HP’s Crystal Ball Gazing - Personal Tech of 2016

Sounds like HP has been doing some “outside the box” thinking lately, if the prototypes in its Concept & Design Innovation Tour are anything to go by.  Charged with designing the shape and ethos of the gadgets we’ll be playing with in 2016, HP’s futurologists have decided that less is definitely more - both in aesthetics and in componentry.  Central to the concept is a futuristic bracelet watch, similar to the Fossil Starck watch to my eyes, which satisfies the eye candy with a holographic display and connectivity with UWB (Ultra-Wide Band) radio, which is far less power-hungry than Bluetooth or WiFi.  Read on to find out just exactly what this clever watch will connect to…

HP see their watch as being a gateway to our own personal information cloud, where data is stored on servers rather than being lugged around in various miniaturised hard drives and accessed via a high-speed wireless connection.  They demonstrated (non-working) prototypes of a convertible Tablet PC and slate-style Tablet, which would trade their own storage and wireless for greatly increased battery life. 

Sharing information with a group could be as easy as slotting a closed laptop or slate Tablet PC into the nook in this desk, the top surface of which then becomes one vast interactive display.  It also handily charges your portable units while they’re stored safely there.