Today they are called cell phones, and they are becoming more powerful all the time. Carriers like AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, Sprint, Nextel, Alltel, and more, are continuously feeding the frenzy of gadget hungry subscribers. The ability of chip companies to make them smaller and still be more powerful, is is a constant in the mobile communications field. Battery life has dramatically increased over the last couple of year, with longer talk and standby times, and the trends show no sign of slowing down. In our lifetimes we may see such innovations as minature fuel cell batteries, intuitive systems that will completely operate by voice and touch commands, screen projection abilities, and many other things that would seemingly belong in the science fiction world. The screen resolutions are increasing with each model, as well as the sizes and the amount of them on each device. It is to the point where you almost can't call them cell phones anymore. The phone part is rapidly becoming a secondary function. Emailing, text messaging, web surfing, picture and video options are driving the purchases today.

Add-on flash memory, such as SD, miniSD and microSD(also known as TransFlash) are holding more data then ever before. There are 4GB and 8GB flash memory modules commonplace now, with 16GB hitting the marketplace, and 32GB sizes are not far behind. Windows Mobile is on more and more devices, with other OS's from Blackberry, Sun, Linux, and Palm right there building more powerful systems. The Apple iPhone is rapidly taking a share of the marketplace, with Google working on it's own phone, and a slew of manufacturers are pouring touch screen smart phones to compete for that piece of the pie. The PDA's that were once larger than your hand are shrinking in overall size, while at the same time increasing their power and abilities.

I believe within ten years, what we call cell phones and laptops today, will merge to one device and be able to fit in the palm of your hand and be available to the masses.