They’re already fairly incredible, but mobile phones increasingly seem to belong to the realm of science fiction. Think of all the things that Star Trek promised: automatic doors, computers that talk back and brick sized audio only hand held communicators that went “beepety beep!”

Now look at your mobile phone; it’s already better than the Communicator, Captain Kirk couldn’t even send texts. Phones can now take high definition pictures and film, have full html web browsing, can play television, music and even operate live Google Maps. The technology of mobile phones has developed to a point when they’re almost becoming less about the capacity to call and more about the capacity to download and enjoy the entire Star Trek back catalogue on the side of a mountain, in HD.

Ten years ago we were still impressed by digital watches, but now we’re going to look forward to some of the even more incredible possibilities for our mobile phone technology.

1. Near Field Communication

We’re starting with potentially the least thrilling, but is still set to impact our lives. Near Field Communication (NFC) technology is a new radio based technology, already being implemented in some of the new generations of phone, that allows devices to communicate fast and intelligent data seamlessly when brought into close proximity with another device. The primary use of this technology will be for contactless payment systems, essentially turning your phone into a contactless bank card. NFC could change the way we buy, removing bank cards and cash, with all our transactions done with the swipe of a phone.

2. GPS Search Engines

This is another currently implementing technology. Most phones are tracked with GPS as standard and also feature full html web browsers, the search engine companies (Google and Bing) have therefore harnessed the capabilities of GPS. Meaning that when you make a Google search, it won’t just hunt the whole web, Google will use GPS to know your vicinity and search for specifically local information. Social medias are also getting in on the act, so long as your phone is logged into Facebook it will know exactly where you are, as well as your friends, if they’re nearby. This sort of GPS integration will completely change the way we shop on high streets and bump into acquaintances, although this could ruin hide and seek forever.

3. Hologram Phones

Now we’re getting to proper science fiction, current concept promotions for the iPhone 5 are promising holographic interface. A Pico Projector will project the image of a keyboard and then lasers will understand the movements of your fingers and allow you to type on any surface. It also promises to project your HD screen so that you can watch full screen video on any surface in any situation. The iPhone 5 is promising real science fiction technology, this looks almost as good as R2 D2’s holographic projector, whilst fitting in your pocket.

4. Google Glasses

The final future phone has gone so far that it’s no longer really a mobile phone. Google’s Project Glass is still a long way from actual public consumption, but the few promotional videos they have released whisper of gadgets we barely even dreamed of: augmented reality. Attaching to the side of your glasses, it will give us a heads up display from science fiction and provide all the functions of a current Android. Providing a seamless enhanced reality that will let us know when friends are near and download maps directly to our vision a bit like the Terminator.

So watch out the present because here comes the future. Most of these game changing technologies are no more than a year away from changing the way we live our lives. After already incredible innovation in phones, the digital revolution shows no signs of slowing down and we’re sure to have more incredible technologies to come.

 

Guest Author Bio: We hope you found this guest post interesting. The author is Mobile Choices, a mobile phone comparison website, focusing on the UK market.

 

By Techwacky

Editor-in-Chef of TechWacky.com