Beyond the iphone

The world Apple is another way of spelling change. Down the years, the company has given us technology for tomorrow. A break from whats out there to something which isnt !!

It did that with the first MAC, the AQUA OS, the iPod and now the iPhone which they unleashed yesterday. A phone without buttons - not even numbers, a phone with motion senssors to know what is up and what is down - a cool first, the phone combined with the best in music - the iPod built in to it.

Nokia, Motorola, Sony - make way for the iPhone.

I was stunned when my cousin passed me the link to a video talking about the iPhone features. It was not the usual as can be expected from Apple. It is yet another revolution, as have been all its products down the years.

Today the phone has become the point of convergence of multimedia, camera, music, voice, data, internet, and all the hi-tech technology at the pinnacle of modern science. you have smart phones which attach to TV sets, keyboards and everything you could want.

Perhaps today iPhone represents the beginning of a new tomorrow.

But a phone none the less. Apple chamged everything but the familiar shape of the phone to be still a phone, which you can put in your pocket. need to punch in the numbers with your fingers and hold it your ears to listen and talk. It is sill a smart phone - some very smart hardware controlled by perhaps the world's best and the smartest software - the apple OS.

I dream of a device which will not be called a phone anymore. It could be called a personal assistant or anything else - but not a phone. the device will have an optional use screen which you would want to use only if you want to see something happening or maybe a movie or the net.

The future will be an AI device with voice commands just like the on-board computers in all sci-fi movies. What you require today is a phone to assist you in connecting to the rest of the world.
What you need tomorrow is a phone which can be operated by minimal touches and pushes to a button - something which the iPhone is.

What you need day-after-tomorrow is a device which even thinks for you in a limited way - and frees you that way.

How about this.

You have this device in your pocket. A ear piece (powered by bluetooth) in your ear. you are driving a car or maybe cooking dinner at home. you suddenly want to call and check for the recipe or check the way. all you do is talk to your device and ask it !!

It could be a typical question like "Call up Mom urgent, need to check the recipe for this curry I am making".

The intelligent device senses the requirement, looks up your mom's number and calls in automatically. So far so good. they do that in most sci-fi movies. Whats new ?

It gets interesting now. When your mom’s phone is answered, the device spares you of the usual chore of saying hello and asking for your mom. It does it for you – a robotic voice speaks to the called and says “Hey this is Marie in here, are you her mom. There is something urgent she needs to check with you about the curry she is cooking”. The person says “yes”, the device simply connects you like a phone and you are on to it.

If the person is not your mom, the device can sense the “no” in all the languages it has been programmed to understand and in the reply language it will take the conversation further and ask “Marie wants to speak to her mom urgently – can you please call her ?”

Rest assured if Mom is away having a bath and the bai picks up the phone, she would perhaps hear a robotic voice conversing with her in Marathi.

Scene two. You talk to your device on the road and ask “hey damn, I am low on gas, I want to find the nearest petrol station which will accept my petrol card. The device now looks up the paid service you have from google maps which lists the petrol pumps of your choice. How does it know your choice? You have punched in your card details in the encrypted wallet of your device and it can use the information !!

The phone by default has a GPS (global positioning system) within itself and so needs no directions to know which way we are heading in the car and where the most probable petrol station is !!

All your have done is ask the question and without punching a button or even removing your device, you get a response back to you saying “you need to take the next service station after two major signals on your left” . now would you want to call such an intelligent device just a phone ?

Playing music is just a voice command away, but with a difference. If the device senses that you are in your car, and you have a compatible open standards based car system, it will stream the music to your car audio system, ditto at home !!

Reading out your daily news subscription over the net, “telling” you about your key stocks each morning, is just one of the tasks of the device.

Now moving on – why would you need a screen with this device – certainly not for the internet. The screen is always so small for browsing and checking email. Any way this would be checked auto by the device with your voice commands.

How about “log in to my gmail account and tell me about my new email”. Right from the wallet comes your user id and password, autologon to the gmail account and ofcourse it will read out the email you have. And you can intelligently converse with the device and ask “Ok – are there any new emails from my wife” and the device looks up the sender and if it sees one reads out the subject to you. Ofcourse it can reply back to emails and take your dictation about what to reply !

Imagine you are in a call and you need to know if you are free to meet someone Friday evening at 06:00 pm. All you need to do is call out to your phone mate, it auto holds your phone (perhaps plays Yanni to the other person on hold) and answers your query by looking up your calendar.

Do you always have the fear of loosing your cell phone and some unscrupulous guy changing the SIM to make his own ?

We are talking about the Day after tomorrow. Phone Tracker would be a service which TRAI would have made cumpolsary for all Mobile phone companies to offer. At a nominal cost, your phone will be tracked by the mobile service vendor at the hardware level. so even if your phone is to change a SIM, it will require biometric authentication of scanning your retina and ofcourse your finger prints !

This device would no doubt be your dictaphone, camera, music player, all in one and it would also have the option by charging by the sunlight if you keep it in a well lit area.

youve ever wondered if a mobile device like this which is so small can ever replace the desktop computer ? well the answer is a yes. when you do need to work on the big-screen all you need to do is lodge this device on an open standards base which can be wirelessly connected to a live keyboard or a big TFT or TV. In fact it is so versatile and advanced that you do not need any of this.

It actually has technology which will have laser projection to pop up a screen or even connect to your Digital Ray Ban glasses for on screen projection. And it has the state of the art touch screen keyboard. Touch screen a laser projected keyboard, not an actual touch screen.

What do you call a device like this for the day after tomorrow ?

Will Einstein do ?