在西方，一些移动电话公司免费给用户提供手机。随着电信技术的发展，一些现在仍很昂贵的电子产品也会便宜得像白送一样。甚至有可能研发出通讯粉末，它可以像涂料一样刷在墙上，播放音乐、放映电影、甚至对您讲话，您信不信？

　　By Andy Hopper

　　国华树春译注

　　The communications explosion is on the scale of<注1> the rail, automobile or telephone revolution. Very soon you'll be able to record your entire life electronically<注2>—anything a microphone or a camera can sense<注3> you'll be able to store. In particular, the number of images<注4> a person captures<注5> in a lifetime is set to<注6> rise exponentially. <注7> The thousand images a year I take of my children on a digital camera<注8> are all precious to me. In a generation's time, <注9> my children's children will have total image documentation<注10> of their entire lives—a visual log<注11> of tremendous personal value.

　　By then we'll be wrestling with<注12> another question: how we control all the electronic devices<注13> connected to the internet: trillions<注14> of PCs, <注15> laptops, <注16> palmpilots, <注17> cell phones<注18> and other gadgets. <注19> In Cambridge, we're already working on millimetre-square computing and sensing devices<注20> that can be linked to the internet through the radio network. This sort of connectivity will expand dramatically as microscopic communications devices become dirt-cheap<注21> and multiply. <注22> Just imagine what the paint on the wall could do if it had this sort of communications dust<注23> in it: change colour, play music, show movies or even speak to you.

　　Falling costs raise<注24> other possibilities too. Because launching space vehicles is about to become very much cheaper, the number of satellites is likely to go up exponentially. There's lots<注25> of space up there so we could have millions of them. And if you have millions of low-orbit<注26> satellites you can establish a global communications network that completely does away with<注27> towers and masts. <注28> If the satellites worked on the cellular principle<注29> so you got spatial reuse<注30> of frequencies, system capacity would be amazing.

　　Speech is so flexible that<注31> I expect voice communication to become almost free eventually: you'll pay just a monthly fixed charge<注32> and be able to make as many calls as you want. By then people will also have fixed links<注33> with business contacts, friends and relatives. One day I anticipate being able to keep in touch with<注34> my family in Poland on a fibreoptic audio-video link; <注35> we'll be able to have a little ceremony at supper-time, open the curtains and sit down "together" to eat. <注36>

　　Cars are an interesting IT-platform<注37> because they have big batteries and lots of so far unconnected digital devices. Soon each one will be an entity<注38> on the internet so your children can play interactive games<注39> while you're travelling and your partner can deal with<注40> their email. And every lamppost could be on the internet too—each one with sensors<注41> to monitor light, pollution, air quality and traffic flow. <注42>