I had some interesting thoughts about where mobile phones could go in the far future, and I wanted to write them down. Here they are.
Phones will lose their holes one by one, preferring at first multi-function holes and then proceeding to prefer surface contact receptacles for transmitting power and wireless communications for transmitting data.
Phones will get progressively lighter and thinner.
In fact, they will get so light and thin, that they will transition into a sort of paper, but it won't stop there. They will then become just like a handkerchief, a small piece of cloth with a very interesting property when you run a current through it. It will become hard, flat and light up with a touchable screen. Dropping the device or breaking the screen will turn it into a handkerchief again and result in no damage to the device. Take the cloth out of your pocket, touch it in a corner to turn it on, use it and then stuff it in your pocket to turn it off.
If technology improves to that degree, please also imagine 1) how much more resources it will consume than today and 2) potential military applications.
ReplyDeleteIf 1) sounds unlikely, consider that in our parents' generation, millions of families owned one low-tech phone made only of abundant, simple materials, and used it for decades.
Today, billions of people replace handsets yearly, and each is made of highly refined, rare materials. Imagine how much more fuel we'd burn to refine the heretofore unknown materials needed for a handkerchief phone, which is presumably even more disposable...
yeah, thats very true.
ReplyDeleteJon, I suggest that by the time that level of technology exists, your communication/information device will be implanted in your body and controlled by impulse.
ReplyDelete