I didn’t get the laptop of my dreams for my birthday a couple weeks ago. Why you ask? The answer is simple. It doesn’t exist yet. In fact, what I want - if it is to ever be produced - may not even really be called a “laptop”. I think I’ll call it a “lifetop”, short for lifestyle laptop. The purpose of the lifetop is to be a device for performing the simple, everyday computing tasks that you and I do in our daily lives. Tasks such as browsing the web, e-mail, RSS reading, text/voice/video messaging, and light desktop publishing. It does rely on the constant availability of a broadband connection. The lifetop is also not designed for intensive tasks like gaming, searching for extra-terrestial life, nor for mission critical work. However, I will emphasize again that this is a serious computing device. (Note that this is starkly different than, say, Microsoft’s recent unveiling of their Ultra Mobile PC, code-named Origami, which might be best described as the big brother to a Windows Mobile PDA)

Okay. So now that I have described what the lifetop can and cannot be used for, let me jump into an overview of exactly I envision it to be.

First and foremost, the purpose of the lifetop stems from its utter simplicity. After all, every day our digital lives are becoming more and more complicated. As fast access to information is becoming all but ubiquitous, our brains are being bombarded with constant streams of data. The last thing we want or need is our computing devices dictating our digital lives. The role of computers is only to provide us humans with effective, reliable, and secure means to access and manipulate the information in our lives. Nothing more. And this is where the typical PC fails. Why should you have to wait even a minute for your laptop to “wake up” so you can check your e-mail? Why should you have to waste time troubleshooting why there’s no sound coming out of your speakers? Why should you have to worry about whether you’re going to be a victim to the latest nasty virus? The answer is you shouldn’t. But, right now, you are.

Highlights:

Physical Design: Thin. Since there’s no hard disk or optical drive and not much requirement for air flow, the device can be absurdly thin. Combine that with the latest-generation LED-backlit LCD panels which are substantially thinner and I can’t see why a ¼” to ½” thickness wouldn’t be possible without trying very hard. Light. Less than 2lb. The only main source of weight is the case and the battery. The case can be made out of a carbon composite and the battery can be small because the power consumption of the device is very low. Durable. Because there are no moving parts and its light-weight, the lifteop can be handled roughly without worry.

OS: This is what really makes the lifetop. What I envision is a browser-centric UI. It’s not so much that the browser is the only application. Instead, it’s more like the browser is the OS. You press the power button and within a second or two you see a browser. Since the browser is the focal point of the UI, many of the UI elements that normally clutter up one’s screen are nonexistent. No taskbars and browser buttons (such as back, forward, stop) are conveniently located on the keyboard. So why a web browser?

The direction of software is towards being Web-based. Actually I don’t really want to say Web-based. What does Web-based really mean anyways? I mean yes a sophisticated AJAX application which provides a near-native feel is still a Web-based application in the sense that the UI is still delivered via HTML and currently that means you access it via a Web browser. But I like to think of it as rich terminal computing. If that makes sense.

The reality is that more and more of our computing tasks happen online. Think back 10 years. All computing tasks were done via local software installed on your PC. Nowdays, that’s changing very fast. The first big example was webmail. Already, in the latter half of this year we’ve seen the launch of several bonafide Web-based applications: Writely (word processing), NumSum (spreadsheet), Meebo (IM), I have to believe that we’re really just scraping the surface of what’s possible (ok uh that sounded eerily like Bill Gates in that Nasdaq commercial a few years back…I digress). Some people talk like the future is online Office. I’m not sure that’s necessarily the direction. Again, the lifetop, and the web-based applications that it will be used for, are meant for light-computing tasks. Writely has maybe 10% of the functionality in Word. It’s sufficient for 80+% of the users out there, and probably 99% of home users. However, it’s intent is not send Word into oblivion. Anyways, it seems like just about any software you want, there is a web-based equivalent that is under development whether it’s word processing, photo editing, or project management. So why deal with software license fees, install/uninstall hassles, crashes, etc?

