The future starts now

Yesterday the New York Times ran an article that highlighted Nielsen's third-quarter findings for mobile users. A staggering 43% of people have taken the leap to smartphone technology, and for users 25-34, that number is a whopping 62%. Interestingly enough, the fastest growing segment of smartphone adopters are between 55 and 64, and while only 30% of them are packing, that number jumped five points this quarter.

Another surprise? Teens are showing up as some of the slower adopters for smartphones. But look for that number to jump rapidly as parents and older siblings hand down their current smartphones as they hop up to the latest and greatest gadgets upon contract renewals. With the iPhone 4S selling like like hotsauce and older iPhones trickling down, expect this number to make a jump when the fourth-quarter report rolls out.

Forrester Research also backs up this data and the numbers are very close. 

The fact remains, we've reached critical mass with smartphone technology and the device that has been revolutionizing the lives of early adopters for the last few years is about to hit the masses.

With this, we're nearing the end of the "hardware" race. Phones will continue to get gradually smaller and smaller and have slight tweaks like camera and processor upgrades– but the pace of rapid technological acceleration is fading. We've essentially taken all of the past devices that used to tether us to a specific area and put them into our pocket on one device.

The future of mobile rests in the savvy engineers, developers, thinkers and makers who will now leverage the device nearly everyone has to retether all of our other devices– and it's already happening.

NFC technology is set to revolutionize the way we make payments. Pull out your cell phone and you'll be able to make purchases, tethering your phone as your own virtual wallet. Cars are also getting tethered to our mobile devices and keys are also set to be replaced. We're going from key to fob to fab and everything is being not just consolidated, but connected by one device. This same sentiment was shared recently by Marcus Fischer, CEO of space150, in this Ad Age article.

The true excitement in mobile technology aren't the things on the immediate horizon. It's only a matter of time before our lights, retail experiences, televisions, exercise routines, and more are all within a denim square's reach. The most exciting advancements may be in how we interact with these devices, and voice technology a la Siri may become the new way we navigate. As artificial intelligence continues to improve and computations and thinking can be done in the cloud we open up a whole new and more convenient way to interact.

From there where do we go? Simply thinking to interact with devices by reading neurons fired in your brain.

Imagine turning on your TV with your smartphone and asking what the score to the game is. It brings up a ticker across the bottom of the screen, uses your location and past interactions to "think" for you, cross checks that with what's currently occurring, and displays the data for you. It "knows" that you're asking about the Wild game that's currently happening.

What if you brought your mobile device to the grocery store, scanned items as you checked them out (all on your device of course- goodbye register clerks), and as they expired or were consumed (ex: a smart fridge that could weigh items and determine how much is left), you'd be reminded when you need more the next time you're within a grocery store.

Imagine pulling out your phone, using it to heat up your car as you walk to the ramp, unlocking it via your phone, all the way playing your favorite album. You had a recipe for dinner saved on your phone but your fridge has sent through information to your mobile device that you don't have any chicken. It thinks for you via the cloud, finds the nearest grocery store, and directs you there to make your menu complete. When you finally pull up into the driveway, you've already preheated the oven, turned on the lights, and warmed the house up just a little bit for when you walk in the door. Half of the aforementioned example is already happening.

As technology continues to be adopted, the amount of smart devices in our homes will only increase. These things will become a reality. Our lives have previously been all about untethering and consolidating technologies into a single mobile device. The future will be about retethering our entire ecosystem together.