1. Ultra high res displays and the end of anti-aliasing
It seems these days higher resolution just means bigger displays, but back in 1998 I read an article about IBM prototype displays with 10x the resolution density. Their prototype was 17" but resolution was something like 22,000 x 9,000.
That's about 200 MILLION pixels. Just try to update that many pixels 100 times per second. I dare you! That would be in addition to the 4GB of memory your video card would now need.
2. The death of Virtual Memory
With 64bit processors and the ability to access >4Gb of RAM, why do we still have slow annoying virtual memory? Virtual memory should have been a temporary workaround until memory became plentiful.
Unfortunately, as memory become plentiful, programmers were encouraged to forget about being frugal with it. While a computer may have 1000 times more memory, programs are a thousand times bigger. Hence, the same need for more memory than exists in the computer.
3. The death of optical discs
In 1997 I read about holigraphic storage cubes which could contain much more data than DVD, required no spin-up time (non-moving), were cheap to produce and were the size of a sugar cube.
Holographic storage suffers from a serious problem - it's not a progressive technology. In other words, you have to toss out all your current tech and switch completely. Computer manufacturers are loathe to do this. They want a gradual progression from one technology to a slightly newer one. CDs to DVDs. DVDs to HD-DVDs. It's rare that you make big leaps in technology. They do occur, but not very often. You might have read about something coming out in the next few years - they are making a holostore that uses a spinning disc instead of a fixed cube. This would make it more compatible with current tech, and therefore more acceptable to manufacturers. HD-DVD to Holo-Disc.
4. 3D OS
They've talked about this since the '80's. I've seen 3D OS demos (in the late 90's) with hundreds of floating windows (in 3D, obviously) and flipping looked easy. Switching multiple applications using standard desktop is a pain in the arse (at least Amiga has multiple screens).
This has never been more than a demo simply because it isn't how people use computers. People are comfortable with 2D layered windows. They fit the display technology better as well.
5. Speech recognition
Whatever happened to that? I'm not saying I want to type a document by saying it, but it might be good for fast OS access like switching windows, running automated tasks or opening programs. Maybe we've already got this, but I haven't seen it.
As one person so properly pointed out, for some weird reason, announcing in a clear loud voice "open naked nymphos number seven jaypeg" just never caught on. Go fig.
6. The death of Windows
Just kidding - but this would actually be a computer advance ;-)
It's getting there.
:-D
