Last week, I was widely quoted in this article about the future of the cellphone. Somewhat surprisingly, the reporter didn’t spend much time discussing my thoughts about the cellphone becoming a health care diagnostic tool. (Interested readers are encouraged to read this post for a more detailed discussion of this idea.)
This is unfortunate because I believe that this will be a real future trend. Earlier today I discussed how the rapidly dropping price of gene sequencing technology would revolutionize the pharmaceutical industry, but I also think it will change how food retailers market their products and how consumers use their cellphones.
Why is this? Because technology always changes people’s behavior. One of the consequences of more genetic information becoming more widely available is that companies will look for innovative methods to exploit that information and, of course, consumers will want to make use of this information.
Therefore, it won’t be enough in the future for a person to know he or she has a certain gene which is, say, an indicator of prostate cancer or some other disease—they will want to do something about this issue. Food marketers will soon understand this and will begin telling you, for example, that if you have gene X than product Y is great for you. But because such information can’t easily be slapped on a label (because the gene may be fairly unique to you), these marketers will look to exploit advances in RFID technology to communicate this information to you.
And this is where your cellphone will come in handy because, in the near future, you might be able to program it such that it identifies all of those food products which represent a good fit for your genetic profile.
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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 technology and future trends, nanotechnology, robotics, RFID, innovation, change management and executive leadership to a variety of businesses, industries and non-profit organizations and trade associations.
