I realize that time on the Internet is not the same as in real life but it never fails to amaze me how people seem to think that today’s new shiny toy will kill off off the shiny toy that we all were obsessing about the day before. We have seen this happen so many time that it get to the point that trying to make any serious value judgement about new technology next to pointless.

The newest ‘killer’ that everyone is salivating over is tablets and how they are going to replace everything that came before it. Desktops are history and laptops are headed to the exit door stage left, just like how netbooks were going to replace everything before it. Remember netbooks? Anyone?

Ya they were those silly looking things that anyone with real fingers couldn’t use without wanting to smash their heads against the wall after having to retype every second word, not to mention the need for some serious magnifying eye wear.

Now that we have come to our senses over the pointlessness of netbooks we are trying to get our tech killer fix by suggesting that tablets like the iPad and any one of the thousand Android tablets are hitting the market are going to replace our laptops and desktops.

To try and get a grasp on the reality of this delusion polling company Poll Position decided to conduct a survey where they asked 1,155 Americans whether they believed that tablets would replace laptops or not. They came up with some pretty interesting results from the survey which included the following:

46% believe that tablets will eventually replace laptops

35% said that devices like the iPad or Kindle Fire wouldn’t replace notebooks

20% had no opinion

It seems that the assumption that tablet adoption would be driven by youth might be wrong as well as several age related questions in the survey showed

49% of those between the ages of 18 to 29 do not believe that tablets can replace laptops

37% of those between 30 to 44 don’t believe laptops will be replaced

30% of those between 45 to 64 feel the same way

25% of those over the age of 65 don’t believe that tablets will replace laptops

On the subject when it comes to the different sexes more men believe it will happen than women who do.

53% of men believe that tablets will be able to replace laptops

39% of women think it will happen

As Don Reisinger form Cnet also found out:

If the latest research data on the topic is to be believed, however, it appears there’s no chance that tablets will replace notebooks. Just last week, research firm NPD DisplaySearch reported that 72.7 million tablets hit store shelves last year. That figure was easily overshadowed by notebook shipments, which rose to 187.5 million units. Perhaps most important to this discussion, NPD DisplaySearch also revealed that by 2017, tablet shipments will jump to 383.3 million, but still trail notebooks, which could hit 432 million units shipped that year..

Time to go looking for the next shiny object I guess eh.

Will tablets replace laptops any time soon? Some interesting numbers. is a post from: The Inquisitr

If there is one titular title when it comes to racing video games it would have to be Need for Speed regardless of which version you are playing. What can make it even more fun is being able to have a fantastic looking desktop wallpaper showing off some of the cars from the newest offering – Need for Speed: SHIFT.

So without any further ado here are some of my favorites from the larger collection that can be found at CS Effects.

8 Awesome Need for Speed desktop wallpapers is a post from: The Inquisitr

I usually try and save up the various wallpapers collections I run across through the week but this one that comes via Tutor Art was one that I just had to put at the top of the pile. These ten are just a part of the larger collection of 30 or so but they are my absolutely my favorites of the bunch.

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10 Gorgeous wallpapers for Wallpaper Sunday is a post from: The Inquisitr

I’m not advising your to get your desktop literally all wet but rather grab these great desktop top wallpapers that have to do with water in some form or another. I’m kinda partial to the matchstick one myself.

Top image unknown

Long Leaf

Drops of water on a leaf

Chill Raindrops

Watery Matchstick

Epic

Flight of fantasy

Dancing

Sunflower

via MachoArts

8 Ways to get your desktop wet on Wallpaper Sunday is a post from: The Inquisitr

What better way to start your week than with a new desktop of one of your favorite superheroes and with that thought in mind I offer you up these 12 desktop wallpapers to pick from.

The Batman II by ErikVonLehmann

Batman:Arkham Asylum Wallpaper by Igotgame1075

Joker Wallpaper by Jinchuuriki9

Spiderman Symbiot Suit by Altinaguiche

Spiderman 3 Venom Logo by Minitrucksmafia

Spiderman Desktop by Shadowolf07

Logan Wallpaper by GreyFrost78

X-Men 2: Wolverine by Thetrend25

Superman Wallpaper by Polainas9

Superman by Laurynl

Iron Man 2 War Machine by Optimus467

Iron Man Wallpaper by Igotgame1075

via psDeluxe.com

12 Superheroes for your Wallpaper Sunday is a post from: The Inquisitr

Valentine’s Day may have come and gone long ago for this year but that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t still be able to express your love on a daily basis with one of these beautiful desktop wallpapers.

They are my favorite selections from a larger collection that you can download at MachoArts.

