True hands-free cell-phone use in cars will be pervasive thanks to Bluetooth wireless technology. Chrysler, for example, plans to use Bluetooth chips in cell phones that can be placed on the passenger's seat or any other convenient place. A windshield-mounted microphone lets the driver communicate with the dashboard while listening through the car's speaker system. Other envisioned automotive Bluetooth applications include remote hands-free communications with a car dealer's service department, remote dealer-maintenance monitoring and diagnostics, and downloading of music and movies from convenience stores and roadside kiosks.
The future also will bring a new era of personal security. Advanced sensor technology, linked with low-cost GPS chip sets, will provide the impetus to move GPS-based security from the military market, where it has been used for years, to the consumer side. Consider the problem of lost or stolen expensive and critical items like jewelry, laptop computers, and wallets. Expect to see GPS-linked sensor arrays on such items that will let us pinpoint where missing items are within minutes. In effect, the future holds a version of today's automotive "Lo Jack" system, only on a personal level. Already on the market is a card-type product, albeit a rudimentary one, equipped with an accelerometer that blares out a warning beep when someone tries to steal your laptop.
There's growing interest in this type of detection and locating system for personal security applications to counter kidnapping of both children and adults. Interest is especially high in those countries where the kidnapping of corporate executives for ransom has reached epidemic proportions. Some experts predict increased use by executives within a couple of years, growing to a $20 billion industry by 2006.
In personal security, kidnappings and lost or stolen valuable items represent just the tip of the iceberg. Such systems can also locate wandering individuals like patients with Alzheimer's disease. Further, "line-of-sight" limitations to a GPS will no longer apply. Software and triangulation techniques will be developed to make such systems useful anywhere, whether inside a concrete building, underground, or underwater.
RF ID tags will also have an impact on our daily routines. Having one's wallet lost or stolen is quite common, and resulting identity theft is one of the fastest growing crimes facing us. But embedded RF ID tags in everything from your driver's license, bank checks, and credit cards to birth certificates and Social Security cards will go a long way to combat this. For example, RF ID chips that are thinner than a human hair are under development. They can be embedded in paper currency for positive identification of the check's signer and casher.
Perhaps a prototype wristwatch is the ultimate gadget that's a sign of things to come. Besides telling time, the watch employs Bluetooth technology to function as a security device for personal identification in automated hotel check-ins, airport screenings, and so forth. Moreover, it doubles as a PDA and a remote-control device for home entertainment devices.
The bounty of electronics technology to benefit people seems boundless. So far, its notable benefits far outweigh any disadvantages. But some argue that we still don't know the long-term effects of technology on the environment and our well being. After all, technology can be a double-edged sword, leading to a possible "Big Brother" scenario where the same command, control, and communications systems that help us are also implemented by the government to track us and violate our privacy and individual rights. But it's too late to turn back now. Electronics technology must inexorably move forward to the future and the wonders that await us there.
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