IDG Contributor Network: Augmented reality and the problem of obsolescing the laptop computer

Whatever laptop computer you’re using today, it likely isn’t very different than what you carried around 20 years ago. Sure, it’s lighter, more powerful and undoubtedly looks better and has a few new features – like working biometrics – but it’s still basically a clamshell laptop computer.

Processors have gotten smaller, batteries more capable, and we did try to replace the laptop – first with an iPad and then with a Phone. Neither effort took, though Apple is signaling they want to take another stab at turning the iPad into a laptop.

There are two things that gate our ability to dramatically change the device we carry around to do real work on: the display and the keyboard. These two things aren’t only hard to change, they define the size of the product we carry. The display is the more critical path because while we could make smaller keyboards or use foldable external keyboards, we don’t want to shrink the display. In fact, we want to make it bigger.

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