Mobile technology has changed our lives, but there is a lot more to come,say industry insiders at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain.It’s a showcase of the latest technology -- and a glimpse of what the future holds.
Meet Pibo, a mobile-connected robot designed to help families connect and express their emotions in the digital age.
How about a smart toothbrush which connects to an app on your phone and tells you how well you’re brushing.
U.S. giants AT&T and General Electric have come up with smart street lamps,with cameras, sensors and microphones connected to 4G mobile networks.Over three thousand are being installed in San Diego, California and will be used for traffic analysis.
But the makers have bigger ambitions.
"You are going to be able to detect smart parking solutions, gunshot detections inside of a city infrastructure.Environmental features detecting weather, smog, pollution.Really bringing to life the intelligence inside of the city, all powered by a lamppost."
Much of the buzz at this year’s show is around super-fast 5G networks -- with faster download speeds and almost zero delay.
"So we are talking about real-time connection.The best example someone has given to me is a surgeon performing a surgery in one country with robotic hands in another country."
Mobile technology is transforming economies in many African countries.There are smartphone apps for herding cattle in Kenya and for connecting dirty laundry to mobile washerwomen in Uganda.
Eneza uses basic mobile technology to offer access to a huge range of education.Two million students are signed up to its 'virtual classroom' -- and the better their grades,the more mobile airtime the parents receive.
They are able to access all the education they want for a subscription that’s about 10 U.S. cents per week.That covers the full curriculum and will get them from, everything they need to do, around age eight through to finishing school.The reality in most of Africa is that mobile technology is actually the only way that you can reach huge numbers of people at low cost with any kind of content."
A recent report by management consultants McKinsey & Company predicts that by 2025 half of sub-Saharan Africa’s billion strong population will have internet access, over two-thirds via smartphones.
Henry Ridgwell, for VOA news, London.