Mobile And Wireless Prominent In IBM's Top Five Technology Innovations

Wireless and mobility figure prominently in IBM's "Next Five in Five," a list of the top five technologies that will impact people's lives in the next five years. The results of this study come from IBM's interal research labs and think tank, as well as input from 150,000 people in 104 countries. So what are the top five technologies to look out for?

* We will be able to access healthcare remotely, from just about anywhere in the world
* Real-time speech translation-once a vision only in science fiction-will become the norm
* There will be a 3-D Internet
* Technologies the size of a few atoms will address areas of environmental importance
* Our mobile phones will come close to reading our minds

The key to improved healthcare information access will be, you guessed it, wireless. Wireless access will allow for remote healthcare as well as real-time monitoring of chronic diseases such as diabetes. It will also allow medical professionals and hospitals to share and update medical information instantly, speeding treatment time and making diagnoses much more efficient.

Mobile is the heart of number five as new innovations, like presence and GPS, blend with existing mobile phones and networks to allow users to have instant, real-time access to just about any application.

What do you think? Is IBM's list accurate? Or did they miss technologies that are more important?