It's a cold morning. I wake up, reach out to the home appliance controls on my bedside, and program the microwave to prepare my breakfast with the right amount of calories. Thereafter, I walk to my closet and pick a suit. My intelligent closet automatically presents a matching shirt, tie, shoes, socks and cufflinks that I had not recently worn! I walk into the living room. The light is perfect, room is warm and window curtains are drawn showing off the beautiful snowcapped mountains. Ah! My smart room occupancy sensor knows the ambience I want. I have my healthy breakfast while watching news on the connected TV. In the midst of it, I get a video call and I need to head to work. I toss the news feed from the TV screen to my tablet and walk to the garage. I switch on the in-vehicle infotainment system in the car to continue hearing the news and drive on. The system then integrates with my smart phone and updates me on my day’s meetings. It also helps me reach my destination safely and quickly. Snap! The alarm rings and I wake up from my dream in which my life was 'smart'.
Smart life is sure to become the reality in the future; the numerous Android and Windows Phone 7 (WP7) based smart phones, tablets and connected devices with mobility applications for consumers and enterprises demonstrated at the recent MWC & Barcelona I attended, showed we aren't too far away from it. I saw smart devices with neat user interfaces using GPS and Augmented Reality (AR) to build interaction with the external environment. AR is helping seed intelligence into devices like the mobile in a big way making them literally talk to the consumer. LAYAR, for instance, has tried to recreate events of the past for the user. You can go to Brandenburg gate, open the Berlin Wall layer and see how the fallen Berlin Wall comes back to life. Similarly, if you are crossing Abbey Road in London you can see a 3-D image of the Beatles. This is the beginning of smart life - bringing your past, present and may be even future alive! Feel free to share your views on how smart our life will get in the future, thanks to mobility and connectedness.