The entire OS resides on the only permanent storage mechanism that the lifetop would have, which is a 1GB Flash ROM. A compact Linux kernel would be a good choice. There are standard releases of the OS which are automatically delivered like a 1-click firmware update. There are fixed revisions and the files in the OS are 100% read-only. At no point can any user operation make any modifications. No configuration files stored locally. And certainly no registry. Because the OS is small and stored on fast flash memory, loading is lightning quick.

Storage: There is none. Well, let’s say you have an SD card slot. The point though is that no user software nor user files are stored on the lifetop itself. Instead, they are stored on online file systems like Amazon’s recently announced S3 or Openomy. Storing files locally on your PC is inconvenient and really almost irresponsible. There’s so many ways you can incur data loss. It’s almost absurd that the average user needs to worry about whether his files are going to be intact the next time he needs them. Furthermore, online storage means access from anywhere. With the advent of online storage systems with full API’s, Web-based apps will surely be offering users the ability to store the files using them.

Multimedia: Since there is no local storage, the lifetop relies exclusively on streamed media. Which is fine because the lifetop essentially relies on a broadband connection. Streaming music has been around for what seems like ages now and video has arrived as well. Right now, streaming video generally means YouTube which is lo-def 320×240 400kbps. Soon, we’ll have DVD-quality 1500kbps XVid or maybe H.264 streams. Moreover, with software like Orb, you can easily stream media from any PC. So, if you’ve got massive music and movie collections from torrents you downloaded over the years, you can easily stream it, even over the web.

Ports/Interfaces: Ethernet to connect to LAN. 802.11 for WLAN. Bluetooth for communicating/sync’ing with your other lifestyle devices such as your phone, PDA, PC, and in some cases your car! Also it would support a Bluetooth remote. A remote for what you ask? Well, there’s a DVI out and typical audio in/out for hooking up to an a/v system for the purpose of home theater or presentations. Maybe even offer a nice little dock for this purpose. Another possibility is EVDO for broadband cellular access. There are no USB2.0 or FireWire ports since the lifetop will not support any third-party peripherals. Remember, we’re keeping things simple so no excess drivers or software to screw things up.

Price: Because the lifetop is light on hardware and doesn’t need expensive software licenses, it can and must be priced cheaply. I’m thinking $300-400 is the target. In the beginning, it would be marketed as a luxury device because for various reasons it would not be ready to be a primary computing device for low-cost users. However, as time passes, I could definitely see it taking large chunks of the home computing market.

So who’s going to build this lifetop? Well, remarkably, on the software side, I don’t think building at least a first iteration would be too difficult. Assuming you stick with a very low speed Pentium M processor, you could grab your basic x86 Linux kernel. Build some custom drivers and updating tools, add a customized version of Firefox and you should be ready to go. You would then need a nice AJAX desktop application (one can likely be acquired for relatively cheap since there’s about 10 companies which have relatively similar offerings). On the hardware side, the components are generally off-the-shelf stuff. You would need some snazzy designers to cook up a slick design for the device.

The real question is who has the marketing muscle to push such a revolutionary device. What the lifetop aims to do is nothing less than change the face of personal computing. Even if it is a great idea, you got to convince consumers to ditch their current PC’s, laptops, software, etc. that they paid good money for. Not only that, you’re asking users to leave their computing comfort zone. The one computing company that always seems to understand what people want and make it cool is Apple. However, Apple would be cannibalizing their own home-PC business (both hardware and software) so it wouldn’t be a realistic move for them. Sun is a big proponent of thin-client computing but they don’t know much about the consumer market. Motorola…hmmm…maybe. Nah. I think the best candidates would be the consumer electronics giants like Sony and Samsung. They have the money to influence markets, they understand the simplicity that people expect from their expertise in consumer electronics, they already know how to build portable computers and they have the brand image.

With the advent of Internet-based computing, The lifetop will be an amazingly simple, flexible and powerful device which will meet the needs of just about everyone. For light-computing consumers, the lifetop will be an absolute godsend and will be their primary computing device. For heavy-computing users, it’s the perfect device for when you’re not working on your primary computing rig. Best of all, though, it will be the cheapest, most reliable, serious computing device I will have ever used.