even Sony has dumped production of curved monitor tubes. The marketing has worked, and the public believes flat displays are a good thing.

Thinning down has also proven a great success, with demand for sylph-like LCD monitors exceeding supply. They may still dominate front-of-house environments, but as supply increases and prices grow closer to equivalent CRTs, LCD monitors will be found on home and office desks, often incorporated into compact PC designs. And everyone will reap the benefit of their small dimensions, lower power consumption and reduced heat generation.

After several tentative steps into alternative digital interfaces, it appears that the display industry has finally agreed on a single standard that will replace the legacy analogue VGA port. Known as the digital video interface (DVI), it can carry both analogue and digital signals, although by the end of 2000, new graphics cards and display products are likely to be entirely digitally connected.

Interestingly, the first displays to carry the DVI interface will not be digital LCD monitors, but conventional analogue CRTs with built-in digital-to-analogue converters. Manufacturers claim moving this converter from graphics cards to the monitor allows them to better match it to the display's capabilities, along with enjoying the greater resilience of a digital connection.

Traditional amorphous-silicon TFT LCD displays are gradually being superseded by polycrystal-silicon, or polysilicon technology. Polysilicon displays enjoy a larger and more uniform crystal structure, resulting in higher electron mobility. Faster electrons are happy electrons, moving more easily through the crystal structure, with the benefit of brighter images consuming less power.

LCD displays are all very well, but they still need backlights and polarising filters. The future holy grail of displays are light emitting polymer (LEP) models which, as their name implies, actually generate their own light. By eliminating backlights and filters, LEP displays can be made very cheaply and very thin indeed. At first they may be permanently moulded into curved surfaces, but in the near future, some display technologies will attain actual flexibility.

Beyond flexibility comes the long-discussed ePaper, and a display you will be able to fold up into your pocket. They are in the research labs now and closer to market than you think.

Fast and loose
It may be good to talk, but it's even better to talk faster, and that's the way of future communications. Despite broadband's slow entry into the UK to date, there's no doubt that 2000 will herald the most significant changes in data communication so far.

While speeds will steadily increase, the key difference between communicating today and a year from now will be the actual link itself and the means by which we'll be charged. Rather than using analogue telephones, ISDN lines and mobile phones to temporarily dial up a service and be charged by the minute, future connections will boast permanent internet links, charged by the amount of data actually transferred.

When you're permanently connected to the internet, you no longer need to dial up to see if there are any emails waiting - they just arrive. Since you're usually paying a flat fee per month for the connection, there's no need to worry about downloading big files or checking out audio and video web broadcasts. With a constant link to the net, you may even be able to host your own web server.

Prices are currently in a state of flux, but many anticipate an ADSL service (piggybacking on top of existing analogue telephone lines) boasting as much as 2Mb per second download and 256Kbps upload could be on offer for between £30 and £50 per month.

Fast, permanent connections into homes and small business will change the way we work and play. With flat fees, the internet becomes a serious source of music, video and information, and will truly launch ecommerce into the mainstream. Sales of network cards, consumer hubs, firewalls and routers will rise in these markets as users want to share this fast link between all their connected devices, and even use them for applications that could include remote surveillance and baby monitoring. Voice over IP will also become an increasingly sensible way to make cheap telephone calls.

Have mobile, will connect
Mobile phones will also enjoy a considerable data upgrade over the next two years. The current paltry GSM data rate of 9.6Kbit/s is on the verge of a revolution. Orange has an upgrade to 14.4Kbit/s waiting in the wings and has demonstrated a commercial service where several channels can be joined into a single, faster connection, known as high-speed circuit switched data. More exciting still is the general packet radio service (GPRS), which adds a packet-switched layer to current GSM, allowing it to be permanently connected to the internet. Again, data will be charged by quantity transferred, rather than time connected. GPRS is expected to be offered on certain UK networks towards the end of the year.

Around that time, the Bluetooth radio system will increasingly find itself fitted to all manner of mobile devices, allowing them to effortlessly communicate with each other. Older devices will be upgraded to Bluetooth with PC Card or Compactflash adaptors.

So-called third-generation mobile systems will arrive in Europe courtesy of UMTS by 2002, and will boast data rates up to 2Mbit/s. Obviously by then cabled connections will be considerably faster, but the opportunities for delivering broadband services to wireless terminals will alter many current business models. Imagine the possibilities for commerce as broadband advertising is delivered to UMTS users in, say, a shopping mall or sports stadium.

Online banking and gaming are also ideal applications for permanently connected mobiles. As handsets become more powerful with Wap browsers and MP3 audio capabilities, sales of software, utilities and value-added services will rocket.

Home front
Over the next couple of years, the PC will make a concerted effort to become a permanent fixture in our homes. But it will face stiff competition from an increasing number of information appliances, which offer the basic email and web access facilities that have already sold many PCs into the home. The big question will be whether home users will want to use a PC for these basic tasks when a product such as the Sony Playstation 2 will be able to do the same and play DVDs in a consumer-friendly package that's cheap, looks great, starts immediately and never crashes. Mobile phones will also be carving a piece of the pie, offering numerous communication, entertainment, banking and ticketing services in a pocket-sized form.

