Only 10?
10 years is surely still a big ask, isn't it?
OK, we're a bit more realistic than when Star Trek hit our screen and we know that we're not going to reach warp speed any time soon. Are we ever?
In the home 10 years we will have already lived through a communications revolution. Unlike now where I'm sitting anchored at my desk in my dedicated study typing onto a keyboard and looking at fixed screen, I'm not going to be doing that. I'll be talking to someone, anyone, anywhere in the world while I walk around, doing a hundred and one things (just like I curently do when I'm on the phone).
Unlike now though, cameras mounted throughout the building will automatically detect my presence (if I want to be on camera) and will allow me to move around freely. Those images will be mixed and transmitted to my friends through a link that is so much faster and capable of such enhanced bandwidth that the images can be as high definition as required, no lag, no jerky movement, crystal clear audio and overlaid with any other text or images I want to send simultaneously. I'm not restricted to a single feed either. Every one of my family could be doing the same as me and we could still have the neighbours around to try unsuccessfully to eat up all that capacity.
We'll have video displays all over the house - on walls, on tables. Displays so thin that they can be sited anywhere. Displays that bend so you're no longer limited to flat surfaces. Images projected onto any reflective surface will be commonplace. Glasses that project the image before my eyes mean I can move anywhere I want without losing contact.
Voice command has replaced the need to type words and rhe haptic band on my wrist allows me to scroll an image with a simple natural movement.
Much of this technology is already here but it's expensive and takes a lot of installation. In 10 years these will be mature, ubiquitous products that every developed nation has.
That's just the home communications - what else can we expect?
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