Article 2 The Future of Mobile Phones

This is a summary from the article ‘The future of mobile phones: A remote control for you life ’

Taken from-

http://www.independent.co.uk/student/magazines/the-future-of-mobile-phones-a-remote-control-for-you-life-448816.html and relates to an area of technology which interests me, which is mobile communications and its future.

This is an article written by William Webb, head of research and development at Ofcom, it contains his predictions for the capabilities of the hand held mobile phone in 2025. He starts the article by informing us about the various functions that phones that will be engineered in fourteen years’ time will be capable of. He believes that although the name mobile will stick it will have move well beyond that and a more accurate description might be a remote control for your life.

According to the article this phone of the future will be able to know what time to wake you, if it knows your schedule it will find the best route and compare this to reports on traffic conditions and decide when to wake you. The phone will of course turn on the central heating for you so you will not be cold when you wake up. In the event your home alarm system goes off your phone will immediately notify you and any friends or relatives you that are in the area.

Mr Webb believes the days of routing through your pockets for the exact change needed for the bus are numbered as this the phone will be your payment system, it will be your bus ticket and credit card in one, as it will also be used in shops to pay for your goods. The phone will be able to give you directions and also let you know if anyone you know is in the area. It seems this phone may replace a person’s personal assistant as it will handle your calls by taking messages when it knows you’re busy and record your favourite shows and convert them into pod casts for you.

Mr Webb discusses about how forgetting your phone will be quiet disastrous in the future because of all of the things our phones will do if a person forgot their phone it would be like forgetting their wallet, keys, music player and mobile phone at the same time. The article ends by discussing how technology will progress from today until the phone of the future, on how the development will be slow but steady.

I don’t know if I like the idea of this phone of the future, I already think technology is moving too fast. In no way am I a Luddite in fact I am far from it but I believe that technology is moving too rapid and as a consumer it seems to moment I buy something it is already obsolete.

I must admit the Idea of my phone knowing what time to wake me is something I like because in the rare event that the busses are running on time and there is no traffic problems I might get a few minutes extra in bed. I have never been very good at figuring out what time to leave the house as to be on time, I’m usually early which is better than late but that does mean I am missing out on some extra sleep.

Most of the technology he is talking about is already around today, what he seems to want is to amalgamate it into the phone and for it to be automated. For instance facebook already has location services and it is a good idea on paper to see if people you are in the area. But if you don’t want to see these people, what if you know them but don’t like them? They can see you too,  I can foresee arguments with mother in laws because I was only around the corner from her but didn’t pop in for a cup of tea. The tracking ability on these phones will also make it rather difficult to have an affair because you will need your phone to pay for the hotel but your wife can see you’re in a hotel when you said that you were working late. I believe it raises a lot of questions about privacy.

Using your phone as a credit card could be a good idea as long as some security measures are in place, if it is a safe and efficient method of payment I would be in favour of it because it eliminates the need to carry cash, which is always a bit risky if case of having ones pocket picked or being mugged.

Is it a good idea to become so dependent on one piece of technology? Remember the old saying about eggs and a basket. What if you forget to charge it?, will you not be able to get the bus and what if the network crashes?, will it not wake you because it can’t figure out what time would be best? This phone of the future sounds promising but I don’t know if it would appeal to me and I imagine this type of phone would be very complicated so what about people who are not that tech savvy such as the elderly? Will they be left behind or will a lot of grandchildren have their hearts broken trying to explain to nanny how pay for her shopping with her phone?