Question: How will this information change the computers we use?

Sarah Mount answered on 18 Mar 2010:

Well, for people who use computers the sort of work that I and my colleagues do will change things a lot. These days a “computer” is usually something you sit down to use with a keyboard and a mouse, or you might have a laptop or tablet (like the iPad) or a complicated mobile phone. The sorts of computers we use are much smaller than those and yet still quite powerful. At some point in the future computers will be inside all sorts of things in your house and school or work. Instead of a computer being something you use with a keyboard or mouse you might be able to talk to it or it might just respond to what you are doing. Also it’s likely that computers will start to do more things automatically for you. A colleague of ours is working on an “intelligent fridge” that can write your shopping list and send it to the supermarket and give you recipe suggestions for the food you have in your kitchen.