i7 posts

Ardent fans of this column will doubtless have noticed that BI has been a little, shall we say, thin on the ground of late. There are two main reasons for this -- one, BI's biennial sojourn to the other side of the country for a week of testosterone poisoning, and, two, a multi-week stint with a rather demanding guest around the house.

The guest in question, however, wasn't an unemployed former college buddy, a surprise visit from the in-laws, or a couch-surfing second cousin. It was, rather, a sixty pound, gloss-black obelisk -- Alienware's top-of-the-line gaming system, the Area-51 X58, tricked out by them with damn near every bell, whistle, and go-fast toy in their arsenal. And BI had their blessing to, and we quote this with great relish, "Send it back as a smoking pile of slag. But, seriously, watch Iron Man on the Blu-Ray drive first."

We were skeptical. Surely, entrusting someone of BI's questionable restraint with a valuable piece of equipment would carry more stringent usage guidelines than, "Give it back when we ask for it." They were adamant -- this was the third such system released to the wild, and they wanted it to be abused.

Fortunately, the conference call ended before our mad laughter began.

So, it's two thousand and nine. Sure, our digital minions are faster and more capable than ever before, but do you ever feel like you're missing out on the whole Gernsback experience? Where the hell is my flying car? This was supposed to be the future, but it's just.... now. We're still using magnetic media, transistors, and keyboards -- no fancy bubble chips, rod logic, or tactical neural implants (to quote Montgomery Scott, "The keyboard; how quaint").

So, what does 2009 have in store for us?

For one thing, Small Iron, and lots of it. Manufacturers and hardware vendors throughout the industry spectrum are anticipating a boom in the so-called "netbook" segment. Everyone from AMD and Intel to Acer and Asustek are gearing up in expectation of soaring demand for the ultra-portable/mini-notebook niches that were more or less defined by the introduction of Apple's Macbook Air and the subsequent introduction of the Atom and Eee PC. These certainly aren't desktop-replacement level equipment, but for folks who are frequently on the go and need something more robust than an iPhone or Blackberry, there's every expectation in the industry that these are the New BigSmall Thing.