The technology is too expensive and impractical for consumer gadgets today, but its expected its ultra-thin, rollable Willow Glass to appear in smartphones within the next several years.
Secure Cloud Storage
A future generation of phones could be "aware" devices, something data-intensive companies like Google and IBM are hoping to achieve. Your smartphone is already with you all the time and contains a host of personal information, So imagine this scenario. Your phone notifies you as you're heading to the airport that your flight is canceled. It then books you on a plane that leaves an hour later, orders you a coffee at the Starbucks in your new terminal and sends an e-mail telling attendees of your first meeting that you'll be late.
Of course, there are massive privacy implications. Wireless infrastructure also needs to improve vastly to handle all the data that will need to be collected and transmitted to make this happen. But thanks to the cloud, our "smart" devices of today may look extremely dumb a few years from now.
Long lasting Battery
two-thirds of your smartphone's guts are taken up by its lithium-ion battery. That means the processor, camera, touchscreen, and all of its other components need to be squeezed into a tiny space.
One solution to generally terrible battery life has been to make bigger smartphones that can pack bigger batteries. But several researchers are testing batteries with different chemicals, including lithium imide or silicon, which can last longer than today's lithium-ion batteries.
The problem is that lithium-ion batteries are the most practical solution in terms of both packing power and not blowing up (usually). Though lithium imide batteries are closer to becoming a reality, they only offer about a 10% improvement in battery life. In other words, don't expect a battery life revolution anytime soon.
Faster networks
Google's (GOOG, Fortune 500) new fiber-optic network in Kansas City can provide download speeds of up to 1 gigabit per second -- about 200 times faster than the average American Internet connection. Most wireless carriers are upgrading their networks to super-fast 4G-LTE technologies, and some are beginning to explore even faster LTE-Advanced networks.
Faster speeds promise to bring about a new era of Internet technologies we haven't even conceived of yet -- just as no one with a 56k modem could have ever imagined a day when you could watch YouTube on your phone.
The problem with these technologies is they're expensive to deploy. Fiber-optic installation often involves ripping up a customer's lawn. Verizon (VZ, Fortune 500) is not planning to expand its FiOS fiber-optic network, and AT&T (T, Fortune 500) recently pledged to bring fiber to its neighborhood networking nodes -- but not to homes. Similarly, wireless infrastructure upgrades cost carriers tens of billions of dollars each year. And as consumers eat up more bandwidth, cell phone companies will need to buy up more wireless spectrum to serve up all that data.
Super-fast speeds
Today's computing is painfully slow. That's because computers rely on long strings of 0's and 1's, each of which act as a yes or no. It's a never-ending game of Twenty Questions.
Computing of the future could very well rely on probabilities rather than clear yes or no answers. By employing quantum mechanics -- that bizarre subatomic lair where particles can assume multiple states at the same time -- computers could base answers on the most-likely possible states of those particles. In theory, that means answers could be delivered exponentially faster than today's fastest computers could handle.
It's a promising solution, but one that's been discussed for decades. Many companies are working on quantum computing technology, including Hewlett-Packard (HPQ, Fortune 500), IBM (IBM, Fortune 500), Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500), and defense contractor Lockheed Martin (LMT, Fortune 500). Meanwhile, BlackBerry (BBRY) co-founders Mike Lazaridis and Doug Fregin just created a $100 million venture capital fund to "incubate and commercialize quantum science tech."
But nobody has proven the technology can actually outpace traditional computers yet.
Smart phones may control our lives
