Speculating On the Far Future of Cellphones 220
Trio writes "What will cellphones look like in in future? silicon.com explores five future characteristics that could shape tomorrow's phones — from a wearable prototype such as MIT's SixthSense device which projects mobile data into the user's world, to a mobile that mixes the real and the virtual by using holographic telepresence. So far, so futuristic, but one question remains: will there be enough spectrum to support all this wireless communication?"
a REAL cellphone (Score:5, Insightful)
SixthSense (Score:5, Insightful)
Never mind that it isn't practical to walk around with a huge projector on your chest, it isn't fashionable. There is certainly utility to a good web-enabled phone with plenty of apps, but I think people get sold initially on the style of an iPhone specifically. If people adopt new technology and new features in their next phone, style has to help sell it.
Otherwise, I think we're hitting a breaking point. What more functionality do we really want from our phone? How much more can you accomplish on a small screen? How much more money are you willing to pay for the device and the data plan? If anything, the pendulum might swing backwards as competitors try to ape 80% of the iPhone's functionality at half the price.
Re:a REAL cellphone (Score:3, Insightful)
So when you talk about simple, old-fashioned cell phones, what exactly do you mean by "dial a number?"
Fun, but pointless (Score:5, Insightful)
I can imagine a similar discussion in 1875: "What will telegraphs look like in the future?"
whatever fits into a "pocket" form factor (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe this will be the impetus to get voice recognition and generation software working well. Typing is always going to be a pain on micro-keyboard or touchscreen, compared to the alternatives.
Re:SixthSense (Score:3, Insightful)
As for functionality, there's no reason why your cell phone shouldn't be able to do everything your computer can (in the future), and costs of old technology will continue to fall as new technology becomes available.
a cellphone no bigger than (Score:3, Insightful)
Mini-computers (Score:5, Insightful)
I always figured that the future was in phone/PC convergence. Which is to say, rather than syncing your smartphone with your computer, your smartphone would BE your computer.
Coming in to your office, You'd pull your PC out of your pocket, sit it on your desk and plug in a monitor. It would connect to a wireless keyboard and mouse, and away you'd go.
WHen you left to go home or to a meeting, you'd unplug the monitor, stick it in your pocket and off you'd go. The only other thing is you'd pay a cloud service to do incremental backups over wireless or cell service.
Seems pretty straightforward to me.
- AJ
Re:Spectrum? Limitless, except for the State... (Score:5, Insightful)
I listen to the radio.
Why is it that because you don't listen to the radio, it is useless?
Radio is cool. It's completely free and I can find really good music on it. For free. No payments necessary to Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, or Sprint.
Re:Just to add a bit of dystopia to the thread... (Score:2, Insightful)
That would have been labeled as pretentious bullshit, if it didn't come from a relatively trendy British novelist. In which case it is better labeled as pretentious rubbish...
Re:Spectrum? Limitless, except for the State... (Score:2, Insightful)
"elsewhere-ness" (Score:5, Insightful)
Now when you are in a public space like a coffee-house, walking the street, sitting on the train, etc. many people are communicating with those out of sight and completely ignoring those in sight. To me it feels like a zombie movie.
Re:Spectrum? Limitless, except for the State... (Score:3, Insightful)
Not to your neighbours, or people in cars around you. I think you'd be hard pressed to show that broadcasting isn't a reasonably efficient use of the spectra in terms of the amount of content delivered to individuals.
That and everyday people would be left without as all existing equipment would be useless. Given the angst over the digital switch over I'd expect there'd be a lot of rather unhappy people were that to happen.
Re:Mini-computers (Score:2, Insightful)
I like this, but I really don't want to have to plug it in. And I'm not sure I want to have to carry around the intelligence and the storage, it would be nice to be able to pick up (or sit down at) a random device and have it configured the way I want it, with easy access to my data (this process does not have to be mindlessly automatic, just straightforward, so let's not talk about what a security nightmare it could be).
Re:Features, and lots of them! (Score:5, Insightful)
Even if this were serious, it only seems odd because we use the misnomer "cellphone" instead of something more accurate like, I dunno, personal digital assistant. Imagine if people insisted on thinking of PCs as typewriters (since word processing was an early killer app) and they were still called typewriters, and people started whinging that PCs shouldn't be able to run web browsers because "that's not typing," and "when will we all return to typewriters that just type!" It's nonsense.
Re:I see this: (Score:1, Insightful)
Its already here, Nokia N900
http://www.mobile-review.com/review/nokia-rx51-n900-en.shtml
Re:Mini-computers (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:"elsewhere-ness" (Score:4, Insightful)
There was an old stand up routine by Dana Gould that had a man walking down the street, talking to himself. Ten years ago this would be a crazy person. "You can't tell a Navy man when he's had enough to drink! Only a Navy man knows when he's had enough to drink!"
Now, you have to check his other ear to see if he has a Bluetooth earset.
I feel like we're in the "Slow Take Off" first chapter of Stross's _Accelerando._
Re:SixthSense (Score:3, Insightful)
I was very young at the time, but from what I recall, Walkmans (or should it be Walkmen?) were all the rage at the time. They were the stylish, popular accessory. A walkman with bright 80's colors and design probably would stick out a bit today.
The "stereobelt" was invented seven years before the Walkman, but the well-styled Sony product vastly outsold it even coming out seven years later.
Geeks always underestimate style in marketing and mass adoption.
Re:a REAL cellphone (Score:2, Insightful)
I think you'll find the GP was being a little sarcastic about wanting a phone that can just be a phone, but I understand where he is coming from when it comes to lots of features.
What I dislike about much modern tech is that many many features are there simply to be able to peddle further services (cameras are on phones so users have something to MMS, for example). Or features are crippled so as to up-sell to a better or later version, or to force the user to have to use a pay-for service instead (bluetooth missing the ability to transfer files is an example). And there is levels of branding and advertising on phones that would be called adware on a PC! A 3G Sony phone I had a run in with recently had undeletable entries in the music directory to the network operator's music download and ringtone download services. It was a similar story in other user data storage and application areas. The camera had features to MMS a picture straight after being taken, but also had a feature to upload it to a blog. Even the FM radio had a feature crammed in to encourage the user to use mobile internet connectivity - you could record a clip, upload it to some service and they tell you what the song was.
And the main interface had 2 buttons who's use couldn't be customised, which launched the browser and favourites. It's all about getting the features in the user's face, and stopping them from getting away from them. Kind of like a browser homepage hijack.
The pressure of phone maker's and network's business interests mean that phones don't really get any better in the way customers would like, instead they get more and more money making features, and the devices get hyped to hell as being the fastest and most powerful thing around.
I think many customers want a phone that is cheap to use, has decent battery life, and is designed in such a way that it will last a long time, i.e. waterproof enough that a quick swim in a sink won't kill it, and quite strong.
So we don't need features like cameras and MMS, mobile internet, podcast downloading, youtube support.... Or at least things like this not implemented in annoying in-your-face ways.
The recent article on /. about a wireless power standard would be very useful to make a phone totally sealed, and so waterproof. Electric toothbrushes have had cordless charging and been waterproof for 30 years, so the lack of this in phones is simply the industry dragging their feet. I'd bet phones damaged by water, and the consequential warranty voiding is quite the money spinner for phone makers.
Materials have come on massively too recently, so no need to think a tough phone need look like a 1980s G-Shock watch. Carbon fibre, anyone?
It is frustrating when there is only consumer crap available, and even more frustrating when seemingly smart people are fawning over the latest shiny!
mod parent up (Score:1, Insightful)
Or troll, if you prefer.