It has been 40 years since the first worlds mobile phone call, on a prototype called DynaTAC, was made by Motorola researcher; Martin Cooper. The DynaTAC mobile became a series of mobile phones manufactured by Motorola from 1983-1994. The first phone that went on sale cost $3,995 and offered 30 minutes talk time, 8 hours standby and a LED display for dialling and recalling one of 30 numbers.
Since the first mobile call was made 40 years ago, the telecom industry has grown to an incredible £800 billion a year. There are almost 7 billion connected devices and it is predicted that the number of devices will outstrip the number of people this year.
In a recent post on LinkedIn by Olaf Swantee he predicts what the next 40 years for the mobile phone may look like.
Here is a summary of his predictions
Beyond touch
Apple’s touchscreen iPhone with virtual keyboard and swipe gestures, Samsung’s Galaxy S4 eye-scrolling and gesture control and now Google’s Glass prototype, all suggest we are moving away from manual keyboards to motion and sense controlled mobile phones.
More video and data
With the rise of high-speed connectivity and an explosion of dedicated consumer entertainment, we will soon see data over take voice revenues.
Machine-to-Machine
We will see our phones becoming ‘smarter’. Olaf Swantee is predicting that almost everything will have the capacity to become ‘smart’. He thinks that this will lead to a revolution in both work and society. For example, wearable devices will be able to monitor our health as more efficient and intelligent city ecosystems become interconnected.
Graphene and new mobile form factors
Graphene is a material composed of pure carbon atoms. It is thinnest material ever made and yet it is one of the strongest. Graphene is also flexible and conducts electricity as efficient as copper.
We are still seeing developments around graphene and a number of early prototype development around bendable, flexible, super thin, mobile phones. This is is just the beginning for what might be possible according to Swantee.
You can find Olaf Swantee’s post here:
