People often speculate on the future of cell phones. We often forget why today's cell phones got their big break-through. 'Touch', for example, that is experiencing its greatest break-through nowadays was easy to predict because it suits human nature so much better. Just look at how young children interact with the things they point at or how the elderly first try to use a computer. Then you'll see human nature again. (See also the book (Dutch) in which I conjectured the iPhone in 2004.)
Voice control will be the next break-through, at which you can ask what the future of cell phones will be like. Or won't there be one?

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

After all, no one really needs to drag a little box that has different settings depending on where in the world you are and needs to be recharged every now and again around. Only a very small amount of people likes looking up new features (menu->applications->settings). But nature drives are built-in, so if we can be helped very simply, so befitting our nature) by those, then please.

The future therefore will be much simpler: built-in (or implanted) ear plugs that will allow sound from outside on command. So have modes in ‘presence’ (actively present at the spot you’re at), ‘connected’ (connected to a virtual world with real or artificial people) or ‘mixed’ (in which you can have spoken assistance with your own behavior in the physical world. If you talk, it’ll be registered through the ear plug as well. If you want to see something or transmit an image you’ll always be able to use any random screen (=camera, as they’re always connected) or pull out and unroll a piece of e-paper. Payment will be through biometric recognition (voice, iris or finger print). So you can go outside without bringing anything at all. No key, no wallet, no cell phone. Not in 2008, not in 2015, but in 2025 we’ll have come a long way towards this already.

Based on where you currently are and who's in your contact list, Apple's new iPhone looks for nearby contacts. This is possible through the built-in GPS module and the contact list if it has addresses added.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

All information will become increasingly more available in real time. Most people have to change addresses etc themselves when they get an email of someone who moved. Soon this will be automatic. With your social network in your pocket you’ll be walking through a strange city, past the door of an old acquaintance who’s moved five times by now. Quite something to be able to just ring the doorbell…

Supermarket chain Albert Heijn is handing out stuffed toy mascots for the European soccer championships. They're called Welpies (Dutch). For Windows Live Messenger (former MSN Messenger) a free Welpie Emoticonpack is available. With the animated Welpies of the Welpie Emoticonpack users can, with sounds and images, show that they support the Dutch national team during the coming soccer championships.
This package of wink and emoticons turns out to be a big success: in a week's time 300.000 Windows Live Messenger users downloaded and installed it.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

In a time in which brands can reach the consumer less and less through traditional media they’ll use existing customers to shape the brand increasingly more often. Both the physical as the virtual world will receive a complete role. Messenger is extremely suited for this. This campaign shows this beautifully.

In this movie, Dr Quantum explains the difference between matter and waves. We all know that there's a connection between mass and waves through Einstein's famous formula. (E = mc²; energy = mass times the speed of light (3,00 x 100.000.000 meter per second) squared, and that mass and energy are directly related. That means simply that every element in the universe, every planet, every piece of life, every plant, every animal, and so also mankind exists solely out of energy. Einstein already showed that mass is a slowed form of energy, like a traffic jam on a high way.

If energy in its turn exists exclusively out of waves, we deal with a permanent change. With as a consequence that our human body is far from static, but the result of a group of waves that chances constantly and is entwined for 80 years like a coil of many strands of ropes. Strands that come out of our body and continuously make invisible contact with others. Then the waves unbraid, carry on and a human disappears like there never was anything at all.

The new housing site Brixter (Dutch) helps consumers appraise their own house or that of others. Based on an address (or looking it up through Google Maps) Brixter makes an initial estimate. By adding in further details (state of the kitchen, isolation, state of the paintwork, etc) Brixter comes up with a better estimate. The consumer can then publish this indication and the details of the house on Brixter. Brixter can also show actual housing offers.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

This is how home coaching brands are slowly taking shape. Soon a house will be worth more automatically when you’ve renovated it; the home coaching brand will take care of it for you. If you want to move, all you have to shout is: ‘What’s my house worth now and are there potential buyers?’ You’ll have an immediate answer to that question. That’s something completely different from first orienting yourself on an estate agent’s selection.

Through a context for East-African students, Google has developed new gadgets, small pieces of software with which users can share things (such as movies, games or information) on their weblog. It's expected that this will lead to locally applicable gadgets that help the community. The first prize is $600 and the 2nd to 6th prize winners get $350 each.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

And so the focus of the world is slowly shifting to Africa. Now that China and India are developing like mad we enter the last decades in which small children will produce products for the Western world seven days a week for a paltry sum.
As developed country children will be able to go to school, grow and design products that help people in the world. Cheap manufacturing will only be available through robots or underdeveloped countries. Which will develop in turn. This long term strategy of Google anticipates this. For a few hundred dollars it’s not a bad investment.

Housing site Jaap (Dutch) now also offers a renovation service. People who stop using Jaap (e.g. cease looking because they want to renovate their own house first or people who want to renovate their new home) are redirected to a separate page on Werkspot.nl. There the consumer can look for a renovator through an auction principle and the renovations can begin.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Currently you switch brands and get redirected to another, but soon Jaap will be able to organize that for you perfectly well too. Jaap will organize the renovation (help you make a choice between renovators), insurance companies, stylists until you’re living wonderfully, but after two years your needs change. Again Jaap will be at your side. Because Jaap knows your situation precisely and knows whom you’ve worked with in the past. Until you want something else again seven years later. This is how home coaching brands are slowly taking shape.

