Sometimes the world is moving so fast that even I have a hard time keeping up with the pace of accelerating technologies—and I devote a good part of my day to making it a point to stay on top of these things. Well, anyways, yesterday I wrote a posting on the swiss army phone of the future in which I decribed how the phone of the future will not only serve as a phone, address book, MP3/video player, Internet browser and video recorder, but also as a medical diagnotician and a personal cash dispenser.
No sooner had I posted the article, though, than I came across this article from Technology Review explaining how advances in software will soon help business travelers more easily read their documents on a cellphone screen; as well as this slightly older article from BBC News entitled ”Hand-held supercomputers on the way.”
The latter article wasn’t terribly insightful, but it did remind me that due to advances in nanotechnnology—especially in the fields of nanowires (such as this one announced today) and carbon nanotubes—the cellphone of the future will likely have the processing capability of today’s most powerful supercomputers. If you wondering where this might lead, I’d encourage you to watch the short video posted below that shows how researchers at Accenture have developed an algorithm that allows phone users to snap a picture of an object and then have that object searched over the Internet.
Among the other things that this will allow users to do is take a picture of a food item in the store and not only do a quick price comparison as well as learn about its calorie count, the users could even find out if all the ingredients are organic and discern what other food types or wines might go with the product in question.
In short, I think it is safe to say that the phone of the future will become an even more indispensable part of our life than it already is.
Related Posts
The Swiss Army Phone of the Future: Part 1
Voiceless Communication to Augment Human Intelligence
Jack Uldrich is a writer, futurist, public speaker and host of jumpthecurve.net. He is the author of seven books, including Jump the Curve and The Next Big Thing is Really Small: How Nanotechnology Will Change the Future of Your Business. He is also a frequent speaker on future trends, innovation, change management and executive leadership to a variety of businesses, industries and non-profit organizations and associations.
