With mobile phones so ubiquitous these days it’s hard to find places where they’re not usable - they’re generally restricted to being down coal mines, up the tops of mountains and when in an aeroplane. But that last one might be about to change:

The use of mobiles on planes flying in European airspace has been given approval by UK regulator Ofcom. It has issued plans that will allow airlines to offer mobile services on UK-registered aircraft. The decision means that mobiles could be used once a plane has reached an altitude of 3,000m or more.

Turning off mobiles is always something I forget to do on plane (though thankfully with no ill effects, touch wood) but it might be a while yet before we’re able to use them properly, as airlines still need to jump through other regulatory hoops before mobiles on planes will be allowed. So if you’re itching to use your phone, whether it be for texts, calls or Internet, when you next fly, you’re going to have to wait a little bit longer. Alternatively, you might think it’s good to take a break from a mobile lifestyle for a few hours once every so often. What do you reckon? Is allowing mobile use on planes a good thing or something we’re better off without?

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

Sir Arthur C. Clarke passed away yesterday, aged 90. As well as being one of the leading science fiction writers of the twentieth century, was a passionate believer in using technology to advance mankind. He famously proposed using geostationary satellites - satellites that remained in a fixed point above a spot on the Earth - to relay radio signals - which today is one of the most important components in global communications.

The quote at the top, one of his most famous (the third of his three laws) certainly rings true if you compare the world as it was when Sir Arthur was born. A visitor from 1917 would be astounded to see the amazing leaps mankind has made, from television to space travel to the Internet, we enjoy today. Just think where we’ll be in 90 years hence, at the same rate of advancement; what holds for us then will be as comparatively magical as the present day is to 1917. It’s just a matter of getting there, and as Sir Arthur’s second law states, there’s only one way of getting there:

“The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.”

There’s lots of buzz about this interesting invention out - a phone charger that takes the waste energy from when you walk:

A knee brace which can generate electricity as you walk, creating enough power to charge mobile phones and medical devices, has been developed by scientists.

The device is inspired by technology used in hybrid cars which store the power from braking to generate electricity. So-called regenerative brakes can collect energy that would otherwise be dissipated as heat when a car slows. In the same way, the knee brace uses the energy dissipated at the knee as the leg slows after a step.

Using it just as a phone charger might seem a waste of the technology - and it turns out there are actually many more uses for it - such as powering automated prosthetic limbs for the lesser-abled, which is the main intention of the project. But the news coverage has been quick to come up with other ideas for what to do with the energy - and why not? Many inventions end up being used for purposes completely different from what they originally intended (just think about how text messaging was originally intended for voicemail alerts and not person-to-person messages) and it’s not hard to come up with loads of ideas for using that energy - whether it be mobiles, personal MP3 players, portable game systems, even personal computers.

It could even have beneficial effects for us - if our mobile or music player is running out of battery, we might skip that car journey or trip on the bus and walk instead so we can help recharge it, making us fitter and healthier as well (so much for the fearmongering that new technology is for us). And once we start shaping our activity around the electronic devices we’re using as they depend on us, does that make them part of our bodies? Is something as innocuous as this making us one step closer to being cyborgs? Such a simple invention brings surprisingly profound questions if you look at it close enough. Any thoughts you have, share them in the comments below.

The BBC have published their list of technologies to watch out for in 2008 and some of it makes for interesting reading. Four of the five themes explored - blending offline/online, ultra-mobile PCs, widespread public wireless and mobile VoIP - illustrate the trend for computing power leaving the world of the desktop and the office and into your pocket, and the blurring of the distinction between offline and online.

Mobile VoIP and WiMAX public wireless go hand-in-hand and it’s very likely we will see more of both in the future, with demand for one driving likely to drive supply of the other. I don’t see either of these technologies totally dominating just yet - WiMAX have yet to gain a foothold in Europe and the investment demands means 3G services have a natural head start over it for providing high-speed mobile Internet. Mobile VoIP depends not just on bandwidth but also handset provision, and this too will take time to take off. Maybe one for 2009 rather than 2008?

The most interesting is the ultra-mobile computing. Thanks to Moore’s Law, and technologies such as flash memory and sharper, smaller LCD screens, notebook PCs are shrinking and shrinking, while mobile phones are able to pack a lot more power in. While we have long considered a computer as either a desktop unit, or a bulky laptop of a similar size and designed along the same lines, the design paradigm is really shifting rapidly to something very different, and ultra-mobile PCs (UMPCs) are the start of that.

UMPCs (like the Asus EEE pictured on the right) have ditched hard drives and optical drives in favour of solid-state storage and using wireless and USB, cutting the size down. Who knows what’s next for this kind of PC. Do they really need a keyboard or mouse pointer as input, with touchscreen technology ever advancing? Closer integration with mobile phones and other portable devices via wi-fi or Bluetooth is an obvious possibility - once these are aligned together in a “personal area network”, itself connected to the wider world all the time, does it even mean the “computer” is a single device any more?

Tie that in with the advances in web services and synchronising online and offline (which will become more and more essential), and our concept of what makes a “computer” may become a lot more fluid. No longer bound in a single device, our files, music, video and data can roam between devices within our network and across locations seamlessly, and our computer becomes a more virtual kind of machine, that is always at hand whether we are at home or away, independent of the hardware it’s running on.

Well, that’s one strand of thought about the future of technology. Why not add yours below in the comments?

There has been an interesting experiment in lighting that originates from a 2d surface. Designer Jonas Samson has invented duel function wallpaper, which acts traditionally, as wallpaper, but also doubles up as light source. When the wallpaper is turned ‘off’ there is no indication the light is hidden inside. This is certainly a replacement for any mood lighting you have, it’s also space saving and innovative.

This wallpaper raises a couple of interesting points and crossovers into the realm of technology. First, is that presumably the wallpaper would be at least partially customisable allowing anyone to design their own light whilst also designing their own wallpaper. Personalisation has been a key feature of consumer electronics over the years, (a current example is HP’s The computer is personal again campaign) and this wallpaper has the potential to take the idea of personalisation through technology into new and very different area of our lives.

Secondly the driving force for much of technology at present is smaller and more convergent. The Viewty is a mobile phone, a multimedia player, a camera and a web browser to name but a few and this invention although not focused on traditional gadgetry, is very much part of that landscape.

I noticed that Time magazine has awarded its invention of year 2007 prize to the iPhone. It’s not my place to say whether it should or shouldn’t have been given that award by Time, as mentioned in previous posts we respect the iPhone tremendously.

No, what is perplexing is the reasons the Time journalist gives for the iPhone winning. He mentions as one of the reasons that the iPhone is ‘pretty’ and that ‘high tech-tech companies don’t take design seriously.’ As Gizmodo suggests, this is a comment that would annoy plenty of other mobile phone companies and indeed LG has always had one eye firmly on design with its products.

The Design Art TV is one such device and looks the way it does because of a dedicated team of designers in Milan, whilst also incorporates innovative technology such as Intelligent Eye. LG has a tradition of a good design with it’s products – after all the Prada was designed in conjunction with the fashion house and was one of first non PDA mobiles to incorporate a touch screen.

HP’s Blackbird gaming PC is an excellent example of innovation coming from ground breaking design and perfectly suits the target audience. The Phillips Aurea LCD is a TV that derives its good looks from the AmbiLight technology and clearly shows that technology companies hardly think of design as an after thought. There are many more.

I’m pretty sure most people could think of lots of examples where good design and technology go hand in hand