Tag Archives: future

Your phone at the centre of your life

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Phones are getting scarcely powerful. The recently announced HTC One  for example is Quad Core, with each quad running at 1.7GHz! I’m sure that would easily give my laptop a run for it’s money and probably yours too. Check out these benchmark results

And of course this capability is set to continue, how long I wonder until your phone has the power to do everything you need?

Imagine This

Imagine this – your phone is your only fully featured ‘computer’, your only devices with high spec processors and RAM inside it, everything else is simply a thin client.

So let’s take your TV for instance. Instead of using the manufactures self-built crummy operating system on your TV, where you have to fiddle with an impossibly difficult remote control you simply use the phone and beam whatever you want to watch onto it. LG are already starting to think like this and have amazingly demoed one of their concept phones beaming ultra high definition 4k footage to a TV screen. Your TV then just becomes a screen again and at the same time can now be even thinner and lighter and more importantly cheaper.

Why stop there? Think tablet. Exactly the same could apply. Your tablet essentially just becomes a screen which is powered wirelessly by the smart phone in your pocket. You flick the on button and your phone appears onto your tablet. Then when your neck and arms are hurting trying to write all these emails as you sit awkwardly on the sofa you move over to your desktop screen and keyboard to finish them off. No turning on and booting up the PC followed by logging into your account you just flick the screen and it appears.

Now it wouldn’t just work in your home, take it anywhere. The office, your mother-in-laws, a client you are presenting to and you instantly access your ‘hub’ from whatever thin client / screen you want.

Issues need overcoming

Of course I’m not the only person to have thought of this and there are a number of hurdles to overcome beyond the processing power of your phone:

  1. Operating systems are optimised for the screen size and not necessarily converge well as you flick between devices. Current phone OS are very limited when compared to full PC version. However Windows 8 is very much of this vain and maybe even more so Ubuntu. Don’t under-estimate the complexity of this and there is a fine line between something which works and something which is too much of a compromise.
  2. People are more and more multi-tasking with 2 or more devices at once e.g. watching TV and tweeting about it at the same time. There is no way people will be content to make their phone inaccessible whilst watching TV so this puts even more pressure on processing power
  3. Battery life. The one thing we haven’t seen a particular revolution in phones yet is battery power. The high specs one already struggle to last a day and with this setup there wouldn’t me much idle time for them so battery power will have to improve significantly to stand a chance.

But the more and more I think about this the more I am convincing myself this is the future. There is of course a possibility that we may skip this and jump straight to the cloud at the heart of everything we could do. This would avoid the battery issue but wireless coverage will need to improve significantly to make sure it worked everywhere but this might just happen quicker than the improvements to battery power.

Oh well, just a thought, back to my independent Laptop, PC, Phone, Tablet, TV

Wireless Power, imagine the possibilities…

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OK so you have probably heard about it in the news about wireless charging it was a pretty big thing at CES this year and it looks like all the major mobile manufactures  will have “wireless” charging soon. The technology is still very young and will need to be developed further before we truly have wireless power but it got me thinking, imagine we already had this capability what would the best use be for it? Yeah sure you could have more powerful tablets and mobiles but what new features and tech would it drive? Here’s a few of my suggestions:

  1. The electronic front door. Yeah sure you have these in supermarkets but what I want is to come home after a long day at work and not have to fumble for my keys. The technology exists for this – think your car – but nobody has it on their front doors. I reckon that is because it is a royal pain to feed in an electric supply. With wireless technology everybody will have one.
  2. Fashion – I could see it now, all the “cool kids” will have electric t-shirts initially with various flashing LED lights but further in the future actual screens on their backs showing their favourite band performing or maybe even their twitter feed.
  3. Electric transport – This would start small, assuming the technology would have limited power capabilities initially. So probably on start with push bikes or segways or various alternatives. Yes these already exists but are often limited by range and heavy batteries. From there it would then move up to more meaty things like motorbike and of course cars. Could this be what final kick starts the electric car? Oh and of course we might final get the hover-board!!
  4. Gardening tools – Ok these definitely already exist and are mainstream but I really get hacked off by all the wires. Be it the lawnmower, the hedge trimmer, the trimmer or the power washer I’m seem to spend half my time untangling or trying to avoid electrocuting myself by cutting through the wire. Most of these tools are available wire free in petrol form but that is messy and rather extreme for many people. So maybe not something new but definitely an improvement.
  5. Temperature Control – Ok I’m probably thinking Embroidered Polo Shirts Online again here but this time rather than fashion I’m thinking practicalities. We humans are quite fussy when it comes to temperature and like things a certain way, 37 degrees sort of way. That is why I reckon whether it be big thermal gloves with electric heating elements in them or summer air-conditioned jacket – like this one. I reckon people will love them.

So that’s my prediction, I’m sure there are almost infinite applications out there and the technology capacity / range will dictate a lot of what can and can’t be done and then of course there is the pricing which may prohibit use. Unlike some other technologies though I’m really excited about the possibilities here and think it will be a huge step forward for humanity when we final crack it.