Digital photo frames
There are very few new technologies that become standard inside of 10 years. Back in mid 90s the "cutting edge" of technology was a Sony camera with a 640x480 resolution (0.3 megapixels) that was large enough to include a floppy disc drive to store pictures. Today it's hard to even find a film camera. In fact, phones such as the SE K800i and Nokia N73 have Carl Zeiss equipped 3.2 megapixel cameras that produce better pictures than a lot of dedicated cameras. Suddenly you could take as many photos as you wanted (batteries and memory cards permitting) and only print the good ones. But you were still left with physical prints which had to be stored in albums. There's no point in photos if no one can see them, so whilst 2006 saw the rise of sites such as Flickr you still need to be at a computer to see the photos. Digital photo frames are simply LCD screens incorporated into a frame surround that can be set to display digital pictures and film clips. This lets one frame display several pictures for set amounts of time. Most include memory card slots so photos can be taken directly from the camera and some even feature wifi so photos can be downloaded from sites such as Flickr. At the moment the screens have pretty high ppi values but low screen sizes. The most common is 7" which is roughly equivalent to a 6"x4" photo. Not exactly large. Having been spoilt by the cheap, high quality prints Matt and I got last summer I'd hope for 8"x10" (~12") screens at a decent price soon. I've been tracking the prices of digital photo frames for a couple of years now and they are fast approaching the threshold of "impulse buy". They used to be £250, but prices have now fallen below £40. I'm going to predict that - like DAB radios a couple of years ago - these will be a very popular present at Christmas.
Contactless payments
First there was cash. Then came cheques - a "convenient" way to avoid carry large amounts of cash. Next came magnetic strip cards and most recently chip and pin. However this year will see the rolling out (in London at least) of the next form of payment - contactless. The technology is based on RFID chips that can be built into just about anything. Although the technology was first trailed in the UK in the mid 90s it broke through with the Octopus card in Hong Kong - the card allowed people to pay for transport and at some shops simply by waving a card over a detector. The idea was rolled out as the Suica card in Tokyo and the Oyster card in London and similar schemes in several other countries. Dealing in cash actually costs UK business a lot of money each year, so businesses will encourage the adoption of the system. The system is likely to be implemented as replacement debit card although the chip could be built into anything from ipods to phones. The idea is that if you want to buy things over £10 you need to use chip and pin, but for purchases under £10 simply waving the card near the reader will deduct payment from your account and obliterate queues in shops. For security, every tenth transaction will need a pin number, but any intervening chip and pin purchases will reset the counter. The National roll out will begin in London this summer and spread to the rest of the UK by 2008. The banks have stated that they want the 2012 Olympics to be the first cashless Olympics. Bit of a weird thing to want, but ok. As someone who never has enough cash on them this is a fantastic development. Cash is for poor people.
HSDPA
What does this even mean?!? This is one technology that will become ubiquitous without anyone realising. Put simply this is 3.5G mobile phone technology. 3G sort of died a publicity death - all the networks tried to advertise their collective £22bn investment with look - you can do really jerky video calls! Most of my friends with 3G phones tried it once and then never again. However, the real benefit of 3G (and the thing that allows the video calls to take place) is the increased data rate. Where as the internet access of 2G phones was the equivalent of a dial up modem, 3G phones cruised along at 384kbps - about 2/3 the speed of a residential broadband link in 2004. Still not particularly quick then, but with the introduction of HSDPA much of the country will be covered by a network allowing speeds of 3.6Mbps initially (roughly the same as the speed of today's residential broadband lines - fast enough to download an episode of 24 in ~12 minutes) and companies have promised that this will reach over 20Mbps by 2010 - fast enough to download that 24 episode in less than 5 seconds. It may sound as thrilling as a glass of tap water, but it may be the beginning of the end of the need for a fixed phone line. At present, if you want internet access you need either a BT phone line or cable - both of which have a monthly line rental. On top of this you then need to pay for your broadband. However, with a nationwide HSDPA network you could get rid of your fixed line and instead connect your phone or HSDPA router to your computer and get the same speeds (or even faster) that we get today. Add in an SIP socket on the router to allow free landline calls and free geographical numbers and BT will rue the day they sold O2. After my previous rant about data charges, more operators have started unlimited data plans. The latest is X-series from 3 which charges from £5/month for unlimited access including Skype and orb/sling access. Later in the year we may see the introduction of HSUPA (3.75G) which allows faster uploads.
