Communication implants aren't such a far-fetched idea, as they would assist government control of people. Today's blue tooth twit will be respected as a founder of the societal norm. Cellular phones and PDAs can be turned off so they can't be tracked down. Implants would be ideal for tracking and tracing people because you couldn't easily toss an implant away. As a bonus feature, you'd be pre-bugged in case Homeland Security wanted to listen in on all your conversations. Phone conversations of government officials, workers in key positions and "persons of interest" have been monitored at random since wire-tapping was invented.

With today's computerization and digitizing of communication it is possible for Big Brother to snoop more than ever. In 20 years the government might have the capability of monitoring everyone all the time. If you happened to mention "al-Qaida" or "dirty bomb" while conversing with friends, your conversations might automatically be recorded via your implant for possible investigation.

When I was growing up, a child talking when by themselves was assumed to be conversing with an imaginary friend, and an adult talking when by themselves was assumed to have problems and should be approached with caution.

In 20 years, outside of nursing homes, an adult who can't be contacted remotely will probably be assumed to have problems and should be approached with caution.

-tap on chest- Kirk to Enterprise.

We are getting close.
Eugene Wesley "Gene" Roddenberry was so ahead of his time.

Man, are you making me feel old. Back in the late 70's, I worked at Bell Labs in Naperville IL. At the time, everything was based on land lines and pay phones were all over the place. Our software made it all happen without incident. The actual phones you mentioned came from a lab in Indianapolis and they were built to last for years. Remember the voice quality?

Somewhere around 1978, a fellow engineer came into my office and wanted me to help him work on a system that could make cellular phone calls. I asked him what a cellular phone was? I had no idea what this guy was talking about. After a few hours, we were on our way to developing the first cellular system.

Motorola actually came out with the first handheld cellular phone but we extended some of our existing systems to handle the calls. The phones were a bit bigger than a bottle of wine. The test phones filled the back of a car trunk.

Where do I think we will be in 20 years. Wow! We may even have tiny transplants in our heads or in our earlobe that has a chip in it for all voice communication. At a minimum, a chip on the ear will be almost permanently attached and able to talk to a device similar to today's IPADs.

By then, the auto insurance companies will make sure our cars can not even be driven if somebody in the drivers seat is using a communications device that needs visual attention. Text will certainly be voiced instead of using keypads. We may all need glasses every year because of the strain from reading small print.

The problem will be privacy. Ads will be everywhere unless we find a way to legally shut them down. We will be getting messages beamed right to our headsets that tell us how to vote. Maybe we can tell the other end on the spot what we think of such a thing.

Wireless access will be universal and perhaps we will even be back to one system again as we were before 1984.

warcraft, you're probably right. The advancements in communication technology have been incredible, however, along with that, the disconnect among people has been increasingly scary. Espcecially the younger generations who think that not talking to someone face to face is of the "norm". We've replaced something that was never meant to be replaced...it's called human relationships. They can't be established and grown through anything but up close and personal contact. Reason being, every healthy relationship begins and ends with TRUST.

The way things are going in 20 yrs its going
too look like Road Warrior..(JK)..I think.

People will have virtual glasses or little projectors in their eyes. These devices will combine everything we do on separate devices like phones, computers, gps, etc. Typing will be done by eye movement, voice, or virtual keyboards. people will fear these devices will cause cancer and violate their privacy, but will use them anyway, kind of like now. People will become more and more insecure and need validation from others in the form of constant communication.

What do you think it'll look like?? Look at where we're at now. We're more "connected" now, than ever before, yet we're more "disconnected" as a society than ever as well. With technology comes GREAT RESPONSIBILITY.....and as a whole, we're failing miserably!

About thirty years ago (1980?), the phone company was installing underground cables in front of my rural Wisconsin home.
The technician told me that they expected them to last about twenty years and then all communications, TV, etc. would come to us through a small, dinner plate size satellite dish on the roof.
Some of that came true.
I suspect that in the future, everything will be beamed directly into our brains.
Time for the foil hats.

I do understand that fewer and fewer young people "talk on the phone" and that texting (and webcam chatting) is becoming more common. Certainly someone like me who's been on the internet since before most people heard of it couldn't have predicted that kids would shy away from e-mail, too, but they do.
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The replacement technology is probably something like iChat, which is becoming standard in new Apple products like the iPad 2 (it has already been in some iPod models for years). But texting has really come to the forefront again in a way I could never have predicted. Not only does it allow you to communicate "when available" like e-mail, a lot of people seem to be able to do it at the same time as other activities (such as, alas, driving a car), and hold multiple conversations simultaneously. When technology and connectivity reach a point where that's possible with voice it might return, just not in a way that's recognizable as a "phone call" -- many games already have in-game voice chat for coordination and social purposes. I think there's a good argument to be made that the actual game becomes more and more secondary to just connecting to people. Look at the vapid Facebook games like Farmville, for instance.
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But text and voice are pretty basic, so they'll be components of the future communications rainbow. I just don't think any one element is going to be as dominant.

Cell phones are almost obsolete already. I tried to find a simple flip phone. Nope. everything has cameras, music players, and a ton of other stuff. I loved my old Motorola Razr. Now they dont have any phone comparable to it...size wise.
This communication trend will hover like this for awhile. Even if new stuff comes out, people hate change...so it will change real slow if it does.

It's hard to imagine what is to come.
We've gone beyond the 'wrist radio' that Dick Tracy wore in the comics, which at the time seemed far fetched. As a teen operating the old rotary phone dial the idea of just pushing buttons to dial a number was 'high tech'.
I feel we have taken a step backward in using our phones as typewriters. Who ever thought that we would type a message to a friend when we could talk on the same device?