Over at Product Reviews Peter discusses the possibility of holographic mobile phones in a few years (complete with excellent geeky homage to Star Wars), but Peter worries that as cool as such an addition might be, it might not be so useful:

I am not totally sold on the whole holographic handset, I do understand that for future phones we all want to see some really cool features. I do worry though that the Holographic handset is one feature too far, I do not think that I would have any use for such a feature, but then again I am only one person.

I don’t quite agree – just because we can’t think of anything right now doesn’t mean we won’t find uses in the future. I’m sure the first people who put cameras in phones were treated with a certain amount of scepticism yet cameraphones have transformed how we both consume and make media – think of all the news being broken on blogs and moblogs with cameraphones. While a lot of the use of cameras is just for leisure – fun pics and snaps – it still has its serious uses, and I’m sure holograms are the same; we might not be able to predict their uses but once they come along we’ll wonder how we ever got on without them.

It’s just a matter of time – and as for them being around in two years – I think it might take a bit longer; and in any case the current trends are in touchscreen, mobile internet and handset deign, none of which really tie in with holograms very well. But there may well be a day when it comes so I’m not ruling anything out…