Dream Gadgets

The past few years have seen the introduction of some of the most inventive gadgets of our time. From wireless mobile technology and bluetooth, to the iPad and even ‘smart clothes’ (clothes that help the wearer cope with the stresses of daily life), gadget junkies like myself are constantly asking “what’s next?”

Everyone knows that the really good invention ideas come about because someone thinks “I want to do this” or “there must be an easier way to do that”, so in keeping with the theme of my last article, Inventive Technology, I decided to shake things up a bit and ask the real experts – you – what your dream gadgets would be.

This is what you said…

The great popularity, and dare I say obsession with communication has made this a top priority for a dream gadget, with 34% of respondents choosing this option. At joint second place, entertainment and travel claimed 16% each of votes, which begs the question, are people spending more time talking about life and less time living it?

In War of the Wireless, I mentioned that the faster pace of life has meant we have the expectation that we should be able to manage our work, social life and everything in between and still have time to look good – and a lot of you are feeling the pressure just as much as I am. Almost all of you required your gadget to be the Swiss Army knife of life – when given the option of multiple functions for your gadget, you said you want it to make your life easier and be able to use it for both work and leisure, and some even wanted o use it for socialising; little wonder there.

Space – the final frontier?

Hollywood would like us to believe that the future is outer space or on other planets, but only 39% of you agree. 69% of you raised a cynical eyebrow and decided your gadgets were going to be used right here on earth, with your feet planted firmly on the ground. Like true inventors, however, you left yourselves room for manoeuvre and although we may not all end up living in floating villages in the sky, or underwater complexes, you have left these options open and your gadgets reflect this, with 65% of these able to be used in the water or in the air as well.

Whoever said technology couldn’t be green?

That is certainly not the attitude of this audience, which we had already guessed by your responses to the article, Green IT. 55% of you stated that your gadgets would run on renewable energy, kinetic energy or even on CO2. Gadgets made with natural elements were also popular.

So, what are your dream gadgets worth?

Some of the respondents to this survey are either earning way too much or hope to be earning crazy amounts of money. 29% of you priced your gadgets at over £1,000, with 11% being priced at over £100,000! It doesn’t stop there; even dream gadgets need upgrading, or rather 57% of them will – let’s hope that we will all be earning big bucks in the future!

The future is just around the corner…

Or rather, the future according to you is within the next 5 years, at which point 55% of your dream gadgets will have already been invented, and 30% of you have decided that you will be making these gadgets yourselves, or at least patenting them. The more adventurous inventions will take at least 20 to 100 years to become reality, and 10% are not even expected to be available in our lifetime. That doesn’t stop you wanting to create them yourselves; in fact, 43% of you would love to get working on them, but we just don’t have that kind of technology – what a shame.

In all my years of studying and working with technical and non-technical IT professionals, I have found them to be some of the most interesting and ‘out there’ people – especially the real techies. It’s not surprising that some of their dream gadgets are impressive works of technology art and some are just downright fun!

Here are some of my favourites:

The Dream Catcher – it stores your day dreams and allows you to re-visit them.

H-Board – it’s a hover board (refer to Back to the Future II, need I say more!)

Imaginarium – to imagine you anywhere (I’m assuming this is like a Star Trek holo-deck).

Offshore Oil Recovery Rig – it cleans up and recovers oil spills (I think we’d all like to see one of those, especially with the recent situation).

Trans Tech – walls made of glass on which you could display anything. You can change the colour, set images and change the transparency at a touch (no more messy paint, wall paper, or naked shop-front mannequins – perfect!)

High Definition Garden Entertainment Centre – outdoor HD projector, unaffected by glare, so we can watch England win the World Cup and enjoy a British summer-time barbeque all at once (I wonder which is more likely…)

And for the ultimate laugh factor (please turn away if you are easily offended):

The Sun Fun Tanner – to hold breasts in place while sunbathing and avoid those annoying tan-lines (I would love to know the sex of the person who put this forward)!