Future tech for phones - day dreaming?

[Guest Coucou]

I know no-one really uses this part of the forum but what the hell. There's been a few really cool developments in technology recently which I reckon might lead to some amazing devices in the next five years or so.

1) Micro hard-drives, used in the iPod - the new baby one has a 1" drive which holds 4 GB, there's just been announced a 0.8" one which hold 2 GB which could fit into a space the size of an SD card. If they continue developing like that it can only be a matter of time before we have hard-drives on phones.

2) Micro fuel cells, not ready for market yet and still have some issues, but imagine the possibilities if methanol powered fuel cells make it into phones. I think it could mean higher power usage with a couple of seconds for topping up fuel instead of hours of charging. And lets face it - meths isn't expensive or hard to come by. (I drink it most days...) As long as we don't start getting exploding phones of course :)

3) Devices using including light emitting plastic which could easily be used to incorporate the light source into the keys instead of having a separate backlight (this does exist and will soon be seen in car dash boards, not that you'll be able to tell). Maybe you could even make the whole phone flash when receiving a call.

4) Displays using polymer LEDs which mean a lighter, possibly even flexible screen. Imagine a device where you could pull the screen out to enlarge it, but normally it's kept rolled up or folded away. What would be the difference between a phone and a PDA then?

5) Cameras incorporating an optical zoom - we're already seeing megapixel phone cameras, including a real zoom would be amazing. Micro motors are currently still experimental and probably a good few years off yet.

6) Genuine voice recognition. Well, maybe. That's software and has more fundamental issues than hardware does. Hardware predictions are slightly safer - particularly as everything I've mentioned already exists at least in prototype.

7) 3D Displays - I mean proper 3D, you look at it and think there's a real object - already on some phones in Japan so that's not too far off becoming mainstream. Still expensive mind.

Well, those are my rash predictions. If anyone reads this post let me know what you think :D

[Guest comebackdx]

Have you considered, micro-servos which would allow the device to shape itself to the function?

[Guest Coucou]

mm, sounds great! we'll look back in thirty years and laugh at what we have now.

Posted from my SmartPhone!

[Guest pacey2g]

hehe i doubt even 30 years,

more like 2 years, in 2 years well all be on spv e9000's and running smartphone xp2006, or sum1 wil hack a version of linux to their fone and we'll all want that lol

30 years cant even think about :s internets only really taken off since 1996 dont forget n look how absolutely huge it is!