A virtual peek at the technologies that will transform the way we live, work and communicate in the next decade

Fifteen years ago, a woman walking down a street talking to herself would have been considered mad. In today’s era of hands-free Bluetooth headsets, the sight is too common to invite comment. Earlier, families negotiating marriages asked acquaintances to find suitable boys (or girls). Nowadays, they sign up on matchmaking sites. Employers routinely google (it’s become a verb) for prospective employees and check out their LinkedIn and Facebook profiles. In polls, the majority of people say that they would sooner carry cell-phones than wallets. Yet, 15 years ago, nobody had a cell-phone.

Technology changes society; the Internet has caused a paradigm shift across a wide range of businesses and consumer behaviour in areas such as booking airline or railway tickets, hotel reservations, e-billing, 24x7 ATM access, trading financial instruments, buying insurance and filing taxes. These changes were driven by new Web-based technologies like VOIP (voice-over-Internet protocol) and GPS (global positioning system).

At the start of 2010, it’s an instructive exercise to explore where technology could lead us in 2020. The effects of technology are often unpredictable and state-of-the-art technologies become obsolete in three years. So, predicting trends that will play out a decade later is, frankly, impossible to do with any accuracy. The chances are that any such prediction will be riddled with errors. Equally important, glaring omissions will become apparent when you compare these predictions with the actual turn of events from now through 2020. With that disclaimer, let’s do some virtual time–travel.

Some trends are constant. As any technology gains volume, it becomes cheaper. Moore’s Law still seems to hold—computer-processor power is still doubling every two to three years. The combination of these two trends means that electronic devices always become more powerful and yet cheaper. By 2020, every phone will be, by today’s standards, an incredibly smart communication, personal computing and entertainment device rolled into one. Devices like Nokia’s Booklet already show how convergence is the name of the handheld game.

Convergence will accelerate. Most phones will be e-readers, Web TV sets, game consoles and high-end computers as well. There will be close to 100% penetration of these devices. Even people below the poverty line will have phones. Practically all personal transactions and entertainment will be consumed via these devices.

Most devices will offer projection capability that allows them to deliver 40-inch or larger high-definition images. They will have multiple input options (touchscreen, Qwerty keyboard, voice) and built-in high-end digicam-recorders.

For example, any 3G device can, in theory, deliver HDTV (high-definition TV). Pocket projectors can already beam 40-inch HDTV images onto walls or ceilings. Three-dimensional (3-D) TV may also become ubiquitous, given further developments in active-shutter technology and the success of movies like Avatar. India doesn’t have 3G yet due to an appallingly mismanaged telecom policy. But there are 4G networks being rolled out elsewhere and it’s reasonable to hope that India will have high-speed mobile data access by 2020. Bad news for cable companies, perhaps.

There are many e-readers already in the market. The Kindle, Plastic Logic’s Que, the iPhone’s Stanza application, Sony’s Reader, Calibre, etc, all have their pros and cons. In the next year or two, we will see new players in this space. Apple and major bookstore chains like Barnes & Noble are looking to develop new devices. Google’s mobile Android OS and other competing products will provide full-colour e-reader capabilities on any smartphone. Plenty of people already read off smartphone screens. In another two to three years, e-reader formats will be standardised and much more content will be available cheaper. You’ll do almost all your reading on-screen by 2020.

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