FUTURE
SMARTPHONES
FUTURE GADGETS
The future of gadgets is always a tough one to predict,
so we asked someone else to do the hard work for us
C
NEXT BIG
THINGS
NEXT BIG
T HINGS
himp chauffeurs, roads
replaced by tubes and
rocket mail are just
some of the forecasts
for 2020 that look set to miss
the mark. No mention of Spurs
winning silverware... but it just
goes to show, making predictions
is risky. So to mark our 250th
issue with some future-gazing,
we decided to largely wash our
hands of it.
Instead meet Matthew Griffin,
an award-winning futurist dubbed
‘the adviser behind the advisers’,
whose clients include leading tech
firms and governments. “I look
at two types of future: 0-20
years, where most companies
sit, and 20-50 years, where most
governments try to sit,” Griffin tells
Stuff. “Take Samsung and Huawei.
The world’s two largest phone
makers are pretty much the only
companies I’ve come across that
by their own definition live in a
permanent state of crisis, fearing
they’ll be disrupted, so they’re
fixated with continually inventing
‘the next thing’.”
Griffin claims Huawei has a ‘2012
Division’, named after the disaster
movie, where a team of over 200
people look at every weird piece of
new tech and “have a faff about” to
figure out how best to use it – not
unlike the Stuff office. Samsung
has a team up to 3000 building all
manner of prototypes.
“Culture, regulation and liabilities,
insurance, geopolitics, accessibility
and affordability typically control
whether something will emerge
and be widely adopted,” says Griffin.
So a lot of it might not... but we
made him spill the beans anyway.Griffin believes the only
way we’ll move away
from smartphones is if
makers can figure out
something new to do
with the screen that the
mass market will accept.
So expect to see ever
more flexible displays,
but with some incredibly
cool things crammed
inside... or in the case
of batteries, removed
altogether.
“Samsung is readying
graphene-based
lithium-ion batteries
that will charge in
seconds,” he says.
“They’re about 400%
faster and give you three
times the energy density.
But phones won’t always
have batteries.”In the air tonight
Griffin explains: “There
is a type of energy tech
called ‘backscatter’. We
all know there’s energy in
the air around us – radio
waves, radiation, sound- so about two years
ago the world’s first
smartphone without
a battery was created,
that harvested radio
frequency energy from
the air.
“We’ve got companies
in the UK using materials
with nano-sized hairs,
so whenever you talk or
there’s a sound, the hairs
vibrate and
generate energy.”
The tech still has a while
to go, he admits, but
battery-free phones
have already been
successfully tested for
basic functions like calls
and texts.You can’t hurry, love
“We’re looking at 2040
to 2050 before ditching
batteries altogether
because phones are
so energy-hungry; but
as materials get lighter,
more flexible and more
energy-efficient we can
do all sorts of things,”
adds Griffin. “For now,
phones are likely to use
ever more advanced
AI processors, feature
11k screens with a
natural 3D effect that’s
already being tested,
and offer greater VR
integration.
“This is where the
ecosystem of gadgets
becomes more than the
sum of its parts. So for
example you have your
phone, but you buy a
packet of plasters that
are effectively electronic
tattoos for monitoring
your vitals,” says Griffin.
“Before long your
phone becomes
a fully blown tricorder
monitoring every area
of your health.”