Smart Phones: What Comes Next

Karen props her phone on the table in front of her. It uses a combination of voice recognition and lip-reading technology (through its camera) to listen to and respond to her instructions. She reviews her Waves (new and open multimedia conversations) which are projected in large easy-to-read size onto the table, wall, or even holographically into mid-air. She answers or participates in most of them through dictation and voice-recognition instructions, editing them through use of a virtual keyboard, pointer and touch-screen that are part of the phone’s projection display; her phone recognizes and translates her hand-movements through the camera.

She also takes a look at her Subscribed Content, which includes blogs, wikis, updates to friends’ and colleagues’ personal home pages and tweets. Most of these are already embedded in Waves, and she comments on some of these and ‘subscribes’ friends to other Waves she thinks they might be interested in. She also looks at the active Waves that have formed around her own blog articles, and adds to these conversations.

She changes her Conversation Status to Available for selected friends and work colleagues, and opens some new Waves, simultaneously carrying on several IM, voice, and video conversations; the people she is speaking with, and the documents and other objects she is sharing with them, are projector displayed. Some of her closest friends she has on Continuous Virtual Presence Status — they can hear her, and see both what is in her camera image and what she is looking at on her projected display, any time they choose to, and vice versa (a small photo of them appears on her display whenever they are ‘with’ her). She calls up and plays a full-size projected Virtual Piano, practicing a new song she has writen for a free concert her band is putting on this weekend.

She is notified that Ben, a work colleague from Finland, is currently in her town; their GPS proximity-detection software, their scheduling software and their affinity software (which allows you to list people you would like to meet, if and when they are willing and able), have worked together to set up a meeting at a nearby coffee shop in 30 minutes. Karen’s phone asks her to confirm both her availability and her order, which will be waiting at her reserved table when she arrives.

As she walks to the meeting, she is told about additional special offerings on the menu that coincide with her profile of food and beverage preferences, and she changes her order by voice instruction. Her menu is added to her daily calorie and nutrition counter, which tells her how her consumption fits with recommended daily allowances. The calories expended on the walk are also automatically registered and logged to her exercise program. She also reviews some ‘auto-tweets’ sent to her by her appliances (an updated grocery list), her home monitoring system (lights left on, windows closed), her plants (some of them need fertilizer) and her cat RonRon (photos taken by his collarcam every 15 minutes, and a view from his current location in the laundry basket).

After several similarly-scheduled and coordinated meetings, she goes for a drink with her friend Rayah. They both decide to set their affinity software to Open, and they’re discreetly shown photos and shared interests of other people nearby who have also set their status to Open. They agree that a foursome of business travelers from Chile would be interesting to meet, and signal their willingness through their phones. Their invitation is accepted and they are directed to a table at the other end of the bar they’re in. The six hit it off well, and Karen and her friend show the visitors around town and invite them for dinner. Karen and one of the visitors begin a romantic relationship.

Back at home, Karen’s exercise regime is planned and monitored by software on her phone and sensors connected wirelessly to it. She also uses a biofeedback application to help her with her meditation practice and to manage her stress levels. As she uses her rowing machine, her phone projects holographic images of the Thames synced to the speed of her rowing motions. When Karen’s away from home, she uses easy-to-pack resistance bands to replace the resistance of the rowing machine, so she can do these same exercises anywhere.

The next day, her phone’s CarShare program tells her that it’s her turn to drive, and suggests the optimal route for her to pick up her three passengers for the morning drive. Her affinity software also tells her what interests she has in common with these strangers, so they have much to talk about. The speed detectors in phones in other cars along her route, and the overhead cameras of the department of transport, automatically feed information to her GPS, advising her of the best route to take. Her account is automatically credited with ‘gas money’ from her passengers.

During a learning seminar that day, she voice- and video-links in several other people unable to attend in person, and the backchannel discussions she has with other participants are relayed to the seminar leaders, who improvise the program to respond to comments from all participants. The backchannel also leads to an impromptu follow-up meeting with several other far-flung participants Karen has never met, who, she discovers, share an interest in one specific aspect of the seminar subject-matter. That impromptu meeting turns out to be more valuable than the initial seminar.

After the meeting, Karen accedes to her scheduling software’s suggestion that she go grocery shopping. She negotiates the list with the shopping software, which uses economic order quantity algorithms to minimize both running out of items and the number of shopping trips she needs to make. This software also tells her which stores close to her have most or all of what she needs, and the total price. Once she’s chosen a store, and even while she’s shopping, sensors on the store’s merchandise and elsewhere suggest additional or alternative purchases, and give her social responsibility, ecological and unit price data and comparatives on all the products on her list. Her proximity software tells her a friend is in the store, and they chat for awhile and agree to a later meeting. She also picks up items on the list of her elderly neighbour, and has a visit with her when she drops them off.

That weekend, Karen participates in a city-wide bike rally and scavenger hunt for a local charity. Her enrollment, selection of team-mates, sponsors and donations for the charity, and play-by-play event instructions are all coordinated through open source software on her phone.