To fight back, the PC will have to mature fast. The Concept PC Pavilion at Intel's bi-annual Developer Forum showcases possible systems of the future. Recent exhibits have included a splash-proof PC for the kitchen, cutely shaped systems for the kids, and a cushioned footstool for the lounge, which opens to reveal a keyboard and a screen. All entries into traditionally non-IT areas of the home were made possible through compact new FlexATX motherboards, measuring a mere 9in x 7in and integrating everything on-board that a basic user would want.

After supply and high cost issues with Rambus, it looks like SDRam may enjoy a longer life span than Intel implied last year. Indeed, official 133Mhz SDRam chipset solutions from Via have proven a big hit in the mid range, and even Intel is about to launch a similar product with its forthcoming 815 chipset.

There's nothing like the CPU numbers game, and Intel and AMD are likely to continue to discard carefully planned road maps in the frenzy to release ever-faster chips. As Computer Reseller News went to press, both AMD and Intel had announced 1000Mhz CPUs, although as any system integrator knows, an announcement can be very different to the actual delivery of components in the volume necessary to make PCs.

Clock speeds aren't everything, though. The Level 2 cache on Intel's Coppermine processor is integrated onto the die, which allows it to run at the same speed as the CPU. AMD still employs an off-die Level 2 cache, which on its 1000Mhz Athlon is running at 333Mhz, one third that of Intel's 1000Mhz Pentium III. But AMD's forthcoming Thunderbird also integrates the Level 2 cache onto Athlon's die, evening the odds between the CPUs.

By the end of 2000, all Intel Pentiums will be socketed, and most PCs will be sold with ethernet ports allowing them to connect to forthcoming broadband communication services. USB 2 will enjoy a massive upgrade from 12Mbit/s to 480Mbit/s, allowing it to compete with 1394 Firewire in terms of sheer performance. In 2001, we can look forward to mainstream versions of Intel's 64bit Merced architecture.

Slap in the interface
The relationship between people and their computers is not entirely dissimilar to those between men and women: both have something the other wants, but neither are entirely sure how to properly communicate their message. Human-to-human psychology aside, effective communication between man and machine is essential, and a process which so far has not enjoyed great success.

Consider using your own PC. Humans evolved to communicate through a variety of natural means, but not one included using a keyboard and mouse. Such skills may seem second nature to regular users, but non-PC owners quite rightly struggle with the concept of alt-tab and double clicks.

The real research in user interfaces is not into nested folders and hourglass icons, but in developing more natural ways to communicate with our technology.

Speech recognition has long been waiting in the wings for processing hardware to catch up, but the current range of fast, cheap chips make real-time understanding of the spoken word a reality. In the consumer world, we're already seeing voice-activated mobile phones and interactive services, though voice dictation is still rare in the office.

Just watching people interact reveals a whole host of techniques used for communication: combinations of gesture, speech and eye contact may be the best way to get a single message across. It might not be too long before our computers can recognise the sure signs of a frown and shaking fist.

The entire means by which information is presented and navigated is undergoing considerable research by almost every IT company. Consider searching for information on the internet using key words. Results could be presented and selections narrowed down much more intuitively.

Rather than us thinking like computers, PCs will have to think more like humans. Soon PCs will understand too, and within 10 years the interaction between man and machine should be completely transparent.

Are friends electric?
Robots? Cyborgs? Surely only in the realm of science fiction, right? Wrong. Today, about 20 per cent of functional human body parts can be replaced by machines; consider artificial knees, hips, hearts and skin, not to mention embedded electronic components such as pacemakers and hearing aids.

BT's labs are working on the concept of the Wired Man, which includes not just the aforementioned cyborg enhancements, but more intelligent ways of using, incorporating and powering existing portable electronics such as calculators and mobile phones. An intelligent signet ring could contain identification and medical records, while hungry devices could be powered by body heat or movement.

Kevin Warwick, professor of cybernetics at Reading University, is well known as the man with a chip in his arm. At first this is used for identification purposes, but future developments could see electronic implants rewire nervous systems to control artificial limbs.

And what of our plastic pal who's fun to be with? Well, K9 is alive and well in the form of Sony's Aibo, a four-legged entertainment robot that acts in response to external stimuli and according to its own judgement.

A total of 18 degrees of free motion allow Aibo to walk around and move its head, tail and mouth. It can hear, feel and see, and learn and develop its own personality. The initial 5,000 units, costing about £2,000 each, sold out in less than 20 minutes, and until Sony builds in soiling facilities, residents' associations across the world should welcome it into their homes.

Fine points

• Our homes and offices are set for dramatic change over the next few years as technology develops in leaps and bounds.
• Monitors are getting thinner and sharper.
• Data communications are speeding up substantially.
• The PC has a fight on its hands to remain the home computing device of choice.
• The way we interface with our computers is also set to develop, and may include more use of robotic devices.