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Technology will tackle world without wiresAccess to information will help change lifestylesJanuary 2, 2000
(CNN) -- Smaller, faster and wireless. Welcome to the communications world of the future where, in some cases, the future is now. And while there's know doubt we'll know more, will we be the better for it?
Whether it's a gadget the tech world is building, or a trend predicted by visionaries, here's a sampling of breakthroughs that may lie ahead -- and the benefits they may bring. Expect future cell phones to become small enough to hide in a shirt pocket. They'll also be able to sense their location and retrieve information about where you are. Seeing who you are talking to will become more common thanks to advances in broadband and wireless technology that can transmit and receive enormous gobs of data. As a result:
In the near future, the big winners in the wireless revolution are rural areas and countries with little cable or telephone service. "Wireless offers a way ... for them to immediately jump into the new world in terms of the information economy," says Greg Raleigh of Cisco System. Perhaps 10 years from now, a wireless Internet will allow you to work anywhere, tapping into your office computer network wherever you go. A personalized card being developed by Sun Microsystems can be taken with you. Plug it into a computer at your home or other location and the card tells the network it's you, and puts your work on the screen. "It's really 'create once, view anywhere, access anywhere,' " says Sun CEO Scott McNealy. In 20 years, say some visionaries, we won't even think about "connecting" to the Internet. If present research pans out, you may only have to think about a topic. Brainwaves would then make the request and the Internet -- maybe then called the OmniNet, responds with the information you want. In some respects, the future of communications will be less about people talking to each other -- because machines can do it for us. Your refrigerator, for example, may one day read the bar code on the milk carton, determine when the container is low, add milk to the Internet grocery list and, voila, new milk is delivered to your home. Or, this futurist communications system may keep you from being late for work. If it learns there is a traffic jam on your regular commute route, it could signal your alarm clock to go off 30 minutes early so you can take an alternate route. "Our belief is that anything with an electrical or digital heartbeat will be connected to the Internet," says McNealy.
While we wait for such wonders, you can communicate, even if you can't speak the language. An automatic translator device being tested by police in Oakland, California. It allows an officer who gives a voice command in English to be understood in Spanish, Cantonese and Vietnamese. The translator also comes in handy in medical emergencies, too. "Where people are injured it's always important to get as much information as quick as possible," says Oakland officer Tam Dinh. 2000 will be the year of e-mail everywhere. A computer won't be necessary, thanks to devices that plug into telephones or phone lines. The e-mail boom has helped the world improve its written communication skills, says author Constance Hale. "People are writing today where they would have been telephoning yesterday. So people are engaging with words more than they have for the last couple generations." And then there are e-books -- the complete text of a literary work downloaded into your computer for you to read at your convenience. "If e-books take off and as people read more, great," says Hale, "because the only thing that's going to make us better writers is to read more and to write more." As the information stream gets faster and more and more data comes to us, the challenge will be to use it constructively, says writer Halton Mann. "Can we put human communication to work for humanity?" he asks. "And even if we can do it, can we reach the recesses of the human psyche that will prevent things like (genocide)." In coming decades the Internet will be able to diagnose its own problems and repair them, growing and maturing on its own, perhaps deciding who gets what information and who doesn't. In the end, producing a better understanding of one another is something technology can help us do, but can't do for us.
Correspondent Greg Lefevre contributed to this report. RELATED STORIES: Special Event: Millennium 2000: Gadgets RELATED SITES: World Future Society
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