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On Android Eve, Google Ponders The Future Of Mobile

Tomorrow in New York City, Google, HTC, and T-Mobile will unveil the world's first handset based on the Android platform. It is sure to be a spectacle. OverTheAir and InformationWeek will be on hand to provide you with all the news. In the meantime, Google gives us its glimpse of the mobile landscape of tomorrow.

"There are currently about 3.2 billion mobile subscribers in the world, and that number is expected to grow by at least a billion in the next few years," writes engineering director Andy Rubin. "Today, mobile phones are more prevalent than cars (about 800 million registered vehicles in the world) and credit cards (only 1.4 billion of those). While it took 100 years for landline phones to spread to more than 80% of the countries in the world, their wireless descendants did it in 16. And fewer teens are wearing watches now because they use their phones to tell time instead."

Some interesting stats. (Personally, I gave up on wearing my watch a long time ago. Sorry, Seiko!). Rubin takes a look at some trends that we're already seeing on the horizon, and projects what sort of impact they'll have in the next two years. Here's the short version of what he says:

Smart alerts: Your phone will be smart about your situation and alert you when something needs your attention.

Augmented reality: Your phone uses its arsenal of sensors to understand your situation and provide you information that might be useful.

Crowd sourcing goes mainstream: Your phone is your omnipresent microphone to the world, a way to publish pictures, emails, texts, Twitters, and blog entries.

Sensors everywhere: Your phone knows a lot about the world around you.

Tool for development: Your phone may be more than just a convenience, it may be your livelihood.

The future-proof device: Your phone will open up, as the Internet already has, so it will be easy for developers to create or improve applications and content.

Safer software through trust and verification: Your phone will provide tools and information to empower you to decide what to download, what to see, and what to share.

Rubin goes into detail on each point, sharing an example of what he means. The timing of his missive is interesting, to say the least. Mr. Rubin has played a large role in the development of Android, the mobile platform that Google is opening up to the world. How many of these ideas will be incorporated into the handset we see tomorrow, or the handsets of the future? I don't think we'll have to wait 10 years to see many of these ideas in action.

Mobile phones will continue to tackle more and more tasks of our daily lives, and they'll no doubt continue to change the way in which we live.

I think what's on all of our minds, however, isn't what next month or next year will bring, but what we'll learn tomorrow.

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