Gadgets you will carry

Former Wired editor & Futurist, Kevin Kelly writes that, 10 years from now, an average person will carry two gadgets with him everywhere s/he goes. Over the long term, say 100 years, we may carry no devices.

How many Gadgets will people carry?

The two devices we'll carry (on average) will be:

1) A close-to-body handheld thingie(The handheld will be our wallet, purse, camera, phone, stopwatch, navigator, watch, keys, etc.), and

2) A larger tablet thingie at arms length. The tablet will be a bigger screen and multi sensor input. It may unfold, or unroll, or expand, or be just a plain plank. Different folks will have different sizes.

Kelly notes that he's not counting devices we'll wear, like quantified self-tracking devices built into your clothing or accessories (as he notes, you don't carry a watch). We'll have devices built into belts, wristbands, necklaces, clothes, or more immediately into glasses or worn on our ears, etc.

Also, the two devices you carry may not always be the same devices. You may switch them out depending on the location, mode (vacation or work), task at hand. Some days you may need a bigger screen than others.

Keep in mind that as time progresses beyond the current decade, the number of devices you carry will actually decrease, since devices will be both ubiquitous and capable of recognizing and catering to you (think Chrome OS), so often carrying your own devices will be unnecessary. In the longer term we will tend to not carry any devices at all. That's because we will have so many devices around us, both handheld and built-ins, each capable of recognizing us and displaying to us our own personal interface, that they in effect become ours for the duration of our use. Not too long ago no one carried their own phone. You just used the nearest phone at hand. You borrowed it and did not need to carry your personal phone around. But of course not every room/store/street had a phone. So we wanted our own cell phones. But what if almost any device made could be used as a communication device? You pick up a camera, or tablet, or remote and talk into it. Then you might not need to carry your own phone again. What if every screen could be hijacked for your immediate purposes? Why carry a screen of your own?

This will not happen in 10 years. But I believe in the goodness of time the highly evolved person will not carry anything. This post is an interesting read if you like the speculative future, but it strikes me that a lot of people may commonly already carry their "two things". How many gadgets do you carry?

Photo by Beorn Ours

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