When you look back 20 years to the era of brick-like mobile phones, film-based cameras and – scary as it is – no Facebook, it's easy to see how far technology has come. But how far will it go? Here is a series at some of the most promising mobile technologies that are likely to reach maturity by the year 2031, delivering connectivity, convenience and portability on a science fiction scale.
Implantable electronics
Stare just a little deeper into the crystal ball and we'll find ourselves not just wearing electronics, but being electronics – the ultimate in mobile gear! Bionic eyes are being developed to assist the vision impaired, but beyond this there are some incredible possibilities. As well as in-built augmented reality overlays like the glasses discussed above, what about a set of peepers that have the ability to see infra-red or X-ray content, can magnify vision like a set of binoculars or block out bright sunlight and glare so you'd never need sunglasses.
Implants could also augment our hearing (we already have iPod compatible hearing aids), bone conducting teeth implants could double as music players and, though 2031 might be a bit ambitious, our cyborg future could even see our brains become digitally programmable so that learning french or how to fly a helicopter (think The Matrix) is as simple as inserting the right memory card.
Life, cameras, action
The camera glasses mentioned are just the tip of the iceberg in terms of technology that will enable us to record what's going on around us. Not only will the personal computer become a headset, but wearable, always on, camera systems like the Looxcie concept will give us the ability to literally record what we see at all times (though we can't see the off button going out of vogue just yet).
One of the most tangible examples we've seen of what image capture will become isn't a wearable device though. The Canon Wonder Camera Concept displayed at World Expo 2010 looks like a regular (albeit futuristic) digital SLR camera, but it takes zoom, resolution, video and technologies like face detection to an extreme level which would enable you to capture your holiday on unprecedented detail and beam all the data wirelessly around the world.
Mobile translation
One of the key barriers that has to be overcome when you are on the go in a foreign land is language – and we wont have to wait 20 years for a solution. Applications that provide real-time translation are evolving fast and following Google's impressive demonstration of its "conversation mode" translation at IFA last year, we can expect to see it leap ahead ... in under a decade it's likely that we'll be able to converse normally with almost anyone on the planet using these systems. Sure beats sticking a fish in your ear.
Programmable matter
Of course we have only just touched the surface of what technology will bring to our mobile lives in the next two decades (and we'd love to hear your predictions), but a last mention must go to one of the most mind-blowing fields of technology going around – so called "programmable matter". Researchers have already developed a simple sheet of paper that can shift its shape in different ways like some kind of autonomous origami, but in the future this could bring us reconfigurable, modular robots that can turn into almost anything – imagine a fishing rod that could turn itself into a ski-pole, then a spanner ... or a single golf club that could become a 7-iron or a putter depending on the need.
Source: gizmag