h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I remember describing a few years ago to some friends, an idea of where I thought mobile phones and televisions would go. And I thought, for posterity, before it becomes a reality what I thought would happen - that I would post my idea.

Basically its that the mobile phone would become everyones computer (desktops, even laptops perhaps, would become obsolete), where there will be screens all around the shops and your house where you can project anything which needs a larger screen. However all the processing power would be in the mobile phone. Any additional keyboards (which could be as able to follow you as an infrared keyboard) or additional add ons could just be plugged in and provided at convenient locations. I remember one of my friends thinking it was rubbish (and this guy at the time was doing a PhD in computer science), he thought that phones wouldn't progress any further. But I've seen in the last few years the rapid increase in the power of mobile phones - whether that be in the format of SmartPhones like those that Sony Ericsson makes, or the PDA's like the Blackberry. And the technologies are converging.

I remember when mobile phones (or rather ones that didn't require a briefcase to carry the battery) first came out I was amazed when I found out people had basic games on them - like snake. That was the first time I began to think that PC's were not the only way that technology could go. I guess the really clever person though, was whoever it was who thought they could sell the mobile phone as fashionable. So mobiles started to include more and more things to make them appear better than either the competition or just the previous model - so that people wouldn't feel their phone was "out of date". Genius bit of marketing there.

But now the big technology companies of now, and particularly the future seem likely to be mobile phone developers - and the companies that sell and provide the phone service. And curiously I think this is how a lot of companies could become caught off guard.

I think one of the reasons I'm thinking of this so much now, is that years after my original prediction I can actually start to see it coming true... I doubt I'm the only one to think of this. But I do know of a few people who didn't agree with me - and it would be interesting to have a conversation with them in 20 years time to see if I was right...