Wireless world

People who like cell phones that double as cameras, scanners that can fax and print and computers that show TV programming and Internet content are likely going to love the future.

A panel of tech experts recently agreed that they expect tech developments the next few years likely will lead to a society a dozen years from now that more seamlessly provides us what we want, when we want it and without some of today's cumbersomeness. Like wires.

"I feel that over the next decade or two decades, there's going to be much more progress on human interaction," Nazim Kareemi, president and chief executive officer of Canesta Inc., said during the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Continued miniaturization and better battery power, he said, will have us "interacting with the environment on our terms."

If today's generations are considered "wired," future ones will enjoy the benefits of wireless networks streaming music, photos, video, news and other data to various devices.

"Going forward, you will continue to see the evolution in these three areas: how to make it more digitized, how to make it smaller and how to make it more convenient. Yet, there is one thing that has yet to be fully untethered, and that is storage of content," said Patrick Lo, chairman and CEO of Netgear Inc., referring to DVDs, CD-ROMs, videotapes and disks.

"Basically, the storage of all data will be accessible wirelessly so that you don't have to carry it along. That's something you probably can buy 15 years from now."

Memory remains the most expensive element of electronic devices, but a wireless environment could eliminate that problem, he said.

"It would change the world from an entertainment standpoint and a content-based standpoint to a data-processing standpoint for all developing countries in the world," Lo said.

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How sure are they about the pending wireless world? David Nagel, president and CEO of PalmSource Inc., described it as a natural progression. "Universally available networks is something we should assume," he said.