When you hear a track you like in a coffee shop, simply hold your mobile up in the air to listen. It will tell you what the track is and the latest scandal on the singer, then download a copy of the song from a Web server. Current technology could do all this right now, the main limitation is that we poor overworked humans haven't had the time to write the necessary lines of computer code. The possibilities are endless. In Japan, the revolution is already happening.
Users can send email and visit a few thousand specially-formatted Web sites.
Subscriber numbers are predicted to reach 20 million by the end of 2001. Already it's the biggest single ISP in the country, including all land-based providers. It's happening in Europe too. At least half the big European ecommerce sites are currently adapting content to serve mobiles, and these should come on-stream this year. The BBC has public content formatted for mobile phones right now.