Calling internationally is then free if you're dialling another Skype user, and calls to land-lines cost less than 2p a minute. BT is spending millions on this technology - it's the way all phone calls will be made one day. Skype's Pocket-PC service allows users of some palm-top computers with wi-fi (wireless) connections to log on to the internet when they're away from their homes or offices and near wi-fi hotspots such as coffee shops. 06 Talk is cheap Voice-over internet protocol uses the internet instead of the regular phone network to carry calls. Air-traffic controllers could one day use it to see where planes are in 3D and scientists could view images of molecules from all angles.
One day, perhaps the rest of us will play 3D video games or see every corner of the Queen Vic in a 3D Eastenders. The Perspecta is a football-sized globe - currently in development - with a 3D image, projected from within, that illuminates the sphere's walls. One day we'll be sitting around a sphere, as Victorians gathered round card tables. Of course, if you pinched Tom Cruise's phone you could just take a picture of him in Heat.
05 I'm watching you If you've just traded up to a plasma TV, you won't be ahead of the game for long. Once you've taken a photo of yourself for reference, the phone will lock until another picture of the same person is taken If someone else tries to use the phone, it won't work. 04 Face the future How about a camera phone that has a puppy-like devotion to you? The Japanese company Omron is developing software that lets the camera phone recognise its owner. Clever software can then tell when the subject is blinking and discards those shots, leaving only the ones where the eyes are open Now, if you can just work on that smile a bit...