In near future :-- Your mobile is now much more than just a communication device - more like a remote control for your life. You still call it a "mobile" from habit, but it is an organiser, entertainment device, payment device and security centre, all developed and manufactured by engineers.
On a typical day it will start work even before you wake. Because it knows your travel schedule it can check for problems on the roads or with the trains and adjust the time it wakes you up accordingly, giving you the best route into work. It can control your home, re-programming the central heating if you need to get up earlier and providing remote alerts if the home security system is triggered. It is your payment system - just by placing the phone near a sensor on a barrier, like the Oyster card readers in use on London transport, you can pay for tickets for journeys or buy items in shops. With an understanding of location, the mobile can also provide directions, or even alert the user to friends or family in the vicinity.
It is your entertainment centre when away from home. As well as holding all your music files, as some phones today are able to do, it will work with your home entertainment system while you sleep to find programmes that will interest you and download them as a podcast to watch on the train or in other spare moments. It will intelligently work out what to do with incoming phone calls and messages. Because it knows your diary it will also know, for example, to direct voice calls to voicemail when you are in a meeting, perhaps providing a discrete text summary of the caller and the nature of their call.
With its understanding of almost all aspects of your life, many new services become possible. For example, a "Good Food" meal planning service could send daily suggestions for your evening meal based on learned preferences, previous selections made and the likely contents of your refrigerator. The latter might work by uploading the bill from the weekly grocery shop and then removing those items it deduces have been used for meals earlier in the week.
Leaving home without your mobile, bad enough already, will become rather like leaving home without your wallet, keys, music player and mobile all at once - quite unthinkable. And in the nicest, most helpful ways, your mobile will guide you through life.
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