News Item Dated: 27 December 2002
From: ZDNet UK  (12/25/02); Goodwins, Rupert

The year 2003 will see continued improvement in wireless networking, location-based mobile services, radio-frequency ID (RFID) chips, displays, and other technologies. More devices will come equipped with Bluetooth wireless connectivity, and new 802.11 Wi-Fi standards will speed up wireless Internet access.

Zigbee is a new short-range wireless technology that might encroach on Bluetooth's new turf, though Bluetooth is also being threatened by standards fragmentation, since companies such as Microsoft are releasing Bluetooth products that do not interoperate with those from other firms. Hardware innovations may include a holographic storage breakthrough from IBM and other companies, which have been seeking terabyte storage in tiny spaces for some time.

Next year will also mark the first time LCD displays outsell cathode-ray tube monitors, putting pressure on emerging display technologies such as plasma and light-emitting polymers. Millions of RFID chips will allow manufacturers and retailers to track inventory and more efficiently manipulate the supply chain; Gillette has already ordered half a billion RFID chips to place on its razors.

Philips and Sony are expected to improve robots that interact with humans--Sony's human-like SDR-4X has stereoscopic vision and can recognize faces and up to 60,000 words. Telematics will likely improve capabilities, though standards competition hampers commercial adoption. Once upgrading in-car systems becomes as easy as upgrading a PC, telematics will become much more appealing, and possibly spawn systems that automatically synchronize MP3 playlists via Wi-Fi once they park in the garage.

Interested? For further reading, check out this link: http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2127608,00.html