The telephonic function of mobile phones became just one of a vast array of connecting functions starting in 2007 when the proliferation of smartphones began. Szymon Slupik, Krakow-based futurist and mobile consultant, offers a vision for 2020 that contines that progression toward deeper and broader networking of our brains with each other and with the cloud. He explains that the mobile phone has become a teleputer: a creature with genes of both telephone and computer, offering us a gateway to the other side. 

Whereas voice technology was always organized in sessions with beginnings and endings, we now communicate in threads, more like the way our brains are organized. We have many threads of thought and conversation continuously running in parallel, and that may be endless.

This new way of organizing information pushes the boundaries of current hardware and software. Slupik suggests that the future of mobile phones will continue to move in this direction. Future mobile phones will not be handheld, but rather screenless touchless devices offering us mixed reality vision, networking our senses and brains. Two key technologies for this future device are laser based displays (which can display information directly on our retinas without blocking our vision) and brain wave sensors that allow us to interface networks with only our minds. No need for screens or keyboards.