Do you remember back in the early 2000s when your mobile phone, which was also your pride and joy, was the length of your head and weighed in about the same as a house brick? Do you also remember writing texts and watching the single line of text move across the screen? And having to write down the number from your phonebook, write your message, and then type in the recipient manually?
We have come a long way since then. If you had said in the early 2000s that on our phones today, we would create TV shows, video calling in real-time, and grocery shopping via voice command, it would have seemed unbelievable. But here we are.
So what lies ahead in the next 20 or so years?
No ports, wireless charging as standard
Charging phones has come a long way in the last few years. Previously, charging a phone would take three, four, or even five hours to be full. Today, you can generally charge a device in an hour. But soon, we will look at charging in a matter of minutes and via wireless.
Just placing your phone down near a charging hub and leaving it there for around 15 minutes will be enough to fill the battery. While wireless charging currently exists, it is somewhat slow. We can also expect to see all phones with zero ports. This means headphones, mic jacks, and USB leads will be obsolete, and everything will be transferred via Bluetooth or wireless. Again, we have some of this technology now, but the ports remain.
Insane graphics that are better than real life
The graphic on our mobiles today are significantly better than back in the day. For example, compare the famous Nokia game Snake with today’s popular online casino games such as poker, slots, and blackjack, which give users an immersive experience. The fast-moving graphics in casino games, combined with the sounds, are far beyond what we could have ever imagined ten or fifteen years ago, and this trend is set to continue.
We can also expect to see holograms when we consume content with our devices set up to project images beyond our screens, something exciting especially considering casinos and the metaverse.
6G on the horizon
While many of us are still getting to grips with 5G, phone stakeholders are looking at the future of 6th-generation internet connectivity. Samsung and a US university are already testing out versions of 6G technology that could offer download speeds that are some 60 times faster than what we have currently. That means we could download an entire film in just a few seconds, expanding the existing spectrum to over 3THz and investing in new hardware.
It’s moments of reflection like this that really make you realize that we all carry a mini computer in our pockets. We adapt to new technology so quickly, that it becomes hard to remember what we couldn’t do before it existed. It’ll be fascinating to see in 20 years time whether the incredible advancements we have now seem just as basic as the incredible advancements we had at the start of the century.
Caroline is doing her graduation in IT from the University of South California but keens to work as a freelance blogger. She loves to write on the latest information about IoT, technology, and business. She has innovative ideas and shares her experience with her readers.
