Telstra releases their vision of life in Australia in 2020 - where it is predicted we would have virtual medical appointments. Photo: Supplied Source: Supplied
Telstra releases their vision of life in Australia in 2020 - where it is predicted we would have virtual medical appointments. Photo: Supplied Source: Supplied
Telstra releases their vision of life in Australia in 2020 - where it is predicted we would have virtual medical appointments. Photo: Supplied Source: Supplied
- "All devices, from your oven to your car, will communicate with each other and with your smartphone."
- "Intelligent transport systems will help traffic authorities direct drivers around congestion by sending warnings directly to your car's navigation system."
- "People will have "personal concierge" apps that will put on their washing machine or oven, and automatically send their shopping list to the supermarket.
- "Cars will be connected to the cloud and be fitted with auto-sensing technology to be able to park themselves and avoid other cars on the road."
- "You will pay for everything with a swipe of your smartphone. Your phone will also remember your purchases, or prompt you to go shopping."
BY 2020, Australians will have personal digital concierges running their home, newspaper tablets to roll up and put in their pockets and rubbish bins that create a shopping list when people throw out their empties.
At least that is the vision of Telstra's Chief Technology Officer Dr Hugh Bradlow, who has made a series of predictions of our digital future.
Dr Bradlow admitted his predictions were speculation but were based on technologies either available today or their way, like Google's Glass spectacles, Samsung's watch and digital wallets.
"I can say with almost certainty that any technology that's going to be around in 2020, I will know about it today. I will have seen it in a lab, I will have read about it in papers, I will maybe even trialled it myself,'' he said.
"The thing I can never tell is the human behaviour reaction."
Dr Bradlow summed up living in 2020 as the age of "immersive technology" where every device in the home, office, cars and wider environment can speak to each other.
Electronic communication between people and devices is dramatically increasing.
Telstra said there were 50 million connections in Australia currently between people and devices. By 2020, there will be 240 million connections and by 2030 that figure will rise to 1 trillion.
Dr Bradlow said that by 2020 Australians would be living in a digital economy with "sensors that drive smart bodies, smart homes, smart transport and smart environment".
Telstra has created a video of its vision of the future which shows someone throwing an empty carton into the kitchen rubbish bin.
The bin registers the item through scanning the container and sends a message to the Net-connected fridge to add orange juice to the shopping list.
Dr Bradlow's predictions include:
*Intelligent transport systems in which cars talk to each other and public transport vehicles all communicate through a central network.
*Home entertainment systems to be controlled by voice, hand or eye movement.
*Near-field Communication (NFC) which is already in many people's smartphones evolving into a major tool that will enable people to use their smartphones as a digital wallet, electronic key and boarding pass or transport ticket.
*The end of waiting rooms as many people use video conferencing for their medical appointments, with sensors connected to their body to monitor their heart rate, blood pressure, temperature and even brain scans remotely.
Dr Bradlow said one of the biggest changes in the future will be the way we shop, with Roy Morgan research finding that eBay is already Australia's largest shopping mall.
"You'll walk into a store, tap your phone on a box and it will say you can get that for $3 cheaper online or there's a store 100 yards down the road that has it for $2 cheaper," he said.
Dr Bradlow said many of the challenges were less to do with technology and more to do with the way we interact with those technologies and the implications on areas such as privacy.
"I can envision a time where you go into a place and they say take your (Google) glasses off."
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