10 Beautiful desktops of love for Wallpaper Sunday is a post from: The Inquisitr

Just as the seasons change there is a time when you just get the urge to change that desktop wallpaper which is one of the reason I am always on the hunt for new and interesting, and not to mention beautiful, wallpapers. This Sunday’s batch of 8 are a collection of my favorites from a larger collection posted at MachoArts of some high resolution wallpapers.

Flying

Galaxy

Apple

Autumn

Rainbows

Collapse

Night Sky

Ocean View

8 beautiful hi-rez wallpapers for Wallpaper Sunday is a post from: The Inquisitr

Retro is the theme folks and thanks to the crew over at Smashing Apps I’ve managed to pick out some great desktop wallpapers. There’s sure to be something to satisfy everyone even you cool Apple cats looking to be even more cool (if that is possible).

Top image: Retro

art:vs:me

Mustang

Grunge Music

Apple Retro

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Chevrolet camaro

Sensual Education

Retro

Apple Spore

Retro

Rainbow Virus

Retro Party

Appleseal Retro

Retro feeling

At The Core

Retro

15 reasons to go retro on your desktop this Wallpaper Sunday is a post from: The Inquisitr

With larger monitors and more of them being used in dual or multi monitor setups having a stash of great looking desktop wallpapers is almost a necessity. Here are some of my favorites from a new motherlode of great wallpapers I found the other day. These are only a small number of a great collection put together by ayesee on imgur.com

Enjoy

15 absolutely gorgeous backgrounds for Wallpaper Sunday is a post from: The Inquisitr

I really wish that the people who are making these stupid ass statements about how the days of the desktop are numbered; and the cloud with the help of mobile computing is going to rule the world, would get their heads out of their asses.

In the almost twenty-five years I have been involved in this industry I have lost count of the number of times that I have heard the same pronouncements. Whether it be from thin clients to universally cross-platform software I’ve heard it all before and yet here we are with increasingly powerful machines that don’t look to be slowing down along with an increasing number of multi-monitor setups.

Alan Patrick at Broadstuff has a great overview of what he refers to as The Computer Hype Cycles which suggests that every ten years we go through the same type of bullshit hype as companies try once more to lock more and more people in to proprietary cycle of computer use and data storage.

It’s funny how soon people have forgotten the debacle of Corel’s massive investment into a web based Java edition of the Wordperfect Office Suite. A move that almost bankrupted the company into oblivion. This is only one of the numerous attempts over the years to have people believe that the desktop was dead and everything could be done through the web.

Microsoft got smacked around badly over its idea of and Active Desktop only to have widgets become the hot property. The problem is that the widgets today are proprietary to the platform you by them from.

The idea that the desktop is dead, dying, on the way out is a fallacy.  The latest proponent of the fallacy is John Herlihy the head of Google in Europe were he says that “cloud-computing opportunity will make sure that every mobile device will be capable of doing rapid-scale applications.“

On the surface this sounds great except for the fact that it doesn’t matter how powerful some mobile handle held becomes there is no way that they can come close to providing a rich real-world working (or entertainment) environment.

The idea that people will be programming large scale corporate, or even home, software application on something like the iPhone is ludicrous and stupid. The idea that building todays, and the future’s, web sites and services will be done on a Nexus One only shows that you are an idiot or you don’t know what you are talking about.

Then we have the whole problem with two things that have to do with cloud computing: constant accessibility and security. At this point security on the cloud is laughable. Just read you news outside of the tech bubble. Read some serious security related blogs. Watch the real news about companies and governments whose clouds are being hacked into.

This doesn’t mean that desktops as we perceive them to be today will exist in the same box and dual monitors we use today. I totally expect that within the next five to ten years we will see one of the biggest shifts in what a desktop computer is to a point where is might not even be recognizable when compared to what we use today.

Given projects like Project Natal and other natural user interfaces I totally expect that computers in the home and business will be an ambient entity that is far less a rigid box but instead a network of interacting modules that will make up a home computer or an office (cubicle) computer.

Yes mobile computing will become more important but to suggest that the idea of desktop computers – or whatever they morph into – as being a dying technology is nothing more than self-serving statements by people and companies that have a vested interest in getting all your data into systems they control.

It has nothing to do with what the people will need or want.

Here we go again with more “the desktop is dead and the cloud rules” is a post from: The Inquisitr

Even though I’ve had my head down in some ongoing projects as well as writing here and my home blog I’ve been getting an itch t o do some desktop remodeling of my machine. As nice as the Windows 7 rotating wallpapers are (and the Bing ones are absolutely gorgeous) I’ve been looking for some new wallpapers to replace them with.

So it was kind of timely that I came across this post at Smashing Apps that had some great looking offering. These are the ones that are on my short list but I figured that they were too good not to share with you here.

