The device was inspired both by the advent of video calling and the
traditional practice of carrying pictures of family and friends with
you.
The handset is designed to sit as a picture frame wherever the user is,
serving the dual purpose of communications device and a comforting
familiar focal point at home, at work or when away:
Multi-sensoryThe
device works with the sense of smell, sight, hearing and touch. The
user experiences communication on a multi-sensory level. It can detect,
transmit and emit smell. It can also radiate colours, light and
temperature from a caller's environment.
Blog a lotThis
phone is for those who do a blog and provides a fast, easy and more
advanced blogging device. The phone has four layers, allowing for a
multitude of functions and different methods of use. It can also be
treated like a photo album, with images easily retreived, tagged and
published on the blog.
There are currently about 3.2 billion mobile subscribers in the world,
and that number is expected to grow by at least a billion in the next
few years. Today, mobile phones are more prevalent than cars (about 800
million registered vehicles in the world) and credit cards (only 1.4
billion of those). While it took 100 years for landline phones to
spread to more than 80% of the countries in the world, their wireless
descendants did it in 16. And fewer teens are wearing watches now
because they use their phones to tell time instead (somewhere Chester Gould
is wondering how he got it backwards). So it's safe to say that the
mobile phone may be the most prolific consumer product ever invented.
However,
have you ever considered just exactly how powerful these ubiquitous
devices are? The phone that you have in your pocket, pack, or handbag
is probably ten times more powerful than the PC you had on your desk
only 8 or 9 years ago (assuming you even had a PC; most mobile users
never have). It has a range of sensors that would do a martian lander
proud: a clock, power sensor (how low is that battery?), thermometer
(because batteries charge poorly at low temperatures), and light meter
(to determine screen backlighting) on the more basic phones; a location
sensor, accelerometer (detects vector and velocity of motion), and
maybe even a compass on more advanced ones. And most importantly, it is
by its very nature always connected.
Project out these trends
another ten years. You will be carrying with you, 24x7 (a recent study
of Chinese mobile customers showed that the majority of them sleep
within a meter of their phones), a very powerful, always connected,
sensor-rich device. And the cool thing is, so will everyone else. So
what are you going to do with it that you aren't doing now? Here are
some possibilities:
Smart alerts:
Your phone will be smart about your situation and alert you when
something needs your attention. This is already happening today -- eBay
can text you when you've been outbid, and alert services (such as
Google News) can deliver news, sports, or stock updates to you. In the
future these applications will get smarter, patiently monitoring your
personalized preferences (which will be stored in the network cloud)
and delivering only the information you desire. One very useful
scenario: your phone knows that you are heading downtown for dinner,
and alerts you of transit conditions or the best places to park.
Augmented reality:
Your phone uses its arsenal of sensors to understand your situation and
provide you information that might be useful. For example, do you
really want to know how much is that doggy in the window? Your phone,
with its GPS and compass, knows what you are looking at, so it can tell
you before you even ask. Plus, what breed it is and the best way to
train him.
Crowd sourcing goes mainstream:
Your phone is your omnipresent microphone to the world, a way to
publish pictures, emails, texts, Twitters, and blog entries. When
everyone else is doing the same, you have a world where people from
every corner of the planet are covering their experiences in real-time.
That massive amount of content gets archived, sorted, and re-deployed
to other people in new and interesting ways. Ask the web for the most
interesting sites in your vicinity, and your phone shows you reviews
and pictures that people have uploaded of nearby attractions. Like what
you see? It will send you directions on how to get there.
Sensors everywhere: Your
phone knows a lot about the world around you. If you take that
intelligence and combine it in the cloud with that of every other
phone, we have an incredible snapshot of what is going on in the world
right now. Weather updates can be based on not hundreds of sensors, but
hundreds of millions. Traffic reports can be based not on helicopters
and road sensors, but on the density, speed, and direction of the
phones (and people) stuck in the traffic jams.
Tool for development: Your
phone may be more than just a convenience, it may be your livelihood.
Already, this is true for people in many parts of the world: in
southern India, fishermen use text messaging to find the best markets
for their daily catch, in South Africa, sugar farmers can receive text
messages advising them on how much to irrigate their crops, and
throughout sub-Saharan Africa entrepreneurs with mobile phones become
phone operators, bringing communications to their villages. These
innovations will only increase in the future, as mobile phones become
the linchpin for greater economic development.
The future-proof device: Your
phone will open up, as the Internet already has, so it will be easy for
developers to create or improve applications and content. The ones that
you care about get automatically installed on your phone. Let's say you
have a piece of software on your phone to improve power management (and
therefore battery life). Let's say a developer makes an improvement to
the software. The update gets automatically installed on your phone,
without you lifting a finger. Your phone actually gets better over time.
Safer software through trust and verification:
Your phone will provide tools and information to empower you to decide
what to download, what to see, and what to share. Trust is the most
important currency in the always connected world, and your phone will
help you stay in control of
your information. You may choose to share nothing at all (the default
mode), or just share certain things with certain people -- your circle
of trusted friends and family. You'll make these decisions based on
information you get from the service and software providers, and the
collective ratings of the community as well. Your phone is like your
trusted valet: it knows a lot about you, and won't disclose an iota of
it without your OK.
Now, if we can just train it to do your laundry ...
take a look at some near future models: