When car airbags open, a device alerts emergency services. Personal communications systems like Wildfire are poised to add more features. The next step, says Saffo, is the conversion of e-mail messages into spoken words. After all, such programs already allow Wildfire to engage in repartee. What may hold mobile communications back is battery life.
Batteries still run out.
Such a device may only be years away for a fixed line. Unless you're a single person living in a one-room apartment, you don't want a single unit. Sure, Sony and some telecom equipment makers are moving into PCs. But the dynamics of the industry is such that these makers will make sure there are different products. You are forced to converge a lot of applications into one device only when they are expensive.