In the event that you have little idea what the next Incredibly Cool Big Thing is (while quietly feeling as if everyone else does know but, alas, you, neanderthal, are living in, let's see, the 20th century), just read Bob Tedeschi's NY Times piece in today's paper, "What Your Phone Might Do for You Two Years From Now." Should the article itself fail to cause a startle or two, follow just this link to Readius and its foldable display. Or this:
SRI International’s software venture, called Siri, is more ambitious, in that it allows users to speak or write natural-language requests into the device (“Find me a place to eat dinner tonight with Karen, reserve a table and put it on our calendars.”), which will complete the task independently and inform you when it is done.
By the by, Tedeschi leads the article by calling the iPhone a Model T -- and closes with the report that we may someday be free of our dreaded carriers. (Be warned, AT&T, your time is coming, say I, not Mr. Tedeschi, all in retribution for your website "upgrade" that disallows use by your customers.) But I digress. Here's more from the wrap to the article:
Dr. Lippman, of MIT, and Dr. Winarsky, of SRI, said they could envision a not-so-distant generation of smartphones communicating more intensively with others nearby via Bluetooth and Wi-Fi.
Smartphone apps could, for instance, recognize when a doctor is in the building, and alert him if another person nearby had dialed 911. Or, your phone might capture images from a video camera around the corner from a subway station.
This idea, labeled “the third cloud” by David P. Reed of MIT, underscores the most profound change for smartphones currently coming to the market — namely, that they need not communicate with the carrier at all.
“Carriers used to control everything, and now the tables have utterly turned,” Dr. Lippman said. “That’s what’ll make the future so interesting.”
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