The idea of a computer taking over the function of a phone sounds a little far fetched now because of the quality. With the idea of Internet II as being a high bandwidth network where real-time video and audio can pass, the innovations are countless. I see instead of looking for someone's telephone number, you search for their web page address. You go to their web page and click on talk to Tom. It will send a signal to their computer and ring, beep, or whatever, and Tom will pick up or if he isn't home you can leave an email or voice mail. This email can be automatically sent to his PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) where Tom can check it and reply through wireless communications, or the computer could re-route the call to his Digital PCS (Personal Communication System) phone. I envision that the PDA and PCS phones will merge into one unit though. On this combo device someone could check your schedule, if you made it public, through your web page. You could also have your GPS coordinates on your home page to tell people where you are. This is of course you made this information public or private. Anyway getting back to calling Tom, video will also be sent when you link to someone. Let's say if Tom was already talking on the computer you could either have your face pop up on his screen to show him you need to talk to him right now or leave a video message that he could check after he got done with his conversation. I do not see the PC taking the place of the TV anytime soon though. The PC will probably be the controlling factor, but the display of the TV will have to be big and spectacular for viewing while the display on the PC will be smaller and easier to look at being fairly close to it.

The physical apparatus of the PC will be changed into one central server for the house and network station in each room somewhat like the phones. Every user in the house will have their own desktop environment and own storage space on this main computer. Hopefully by then there will be a way to use a temp server incase anything goes wrong with the house's main server. Logging on to each of the stations won't be so lengthy where it has to restart the computer, like now. The user will just have to press their thumb print on the scanner, talk to the station, swipe their ID card, or use a password. All the programs will be run off the server so programs can be shared by the whole family or house. From this network your cars can be remotely connected, giving the ability to track where the cars are, or connect to a database of maps for directions.