Although the computers that we will be buying next year have yet to be built, Intel already knows exactly what they will be capable of doing.

PCs set to become digital hubs Top of the list is the building of wireless network technologies so home computers can act as a co-ordinating hub for all electronics in a home.

Next year's machines are expected to be much better at carrying out more than one complicated task at a time and much easier to upgrade and swap parts in and out.

Also on the list of improvements are changes to the way that PCs talk to TVs and stereos.

PC guide

Every year Intel produces a document called the Desktop Platform Vision. This details how it expects the hardware inside a PC to change over the next 12 months to accommodate the changing demands of users.

The 2003 document defines what desktop machines will be like this time next year.

Intel will only share the full document with the companies that are going to be making the PCs that consumers and companies will buy. But it regularly throws out hints about what it expects future computers to be like.

Intel bases this document on end-user research that studies the novel things people are finding to do with their PC and the difficulties they must overcome to do these things. The basic technologies needed to let people do more and to overcome the difficulties find a place in the pages of the vision guide.

To ensure that the technologies it is backing work well together Intel and its partners build reference designs that use early versions of future chips and peripherals to catch bugs before machines go into production.

The most important changes to the basic design of the home PC will centre around its ability to talk to other devices.

Wireless network technology is likely to be built in to the chassis of the computer allowing it to join, or form, a home network from switch-on.

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