Electronics chain Dixons places both good and bad expert evaluations with the products it offers. These evaluations come from HetBesteProduct.nl which collects test results of consumer's electronics from at least a hundred Dutch and foreign magazines.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Brands will advertise more and more from the context of the consumer. Currently by handling multiple source (instead of just one’s own), soon also by taking on reviews of trusted relations (friends, family, acquaintances). In the end the real advisors are the coaching brands that don’t just look at a store’s assortment, but at everything for sale everywhere in the world, and places it in a personal context. This is a step in that direction.

Related trends

• Coaching brands

Klik je Fit (Dutch) provides fitnessmusic with sport instructions for your iPod. There are mp3s for Stepper, Fitness Ball, Ab King Pro, Fitness Mat and Leg Magic. The files cost €4,99 each.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Brands will start to function more and more as a personal coach. More and more initiatives in this area will be founded. What we’re seeing today is child’s play compared to what will happen. Eventually it’s about getting the best out of ourselves, and then this service will become very personal.

Rebecca Rijnders of Emerce sends invites for the Emerce eDay to her contacts. This is an event centering around e-innovation. This year it'll take place on the 18th of September. By accepting her invitation you'll be added to the group along with other interested parties. You can see who they are and continue straight on to the website of eDay.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

This shows how brands can use existing contacts quickly and easily to check interest and to create a buzz. Because people join a group they explicitly state their interest in this area and show this to others. This has a social-psychological effect. It’ll increase a person’s tendency to participate. This is how brands will start using their existing contacts to spread the word more and more effectively.

Vodafone has taken over ZYB, a mobile social network, as a step towards the implementation of the 'Total Communications'-strategy. Users of ZYB can enter the data on their cell phone as contacts, appointments and messages and save it online. In that vision Vodafone isn't a (mobile) telephone company, but it's all about the contacts in the cell phone.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Vodafone understands that the additional value in future will be much closer to human emotions. Not the dialing of a number, not the connection of two machines, but it’s the contact between two people that matters. Each screen will soon be connected to the virtual world, so each screen will also be a telephone. And contacts who are available on the first screen will, per definition, also be available on the second, no matter where you are in the world. That’s saying something.

If screens are per definition always connected with one another, the companies who provide this are offering a commodity product. People aren’t interested in this at all anymore. In part because the costs will be incredibly low. Worldwide there’ll only be a few players who connect screens with one another. Just like there’s only a limited amount of oil companies.

What people will be willing to pay for is the assistance in maintaining one’s contacts. ‘Call Anne’ is the basic function. ‘Tell Anne I’ll be a bit later’ is a next step, but what’s really important is the answer to the question ‘Why wouldn’t you call Anne back?’ Then you’ve got to immerse yourself in the lives of humans. Only then can you call yourself a social coaching brand.

Recently, Carl Rohde and Vincent Albers and I have been working extremely hard on a successor to Carl's website. Last weekend the website went live under the new business/network name Science of the Time. This website distinguishes itself by its many ways to reaction, all the crosslinks between (mentality) trends and (cool) observations, books and bloggers, and smart SEO optimization. Anyone who looks at it for a while will notice the similarities with Mensmerk/ErwinvanLun, but there are also differences.

This week I received a box in the mail. Neatly on company name, without a sender and still with a bottle of wodka from the to me (still) unknown company Oberoff. You can't even find a link for this Lithuanian brand. Neatly wrapped in sturdy cardboard, but without accompanying letter. Special. It becomes even more special now that there turns out to be a USB stick at the bottom of the bottle. It's currently drying. I'm curious what I'll find on that... That's a very unconventional way to advertise your product.

In this movie ('Flatland') Dr Quantum explains how viewing the world in 3D could limit us severely. How can we keep in contact with one another without being near? And then I'm not talking about the virtual world. The insights from the quantum world are ensuring the next revolution after today's media revolutions and after the humanoid revolution in a few decades. Nice movie!

Related trends

• More 3D

Samsung SDI and the German company Bundesdruckerei have collaborated to design a passport with a paper thin screen. On this screen different kinds of content (like video, lines of text, etc) can be shown.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Data is recorded in as many ways as possible. This is a small step towards a bigger development where security is concerned, but especially where personal mobile information is concerned. With development we see that the technical developments of today allow us to make paper thin screens that show us from head to toe in our passports. With the personal data we’ll put on the internet these passports will register even our DNA, fingerprints and our most recent visits and pass this information to customs. It may sound far-fetched, but this is a serious step towards the development of this kind of scenario.

37% of the (Dutch) people looking for a job prefer an online career convention to a traditional venue, reports a survey from totaljobs.nl. According to the survey outcome, the primary reasons to visit an online convention are: the ability to look at job openings and apply immediately (74%), the ease of visiting the convention at one's own speed from behind a computer (56%) and the fact that the convention is available for a prolonged period of 24 hours (53%). The most important reason why people still choose to visit a traditional convention is the personal contact with employers (93%). This gives people an image of what kind of people are employed at a specific organization.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

More and more often people choose to act from within their own home. So online. The threshold is much lower and in addition the interaction is granted more and more added value. In a later stage the company will be projected around you so you can get an even better impression. You’ll almost feel like you’re working there already. On top of that a career convention will be assembled right then and there for you specifically. It’ll be your convention. Every day.