Smartphones have no doubt changed the way that most of us live out our daily lives, giving us 24/7 connected access to the internet and a vast sea of apps virtually anywhere and if we want it, but now that a smartphone is a much more common appearance and can be found in the hands of many of today’s consumers, the technological advancements are moving forward in ways which will further enhance the products we already use. Of course, there will be new entrants in the technological space as well working to provide people with more connected capabilities, and some products which we already see beginning to bloom and make their way towards the consumer market on a larger scale.
NTT DoCoMo, which is Japan’s largest wireless carrier perhaps akin to Verizon Wireless here in the U.S. when it comes to size and customer footprint, has released a rather interesting video which visualizes a deeply connected mobile future. Things are already moving in this direction with a wide array of wearables hitting the market which help to enhance the mobile devices we carry with us nearly everywhere, from activity trackers to more budding options for smart eyewear. NTT DoCoMo envisions a “not so far future” where our everyday lives are more enriched with augmented reality through the connection of our smartphones, tablets, and other connected wearable devices.
Most of the visualizations are things which are actually not very far away in terms of progress, but there are some things, like communication with pets, which are envisioned as a possible use with our smartphones. At one point in the video, a little girl is on the search for her cat. A woman we see in the very beginning of the video who goes out for a walk stumbles upon the family pet, and uses an augmented reality powered application to scan the cat’s features, resulting in the app relaying the cat’s current mood and what it wants. The cat looks happy and the app pops up a chat box that says “play with me.” This seems rather out there in terms of what’s possible when you compare it to what the applications and the technology we have available to us are capable of right now, but things like this may not necessarily be impossible. Other things like smart glasses and smart goggles are also featured in the video, two things which are a little closer to a possible reality as they already exist, just not on a large consumer scale. The video does a great job at imagining what could be possible in the not so distant future and is certainly worth a watch if possible future technological advancements interest you.
https://youtu.be/F4kYCscrbvc