Following the trend of mobile phones becoming derigeur with anyone over the age of ten; in the future they will become as essential as a watch. In fact, the mobile phone could soon merge with the watch. For the purposes of portability, we are already seeing new technologies merge: WAP mobile phones with the internet, for example. It seems likely that the gadgets that business people on the move depend on - the mobile phone, laptop computer, organiser, etc, will eventually be pared down into a single unit.
The first company to combine the humble wrist watch with the PC was Seiko. The Ruputer Pro4 boasts 4 Mb of processing power and communication via infrared to a PC for file exchange. Several buttons are included for navigating around the LCD display and accessing functions.
The more practical VisionPad designed by IBM Research is another form of wearable computer that dispenses with fiddly buttons. Controlled by the user's voice, it includes a display worn as an eyepiece attached to a microphone headset. This makes it possible to surf the internet on the move and view contents via voice recognition software. The sight of people walking around with displays covering one eye, like a scene from The Terminator, is unlikely to commonplace just yet as the computer appears to be aimed at internal business applications rather than for personal use. Interest has come from professions including stock market trading, surgery and manufacturing. The main benefit is that complex diagrams can be displayed on the screen avoiding the need to consult a manual that may not be easily accessible.
Pushing PC integrity to the extreme, some scientists are exploring the possibility of connecting living nerve cells with microchips, to provide enhanced brain capacity and artificial sight. Taking instructions directly from the brain, it's hard to imagine the computer being very reliable with intruding thoughts like 'I feel a bit peckish' and 'that was a great film last night' rendering it inoperable. Integrating computers with the brain may not be as outlandish as it sounds: The brain has similar elements, a central processor of information, a restricted memory capacity, and the eyes serving as a monitor. With PC rage sweeping across many offices, the day when humans become attached to computers seems a long way off.
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