Where we've come from... where to next?

[Ben]

Recently I came across this little gem on Engadget: http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000430055334/

"WELCOME TO THE ENGADGET BBS
August 22, 1985 | 12:35"

Yep, you guessed it! Put on your time travel boots and hop back with me to 1985 and the Engadget BBS, and the top article of the day - Cellphones!

Nokia’s Mobira Talkman is the first one for discussion.

"They’re probably best known for their tires, but lately Finnish industrial conglomerate Nokia’s been making a big push into the wireless biz with its Mobira subsidiary (best of luck with that, Nokia!). Mobira just introduced its latest ultraportable cellphone, the Talkman (positively no relation to the Walkman, so don’t sue, ok, Sony?); clocking in at a mere 11 pounds, this bad boy will have you walking and talking in no time. Too heavy? Just have a junior exec carry it around for you!"

Closely followed by "NTT’s “Shoulder Phone”"

"Someday we’ll all have phones as portable as the 11-pound Mobira Talkman. Until then, NTT is making things a little easier with the “Shoulder Phone,” which includes a transmitter that communicates with your car phone (you do have a car phone, right?), letting you set up base in a corner cafe around the corner from your parked car, and wow (or annoy, depending on your perspective) the other diners as you chat casually on your phone."

Other reminders from our relatively recent past include the introduction of PC CD-ROMs, Windows 1.0. However, the Fuji ES-1 digital camera struck a particularly musical chord with me!

"The good people at Fotomat aren’t gonna dig this, but if you’re tired of running down to the shop to get your photos developed you should check out this new “still video camera” that Fuji developed. The ES-1 can snap 640 x 480 pixel pics with its 2/3-inch digital sensor and then save the images to 3.5-inch floppy disks (if only those things didn’t cost so damn much, anyone have a hook up on cheap floppies?) in a new file format called JPEG, or Joint Photographers Experts Group, that was created last year."

It's fair to say that in 20 years it's absolutely right that we've made it to having VGA cameras on phones, but what about all the other stuff we've gained? We're into the megapixels now, with integrated video and more storage than the computers of the day could muster - not to mention more processing power.

Back in 1985 I daresay it was impossible to imagine where we might be today. After all, "someday we’ll all have phones as portable as the 11-pound Mobira Talkman"! Yet lets try, if we can, and think of some things the future might hold for handsets. Any comments on the Engadget article are also welcome.

How do you think mobile phones will have changed by 2025?

[Bleubean]

I think its virtually impossible to predict what mobile phones will be like by 2025!

3 or 4 years ago had someone travelled back in time and told me that in 2005 id be able to videocall, surf the internet, take print-quality pictures, watch tv, make videos, send emails and so on all from the ease of my mobile phone, i would have laughed in their faces (whilst slowly reaching for a large stick to defend my self with).

Perhaps in 25 years time mobile phones may have came and gone. Who knows what technology will come up with next?

In only a few years time, i reckon we will see the following bred into mobiles;

* High-capacity drives will be common place on mobiles allowing for mass storage of music files, movies, video clips, pictures.

* The ability to record tv from the handset will be the standard.

* Brands like Playstation and Nintendo will enter the mobile world. Perhaps a new SonyEricsson PS750i.

Id *like* a hybrid between MMS and SMS to be created, a one in which you can personalise your text messages with graphics, colours, sounds etc which are much more advanced than the current EMS standard.

[Ben]

I think there are a few possibilities but I'm not sure which, if any could succeed.

There's definitely going to be a flirtation with wearable computing. Phones may well become a fragment of the electronics that are woven into our clothing and perhaps even placed under our skin. Quite how phones might be broken apart and dispersed around our bodies will be something quite obscure to be sure!

I think justice would be served if mobile phones became integrated into something else, as at the moment they're pretty much converging everything we might ever need to carry into one lump of plastic. Perhaps a watch will be the thing to topple the mobile. Maybe the wallet, if the mobile doesn't topple it first!

Having wireless networks all around us, such as those provided by the mobops, is certainly going to lead to exciting possibilities. The mobile phone might even become a mere piece of software, requiring just a username and password to access your mobile number on whatever device you choose, all provisioned using VoIP. SIM cards should have died a death within 20 years - they definitely seem a bit OTT for consumer communications. Hopefully the manufacturers will get greedy and start selling more directly in order to bring about this change, stopping a destructive mobop branding cycle and forcing them kicking and screaming into the roll of service provider.