Top wallpaper: Reckless Impatience

Female Robot

Terminator

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Selfillumination

Dark Asian Desktop Wallpaper

Shots Suck

3D Characters

Fallout 3

The Opiated Wallpaper

Abstract Flower

Ram

Alien Vs Predatora

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Desktop wallpaper Sunday – Some real gems is a post from: The Inquisitr

Don’t be silly of course it will because no matter how popular we might be led to believe that mobile is taking over the world the fact is that the desktop will always have its place. At least that is what the folks at AMD and Via are trying to convince themselves of in a recent interview of Patrick Moorhead and Richard Brown, VP of AMD and VP of Via respectively.

“I think you will see the resurgence of the small form-factor desktop,” said Patrick Moorhead, a vice president at Advanced Micro Devices.

[....]

“Companies are tending to go back to desktops,” said Richard Brown, a vice president with Via. “That’s certainly what we’re seeing.”

The one interesting fact that Mr. Brown pointed to was the growth of the desktop in Asia

Many consumers in Asia made their way to the PC revolution for the first time by receiving a small laptop or netbook at work. Now, they’re looking for some more beef as they use computers at home for work and entertainment.

“In China and elsewhere, those people have started to desire a real computer when they get home,” Mr. Brown said. “They want a bigger screen and more power. The desktop offers that.”

Personally I agree that desktops will be around for a very long time. I know myself that three is no way that I would willingly give up the power of the desktop nor the availability of using multiple monitors.

I do believe though that as with laptops and other mobile device that the desktop could be due for – as they say in the movies these days – a reboot. Whether it be more powerful and versatile all-in-ones or even a different way of putting all the pieces together instead of in a tower that sits on your desk at some point I think the desktop as we know it will change radically.

But change doesn’t mean that it will be going away in fact we could end up seeing a swing back as our lives become even further intertwined with our computers and the Web.

Will the desktop survive? is a post from: The Inquisitr

DMB – Dual Monitor Backgrounds.

This is definitely one for the bookmarks as they have a broad selection of categories for their selections of quality wallpapers.

Desktopography

A great site with a really wide range of styles available

InterfaceLIFT

This is always a good standby when you have a need to change your wallpapers as it has all sizes and number of monitors.

3 Great Stops for Dual Monitor Wallpapers is a post from: The Inquisitr

Twitter is all the rage with their icons popping up all over the place and everyone wanting you to follow them. Well thanks to Corvida over at SheGeeks.net I have a sampling of some rather nice Twitter related wallpapers for you desktop so you can always have the Twitter feeling close at hand.

For Twitt Lovers – [1280 x 900]

Minimalistic Twittering – [1280 x 800]

Twitter is Not a Chat [1280 x 800]

Tweet With Integrity – [1024 x 768]

Twitter Bird Typology – [1024 x 768]

Top wallpaper – Twitter Acronyms – [1600x1200] [1680 x 1050] [1920x1200]

6 Twitter related wallpapers for your desktop is a post from: The Inquisitr

People can be really passionate about the sports that they like and in the spirit of that passion here are some really great high quality desktop wallpapers for your desktop. These come courtesy of WallpaperArt.org where you can find the complete second collection of Sports Wallpaper and download your own copies free of charge.

Sports fans rejoice – High quality sports wallpapers is a post from: The Inquisitr

The Twitter developer landscape is a pretty incredible and diverse ecosphere. Whether developing on the web or for the desktop we’ve seen the beginnings of some really great ideas and products. Regardless of the operating system you can usually find a good quality client that will typically do the job done.

One of the problems though is that Twitter itself is a changing landscape which makes it difficult for developers to keep up with let alone add new features. This will become increasingly difficult going forward to as more networks, like Facebook, open up APIs that developers add them to their base clients.

This is why I think that developers of desktop social media network clients need to seriously start considering the idea of extending their products by making them support plugins. For the longest times one of the best things coming to desktop applications is this plugin architecture idea as it allows for the easy addition of features, either by the client developer or 3rd party developers, that can extend or improve the program.

For the Twitter clients, and other possible social media networks, this plugin extensibility would let the client developers concentrate on building out a good solid base program that can let them deal with the vagaries of Twitter. Anything beyond that could be handled by plugins whether it be one that could do all kinds of wonderful things with hashtag type identifiers, like #stocktwits, right through to the little things like being able to post the song we are currently listening to.

Just as Twitter itself has changed the landscape and encouraged an active developer community around it so could the client developers create a community around their programs.

So how about it bDule, Seesmic and TweetDeck … what do you think?

