This thermostat by EcoBee has an especially high gadget-appeal. The colour touchscreen has an iPhone-like interface with which you can optimalise everything, but because the thermostat is connected to the internet through WiFi you can control everything from your computer (or wherever you are) using your personal web portal. If you've also linked up the energy meter, you get a very accurate image of the amount of energy you're using.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

The next steps won’t be so difficult to come up with: the link to the alarm clock so that the thermostat turns itself on exactly so much earlier that your house will be warm exactly on time. Ideal for people with irregular hours. And the link to the navigational system (or your mobility coaching brand) so that the house will feel comfortably warm then too. And finally the link to the energy company, so that you can keep track of the costs. This is how comfort, saving costs and ease (when everything anticipates you; you won’t need to do anything again) go hand in hand. This kind of thermostat will eventually be found in every house.

Papaya is a mobile application that magics your phone book into a social-communication tool. You import your phonebook into Papaya and you see your friends appear as soon as they register too. Then you can send free text messages through the existing Instant Messaging programs (Live Messenger, ICQ, QQ, etc), chat and play games. Furthermore you can choose your own avatar. Papaya is available in Java for 'normal' mobile phones, the iPhone and Android will soon follow.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

You take your friends list everywhere. Currently you have to copy it, but later you’ll indicate who you are, which social networks you’re on and your friends will appear automatically and you can call them with a press of a button, text them, IM them, play games, whatever. And when you meet a new friend you add them to your mobile and they’ll be available on another mobile or tv or wristwatch too. This’ll need a little more time, but not much longer.

Ocarina is the first wind instrument for the iPhone. Ocarina monitors your breath, touch and movements which makes it even more versatile than a real instrument.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Media will respond to everything. How we blow, move, touch, but later on also how we feel, what facial expression we have, how warm we get. And everything will be taken aboard to make the dialogue as real as possible. In this case the dialogue between a person and the iPhone, but for that matter you play a single instrument together. That’ll be possible too.

Just doing surveys regarding customer satisfaction is enough to get more loyal customers, reports Harvard Business Review. The research was conducted by the American scientists Dholakia and Morwitz.

Their research focused on 1000 customers of a financial aid instance and compared their purchasing behaviour to 1000 other customers who weren't asked about their satisfaction. Both groups were followed for a year and excluded from direct marketing activities. The result: customers who were asked for their opinion once (by phone) bought new products more quickly, walked away 50% of the time less and turned out to be more profitable than the unasked customers.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Just like in normal human relationships, it’s all about attention in the relationship between brands and humans. This kind of research proves that. Brands of the future are very good in giving (automated) attention. They’ll cherish their customers, lure them in and especially listen a lot. Listen a lot.

Related trends

• Brand-dialogue

Altruism in humans is difficult to explain from the traditional theory in which the focus is on competition between humans for partners, space and food. Neuroscientific research now shows that altruistic behaviour makes you more attractive to the other sex.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

In the world of 2050 in which there is peace and prosperity for everyone, in a completely transparent world in which power is divided more or less equally and in which physical labour is done completely by robots, owning something no longer gives you status, but what you give to others does. That’s an important part of Pamper Planet. This research is the scientific building block for this trend.

Related trends

• 2050-2100: Pamper planet

This phone, the Hitachi Wooo H001, has a stereoscopic IPS display which can show 3D images. It'll appear in Japan in April 2009.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Everything will become 3D. The content of the traditional producers won’t be at the top anymore, but internet content. That can ensure a fast and flexible break-through. Eventually every screen will become 3D, every screen will start to react to the position of our eyes so that it’ll seem like we’re looking through the telephone. This is a push in that direction.

Related trends

• 2020-2035: Mediacompletion

Google Maps and Google Earth are central in NYCGo, New York's new information center located on Seventh Avenue, between 52nd and 53rd Street. The center offers tourists and locals information. Using giant interactive tables and wall panels, people can view the city in 2 or 3D. When they've found something they like they can send the information to their smartphone (Android, iPhone, Blackberry or Windows Mobile) so that they can get there by walking, using public transport or driving.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Brands – cities too because they’re just brands in people’s heads – are forging brand experiences in the physical and virtual worlds into one harmonic whole. The dialogue continues constantly, wherever you are. This is a nice example of this.

Related trends

• Brand worlds
• Brand-dialogue

This thermometer, the RMR500 Eco Clima Control, of the Australian Oregon Scientific can work for three months in a row after charging in sunlight. Available in the spring for US$99.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

We’ll start to see more and more products that can take care of themselves: connect to networks on their own, power themselves, so that we can take it easy (not so much to save power, that’s not our motivation). This kind of devices (and then maybe not a thermometer) will conquer the third world, where there’s no lack of sunshine but of good electricity facilities, rapidly.

Related trends

• 2020-2035: Mediacompletion