Jesus Diaz has written an interesting essay on the future of computing:
The fact is that computers and digital photography empowered us to create amazing things that weren’t possible in the analog world. Buy by doing so, they took away the natural connection with the medium. It added a necessary-but-completely-alien layer of complexity to the creative process. They democratized access, but at the same time created new elites. And that’s the key to understand the success of touch computers. They are giving back the tools to the masses because the masses no longer feel alienated by the tools. The touch interface is making things natural and is making developers to simplify the access to their tools. And, by doing that, everyone will have more power than ever.