Towards a truly revolutionary smartphone: enhanced sense functionality

Apple is soon to release its latest variant on the iPhone this Tuesday (9-9-14): one more slight modification on the same old functionality, which tends to focus on pictures, video, and calls. Woe be Steve Jobs. But, if you consider the enormous advancements in processor capacity and functionality, as well as increasing memory, you realize that smart-phones could become truly revolutionary machines of the 21st century.

    The notion that the smartphone, as with the computer, is an extension of the human brain that could drastically enhance our senses by adding information is astounding--when its implications are explored. 

    Here are a few examples:

 

1) Chemical/smell analysis

-identify chemical components of substances

-identify gaseous components of air

-food spoilage detector

-age of substance

-corpse time of death identification

-protein analysis

-gaseous poison detection engine

 

2) Light analysis

-radiation detection

-mapping tool

-Surveying apparatus

-'electron microscope' 

-species detection algorithm

-as-built architecture tool

-face recognition engine

-fingerprint detection unit

 

3) Sound analysis

-underwater species identification

-bird call identification

-predator location, velocity detection

-song identification

-automatic language translator

-speech transcription

 

    The problem with existing smart phones is that they only cater to the limited imaginations of its average users, designed specifically to communication between parties: voice, image, video. But these only make up a tiny subset of the enormous range of uses to which they could be placed; and the smartphone community isn't even hinting at this much wider range of functionalities future smart phones might hold.

    There is certainly much room for improvement and modification in order for smart phones to become these marvelous devices, much more so than they already are today. In this sense, the true scope of "iCloud" has yet to be ceased by Apple, in that it could be used for realtime voice recognition and/or language translation, for example. iPhones would obviously have to have some type of laser, with which to burn things in order to identify trace elements, etc. etc.

    Whatever the case might be, that to be announced on tuesday will likely not even touch on the true functionality and scope of future smart phones. 

    If Steve Jobs were alive today, I think he would agree.