Mobile Apps Dominate The Top Five Innovations That Will Impact Lives & Lifestyles: Report

After connecting with 150,000 people from 104 countries as part of an online brainstorming session, IBM has identified the key five innovations it claims will transform how people around the world work, play and live over the next five years.

The “Next Five in Five” are:

— Remote access to healthcare, paving the way to improved healthcare in developing countries.
— Real-time translation technologies will be embedded into mobile phones, handheld devices and cars.
— The popular online immersive destinations, such as Second Life, will evolve into a full-fledged 3D Internet, allowing new kinds of interactive education, communication and consumer experiences.
— Nanotechnology will improve environmental planning and protection, even paving the way for a “smart” water distribution system that would resemble a utility grid.
— Mobile devices will read our minds, thanks to presence technology and a mix of intuitive UIs and learning technologies. IBM’s vision: “When a user enters a meeting room with several people, the mobile phone will automatically divert to voice mail. Your favorite pizza joint will know when you’re on your way home after a late night and ping you with a special-price, take-home meal just for you.”

Granted the last may sound a bit far-fetched, but the scenario is closer than you think. Personalized mobile search providers including Denmark’s MobilePeople and Finland’s Leiki are fine-tuning solutions designed to transform the mobile phone into an electronic concierge service by intuiting users’ requirements from clues such as location, past queries and click-stream. Moreover, IBM tells us it and Norway’s biggest telecommunications group (not named) are “testing technology to allow mobile devices and networks to learn about users’ whereabouts and preferences as they commute, work and travel.”

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