Do Tablets Threaten The Big-Screen TV?

look at the article for yourself. While largely irrelevant to Windows 8, I still found that the article got me thinking. With Windows 8, Microsoft is attempting to pull a similar revolution to the desktop/laptop world it seems. With Windows 8 new, alternate input interfaces like Kinect, voice, and touchscreen are moving on. The interface is new and somewhat threatening to those of us that seem unwilling and unwanted to change. Technology changes at a speed that is hard to keep up with sometimes, but major conventional items haven’t changed that significantly in form factor. For example, a TV may now have color and HD (two things it didn’t at inception) but it is still largely a rectangular image viewing device you put on a stand, or mount on a wall these days. Cars have computers in them, but they are largely gasoline-based as always. Computers are fast and have Internet, but they are still desktops and laptops, right? This conventions are now all changing. Cars are going hybrid and all-electric, tablets may be moving in on PC and TV space, and new input systems are even changing the way TVs and PCs work. In a world that is starting to see some dramatic changes in direction, Steve Ballmer’s “Windows Everywhere” approach is starting to make more and more sense, strategically speaking. As tablets, PCs, game systems, cars, TVs, and other technologies morph into very different devices than the were even a decade ago, Microsoft aims to be there with Windows. You have to wonder what cars, TVs, and computer devices will look like in the next couple of decades. Will we even be able to recognize them by today’s standards? While technology has been racing at a new direction for some time, it seems that this evolution is now really starting to change certain technologies that have up until now been commonplace and largely unchanged. Do you think that TV will truly be challenged by tablets in the near future? Can Microsoft continue to evolve its Windows platform to stay relevant with these changes? Share your thoughts below!]]>