5 Ways Your Phone Will Change Your Life over the Next Decade

No one can deny that the smart phone has revolutionized our personal and professional lives. More than just a phone, they are powerful, networked multimedia computers that we carry with us every day. And, over the next 10 years, they’ll get far more advanced, transforming every business process including how we sell, communicate, collaborate, train, and educate. Following are some key developments to be on the lookout for over the next decade.

1. Your phone will be your personal assistant. The introduction of Apple’s Siri (an intelligent e-agent) gave us a taste of how advanced our phones could be. As Siri-like agents rapidly advance, they will turn into personal assistants, searching the web for you and delivering focused, highly relevant information based on how well it knows you. In other words, your phone will know your preferences, likes, and needs and will automatically compile, present, and share what’s pertinent to you. Additionally, forget just talking to a faceless voice. Your intelligent e-agent will have a face when you are looking at the screen and a personality that you choose. You’ll even see celebrities and cartoon characters licensing the rights to their digital likeness and personality to be used as intelligent e-agents for both adults and children.

2. Many smartphones won’t have a screen. The traditional smart phone with a screen will not go away, but you will have an option for a screen-less smart phone. This will be a very popular and highly adopted smart phone because without the screen, you get rid of much of the need for a big battery. Think of the screen-less smart phone like the little piece of jewelry people wore on the old Star Trek TV show. The screen-less smart phone will be touch and voice activated. When you tap it, you’ll be connected to your intelligent e-agent, which is part of a super computer in the cloud. Whatever you need, your intelligent e-agent will be able to verbally give you the information, such as turn-by-turn directions, reading your email, etc.

3. Augmented reality will make life easier. With augmented reality (AR), you use your smartphone camera to see a live image of a scene in front of you, and an AR app will overlay on the screen pertinent details about the image. For example, you can activate the AR app and using your phone’s camera, point the camera to a far off mountain range, and text will overlay onto the image indicating the name of the mountains, their elevation, typical fauna, etc. How does it do this? The app uses the device’s GPS, digital compass, and motion sensors to detect where you’re pointing the camera. But it goes much further. Imagine walking down a busy shopping district looking for a shoe store that sells a particular brand. With AR, you could tell your phone what you want and then pan your phone’s camera down the street. The name of each store and what brands they sell will appear on your screen, overlaid on the image of the street. Even better, this technology could also be used inside large stores to help you find specific items.

4. Your smart phone will have a 3D display and a 3D web browser … and you won’t need special glasses to view it. Instead of just viewing web pages on your smart phone, you’ll be able to go into environments (or stores or showrooms) and maneuver around in them, just as you do on devices like the Xbox. Alternatively, you’ll be able to see things sticking out from the screen, again without the special glasses. The 3D web on your smart phone will be a game-changer for business.

5. Your smart phone will increasingly become your wallet. Our wallets are switching from being leather to being phone-based. That means we will use cash and physical credit cards less often and instead make purchases using our smart phones. This makes security even more important. Currently, we do have near-field communications (NFC) chips taking hold in smart phones. These chips can help to speed a transaction when you’re buying something. You just get your smart phone close to a cash register that’s equipped with a NFC reader and you can do the transaction. In addition, we’re going to be increasingly using biometrics to ensure who you are. This will include having fingerprint readers like the latest iPhone, audio analysis of your voice, and facial recognition features in phones. By using all these things together—your fingerprint, voice, and face—your phone will provide a secure payment method.

This is just a small sampling of what we’ll see for future smart phone technology. All of these advancements are in their early stages today. So keep in mind that if it can be done, it will be done. The question is, who will be first?