A suggestion for Twitter client developers is a post from: The Inquisitr

These days, tech pundits and futurists can’t go a week without pontificating on the future of computing, wondering (and arguing) whether the computer will be merely a tool to access “the cloud” or as an application set.  Even the most inconsequential software release (or failure) sparks this argument – the most recent example is the release of the Opera browser’s repackaging of a personal webserver.

Companies and individuals alike have been heralding the death of the computer as we know if for years, claiming all applications, data, and other innovations will live in a decentralized fashion across distributed networks -  Google’s office suite offerings are an example of this.  Everything from instant messaging clients to word processors, video editors to photograph storage, and email to computer programming tools can be found as browser-based applications.  But just because they exist doesn’t mean they should, as not everything needs to be achieved inside the browser.

Some activities, such as photo or video editing, are best left to desktop tools that aren’t reliant on crude Javascript or Flash plugins, and still others have no reason to exist  “in the cloud”.  The essential test is this:  does existing in the cloud add value to the tool, allowing easier multi-computer interaction?  Or maybe it’s a service that allows users to connect and interact with each other?

If it doesn’t pass these tests, the application/tool doesn’t need to be cloud-oriented.  It is precisely for this reason that the computer will never be just a gateway to the ‘net – besides the obvious hardware and software complications with “the browser is the future operating system” arguments.  With the ridiculously marketed release of Opera’s twenty-year-old technology, a claim of “the desktop isn’t dead, and we’re the real future!” rung out through some circles… this isn’t the answer either.

These arguments are irrelevant, useless, and ultimately nothing more than a well marketed fist-fight.  Computing’s future is likely a combination of desktop and cloud, making intelligent choices between the two based on the needs and value of any given application.  The real issue is going to be the interoperability and real-world use/abilities of the cloud – a highly relevant and critical issue only just achieving any semblance of discussion.

Kyle Brady is a contributing columnist for the Inquisitr, an entrepreneur, and has a future in science fiction.  He can be found at his blog, via email, or on Twitter.

The Cloud vs. The Desktop: An Irrelevant Argument is a post from: The Inquisitr

I make a lot of fun about the number of Twitter clients that are churned out at a non-stop pace equating to a modern “Hello World” programming exercise. I have also tried most of them as either new ones are made available or existing ones are updated. One can get kind of blasè about them all after a little while but every once in awhile some nice comes along.

Such is the case with the newest client to hit the web from Sobees called bDule. This client however is for Windows users only who have the .NET framework installed which will limit its appeal to a point. With that disclaimer out of the way bDule is a rather interesting client in that it supports both Twitter and now Facebook and it allows you to select from a wide array of templates to display your timelines in.

When you run the client for the first time you will see this template selection dialog (which you can change later)

Once you have selected the template you want to use the main user dialog will be displayed allowing you to now select what you want displayed in each of the different parts of the dialog. In this one I selected a typical email panel display and loaded up Twitter in the largest of the three panes

Then added a Twitter search panel at the top right

And finally I added in my Facebook credentials for the last available pane

I decided to try another layout to see how it looked but this time selected one that put the Twitter search along the bottom of the display

The only unfortunate thing with bDule is that is suffers from the same memory hogging that we are use to with the AIR Twitter clients. Sobees’ does say that this is only an Alpha release so time will tell if they can get a handle on the problem and bring the memory under control.

Other than that this looks like a rather interesting addition to the ever growing repository of Twitter, and now Facebook, clients.

[hat tip to Go2Web20]

A Windows Twitter & Facebook client to watch is a post from: The Inquisitr

<YAWN>

<STRETCH>

So did you figure it out?

I have to admit at my first glance I didn’t figure out what the heck it was other than possible just a silly Spiderman comic panel. Then I looked closer and though – damn that’s pretty cool and you can thank Zack Shackleton and Lifehacker for spreading the word.

What Zack did with some handy dandy diagnostic tools and some editing tools including GeekTool and Magnifique. He used them to pull a bunch of system information from the computer and created a dynamic package that displays the system info as word balloons.

There’s only one problem – it only works on a Mac

[hat tip to Crave]

Spiderman does Mac is a post from: The Inquisitr

It seems that for some reason that computer OS have this silly fixation about developing a 3D desktop. It turns out that Apple has something in their labs worthy of patenting. In the multidimensional desktop it appears that they want to take the familar parts of the OS X desktop and add depth, allowing you to stack documents or folders behind application icons on the floor of your desktop.

As Tom Krazit at cnet News noted many time these patented ideas never see the light of day but they are great for bloggers to write about and purists to complain about. Okay he didn’t quite say that but the idea is the same.

[image courtesy of MacRumors]

3D desktop in the future for Macheads? is a post from: The Inquisitr