SMARTPHONES

We are now living in the Planet of the Smartphones. The ubiquitous device has changed the way we live, mostly for the better, but not without the risk in the near future of human beings suffering from any of the unintended and unplanned consequences of this stupendous march of technology.

 As the fastest selling device in history the smartphone is headed north, with predictions of five billion people and 100 billion devices connected to the Internet by 2020. About half of the adult population of the world has a smartphone now and by the end of the decade 80% of adults can be expected to be brandishing this very personal device that takes precedence over any other gadget or gizmo like the laptop, now looking decidedly old-fashioned except to the professionals and the sleeker tablets that were all the range for the few years.

The device landscape is changing so fast already and analysts are now predicting that the device might also shift from our pockets to overlays on the iris of our eye and a concept that may have been more in keeping with science fiction fantasy, may be put into practice in the not so distant future with smartphone chip as a brain implant. You could connect to a wearable device.

Not a day goes by now without a bank offering us services on the mobile for transactions we would do only on laptops or iPads till now. The nagging question is how safe is the new tech going to be in preserving our identities, our personal information, our e-mails and our bank accounts. The priority should however be security.