[gorilla]

A few years ago, people were predicting mobile phones integrated into watches, cuff links or whatever was small enough to conceal it, yet today we seem to have a standardised size and the industry is focusing on screen size. While I will love the iphone's form, and don't mind the bulk of the N95 at all, I do still dream of a mobile that is just a tiny phone.

Using the apple remote the other day, I got to thinking that it would be a nice size for a phone. Granted you'd be limited in functionality, but there must be a market for ultra small phones?

What do you think?

[miffed]

For me the "small" novelty wore off years ago , I remember getting one of the first ericsson flip thingies , and I remember thinking there is not really a huge need to them any smaller !
I think the point that I actually started turning AWAY from smaller devices was when I bough a Panasonic GD55 (I think it is !) - this thing was the smallest handset I have ever seen , so small that it was too fiddly to use , and uncomfortable to hold up to your ear for long periods of time

The way I see it , initially there was a race to get all the components into the smallest package possible to avoid an "oversized' device , but now technology has progessed to the point that even the cheapest 'throw together' of a mobile phone is going to be small and light enough to fit into any pocket / hand - any smaller would inhibit usability , so woud be counter productive

The only thing I can envisage along these lines is a complet mobile contained within a BT headset type form factor - while this may turn some people on , Myself I'd rather just have the headset !

[Hands0n]

The only remaining answer left to "small" is in the HCI (Human/Computer Interface). At present this still consists of an input device (keyboard) and output device (screen). And that is the great limiter, our fingers are only so small and our eyes can only reasonably register certain sizes of information.

The next (and final) step has to be the introduction of large-scale AI into mobile devices and change the HCI to full two-way audio. By that I mean the phone is able to communicate with the human in the same manner that we do to eachother, through speech and hearing. Then, and only then, will mobiles be able to be made small enough to conceal permanently.

This is still the stuff of Sci-Fi, but it need not be too many years away. The need to engage in traditional human/human communication will be vital to our interaction with robotics. It will, inevitably, arrive some time - not necessarily soon, but it will come.