Most of us take it for granted that we can check e-mail with our mobile phones. But not long ago, this was a truly disruptive technology that changed how we did business and stayed in touch when we were away from home and the office.

- Which begs the question: What new mobile technologies will emerge in the next few years that will change our lives?

That question was posed to a group of industry analysts, futurists and executives for key vendors, a group grounded in reality, not fantasy. Yet, they still suggested 13 technologies that will provide dramatically better mobile access, better devices and better applications. Some of these life-changing technologies are just around the corner while others years away.

These aren’t isolated technologies. Rather, for the most part, they build on each other so that one won’t be possible until another is widely available. But they all, in their own way, will significantly improve how individuals and business users are mobile.

Let’s see what the future holds.

Better access

Advanced applications and devices require fast, easily affordable access, but today’s 3G cellular data service remains expensive and, with typical speeds between 400Kbit/sec. and 700Kbit/sec., slow. That’s about to change, however, and the pace of change will remain rapid into the foreseeable future.

Disruption 1: Mobile WiMax (read more … )
Disruption 2: Multihop relay networks (read more … )
Disruptions 3 and 4: Femtocells and fixed-mobile convergence (read more …)

Better devices

With faster, more ubiquitous access, devices can start to radically change.

“Imagine a Bluetooth headset in your ear but that’s the phone,” said Dan Burrus, CEO of Burrus Research Inc. and author of the book Technotrends. “And it will continue to get smaller from there until it’s implanted in your ear. You ask for whatever you need [with your voice] and it will tell you the answers.”
However, smaller, more powerful phones themselves will be the end result of several enabling disruptions, Burrus and the other experts agree. These disruptions may seem relatively minor but, added together, they will result in the phones and applications of tomorrow.

Disruption 5: Miniscule, less power-hungry mobile chips (read more …)
Disruption 6: Wireless USB and ultrawideband (read more …)
Disruption 7: Nearly flawless speech recognition (read more …)
Disruption 8: Foldable displays and e-paper (read more …)
Disruption 9: Centralized storage (read more …)

Better applications

So what do we do with these powerful, tiny, highly connected devices with satisfying input and output? The answer, of course, is new, innovative applications.

We can’t hope to cover all the potentially disruptive applications of the future, but we can describe why a few will change your life. We’d love to hear your choices in the comments section of this story.

Disruption 10: Unified communications (read more …)
Disruption 11: Mobile commerce (read more …)
Disruption 12: Mobile security (read more …)
Disruption 13: Augmented reality (read more …)

Source: ComputerWorld