What's your favourite gadget?

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Mobile phones are just about like body parts for many people today. What won't they be able to do without in ten years? by Richard Betts.
Twenty years ago, the one essential gadget every young person had to own was a Walkman cassette player. Ten years ago the first generation of Pentium computers hit the stores and suddenly became the killer technology to own.

 

Today, there are more electronics and gadget options than ever before: mobile phones, Xbox 360s, MP3 players, digital cameras, PSPs, computers with 500 gigabyte hard drives ...

 

But which of these devices are you least able to live without?

 

Jasmine Baker owns an iPod Nano, a PlayStation 2 and a PC with a fast broadband connection, but says she'd be completely lost without her mobile phone.

 

The 15-year-old uses her phone to keep in touch with friends, arrange social events and, best of all, call her parents for a lift home when she needs one. Jasmine says she texts people, but she would prefer to actually call them - "especially older people who aren't very quick at texting back" - if it wasn't so expensive.

 

Because she pays for her prepay phone cards out of her own savings, she's keen to see the price of calling drop.

 

Jasmine's younger brother Jarrod says his favourite gadget is his PlayStation 2.

 

He uses it most days and likes playing sports games most of all, particularly Rugby 06. As much as he loves his PS2, Jarrod thinks it could be improved by making it wireless, so that he could move the console from room to room easier.

 

Not surprisingly, he's looking forward to the PlayStation 3 when it's released in November.

 

Never mind a PS3; Chris Albrey, 14, just wishes he could get a decent internet connection. His favourite tech-toy may be his computer, but because he lives rurally he can't get broadband.

 

He uses his PC to keep in contact with people by email, watch movies and listen to music, but his favourite pastime is playing games. Unfortunately, although he's lucky enough to have a new, powerful PC, his web access isn't good enough to play many games online.

 

If PCs, PlayStations and cellphones are the things we love now, then what will we be unable to live without in the future? One thing's for sure: whatever it is, it will do lots of things.

 

There are already phones that connect to the net, broadcast images of who you're talking to, play music and screen TV shows. It won't be long before they add functions such as satellite navigation systems that can tell you where you are - and where your friends are - anywhere in the world.

 

Computers will be faster and more powerful, with better graphics - playing a game will become so realistic it will be like watching a movie.

 

In the future, our gadgets may even become part of us. A nightclub in Spain already offers VIP members a service where a microchip is implanted in their arm, just beneath the skin.

 

These people can then use the chip to buy food and drinks, just like you'd use an eftpos card. Instead of swiping their card, members just move their arm in front of an electronic beam. Sounds like a great way to pay for your bus fare.

 

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