Personal GPS
Sort of linked to the above. A few years ago GPS systems were featured in car adverts as an "optional extra". This extra usually cost nearly the same as the rest of the car. Since then there has been an explosion in stand alone "sat-nav" products. Systems such as TomTom still command a ridiculous price premium, whilst cheaper Garmin systems can readily be had for about £100. The main aim of CSR - one of the biggest wireless chip manufacturers - is to produce a GPS chip that costs $1. The size of the chips has been brought down to a few millimetres square and they are finding there way into many new devices. My GPS unit is about the same width and depth as my phone, but 2/3 the length. The chips are now so small that the forthcoming Nokia N95 "superphone" has a GPS chip built in. In addition there are already other phones with this technology such as the Orange M700 about to be unleashed. By the end of the year it seems likely that all the mid-to-high end phones from HTC, Nokia, Motorola and Sony Ericsson will have HSDPA and GPS. No doubt operators will cut deals with various navigation software developers to let people use their mobiles for navigation, but it goes further than finding out how to drive the 5 miles to the cinema. Imagine you're trying to meet up with someone but don't know where they are. You can simply transmit your GPS location to them so they can find you easily. Need to know where the nearest cashpoint is? Your phone will guide you. Fancy some food? Your phone will let you know what's available in the area and then guide you to your chosen restaurant. No longer will blokes have to fear asking for directions cos soon we won't need to.
Wii
Ever since I got my NES back in 1990 I've been a Nintendo fan. At the time you were either a Nintendo fan or a Sega fan or a just rich kid who could afford both. After the SNES I left the console scene behind just as the Playstation was about to take gaming out of the teenagers' rooms and into the lounge of the 20-something. In my 5th year I decided to pick up a Gamecube as they were on the way out so I thought all the good games would get cheap (that and I wanted Mario Kart). Ironically, even though the cube did die out pretty soon afterwards, this just made the games rarer and more expensive whilst PS2 and xBox games are frequently £2. Anyway, games like the 2 Super Monkey Ball games and Pikmin got me back into gaming, so I was interested in the "next generation" consoles. However, whilst Microsoft and Sony raced ahead in their battle to beef up their consoles, Nintendo went another way. The new console, Wii, would be based around a controller originally meant as a cube add-on. Whilst Sony and Microsoft attempted to shove in the fastest cpus and latest gpus into their new behemoths, Nintendo was quite happy to let their console simply amount to a slightly updated Gamecube. However, whilst the other machines are certainly very powerful, most of that power simply goes on the HD graphics. The games themselves are just prettier versions of the same games everyone's seen before. In the meantime, Nintendo's Wii has come up with a brand new way to play games. Targeting the dreaded "over-30s" market as much as the traditional audience Nintendo realised that games should be fun to play. Even I'm a bit confused when handed a gamepad with 3 joysticks and 10 buttons. The Wii controller is simple. You wave it around and the built in motion sensor knows. Want to swing your character's tennis racquet? Just swing the controller - put on spin and control the power of the shot. Likewise for a golf club, baseball bat or even sword. Suddenly everything is a lot simpler. And it seems to be working. Word of mouth is spreading. Forums are crawling with talk of people's parents buying Wiis for themselves and stock is hard to track down - in the UK most online stores sell out within half an hour of stock being advertised. Compare this to the PS3's dodgy Japanese launch and underperforming US sales and Nintendo might just pull something special off.
I've got nothing against the PS3 - I just think gaming should be fun rather than a chore.Provided Nintendo avoids one pitfall, then Wii could end up in a LOT of homes this year. The crucial point is that Nintendo continues to ship good games for the system. It comes with a game called Wii Sports (except in Japan) that offers tennis, golf, baseball, boxing and bowling games. However, these are pretty limited (and baseball is actually just about the world's dullest game) so if Nintendo aren't careful the Wii won't gain the momentum that will make it one of the most talked about gadgets of the year. Now, if only I could get hold of one...I'll leave you with the E3 teaser:
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