With 3D movies, wireless technology and almost universal internet access, it can often seem like we live in the future already. So imagining where technology will be in 10, 20 or even 30 years time can be a little mind blowing.
Will those Jetpacks finally appear to whisk us off our feet? Will cars take to the sky and will Channel Five ever have good reception? Well here are a few ideas about where your gadgets and gizmos will be heading as we continue into the new century.
Smaller
For many years, making things small was the holy grail of gadget design. Computers, mobile phones and games consoles all began shrinking before our very eyes, until someone realized that making things work well was better than fitting them into your pocket.
In the future we’re unlikely to see our gadgets get much smaller, but what we will probably see is more and more capabilities crammed into them as the size remains the same.
More connected
Once upon a time, only your home desktop computer was connected to the internet, and even that had to run off the home phone line.
But today, almost all gadgets are connected via WI-Fi, 3G, Bluetooth and even 4G. You can now upload photos straight from your digital camera to the internet, keeping your friends bang up to date with all of your daily travels and adventures.
This is a trend that is very much set to continue as the demand for instant connectivity grows, and people expect to have access to the internet and each other wherever they are.
Multi functional
At one point, just having a camera on your phone was exciting enough. Now, having a camera, mp3 player, TV, book and phone all rolled into one is not unheard of.
Where once you would have had to sell PlayStation 2 consoles in favor of a DVD player, you can now use your games console to watch movies, surf the internet and stream TV.
It can’t be long before all technology comes neatly packed in one fun size tablet computer, connected wirelessly to all other devices in your home and capable of being anything that you want it to be.
If you were around in the early 1990’s there’s a good chance that you’ll remember when the internet was a magical new invention that could only be used for sending short emails and checking the weather.
So when you look at how far we’ve come, predicting what the future holds is almost impossible.
One thing is for sure though, and that’s with developers and manufacturers constantly striving to innovate and improve on their products and inventions, the future of gadgets and games consoles is going to be very exciting indeed.
As an avid collector and fan of all gadgets from tablets to Wii, Katherine Paige-Smith has followed the unstoppable advance of technology and now regularly blogs, writes and talks about everything gadget-based. Whether you want to sell an old PlayStation 2 console or check out a new game, Katherine is the girl to help.
