Travel2K: A look at the tech future

With the turn of the millennium only a few months away, ever wonder where the wristwatch-communicators and videophones are? The flying cars?

Whoa, Mr. Jetson. Most travelers would probably settle for a few small improvements to their technology next year.

For example, wouldn’t it be nice if we could trade our Rice Crispies cell phones (you know, the ones that put that “snap, crackle and pop” into our day) for wireless devices that make us sound like we’re calling from this planet?

What if the personal digital assistant finally overtook the laptop computer as the traveling device of choice? Or maybe 1999 could turn out to be the year when smart cards – remember smart cards? – make us all look smarter. Or, the year when laptop batteries actually last the duration of a flight before flickering off.

Let’s start with the batteries.

The lithium ion units are, for better or worse, still the hottest thing around, according to Kevin Prince, vice president of peripheral manufacturer Road Warrior International in Fountain Valley, Calif. “It’s the best of the available technologies,” he says, “and it will continue to be the best for the foreseeable future.”

The impression that the new power packs hold more of a charge is just an illusion. Instead, the latest laptop computers just use the available power more efficiently by spinning down their hard disk drive or dimming their screen. Oh, and one other thing: the lithium ion batteries still explode from time to time, so some safety-minded travelers prefer the less powerful – but more stable – older nickel batteries.

Any chance lithium ion could be replaced by something more efficient, and less volatile?

“Not by 2000,” says Prince.

A few years ago, you couldn’t pick up a travel trade magazine without reading rosy predictions of another technology becoming ubiquitous by Y2K: smart cards. These little devices were supposed to revolutionize payments, billing and expensing procedures. Each card would contain a microchip that debited your company account when you bought an airline ticket or rented a car, for example. Smart cards were supposed to be the next thing.

But smart cards, as they were envisioned, turned out to be a dumb idea.

I talked with several consultants about the state of the cards, and they agree that the concept has fizzled. Although big travel companies like Continental Airlines, Hilton Hotels and American Express are participating in smaller smart card projects (one of them lets you record your frequent flyer miles and check into your hotel at the same time) the technology is far from pervasive. Probably the only widespread use of smart cards is in the category of user-authentication for computer systems, which, in itself, is of limited consequence to travelers.

Ah, but surely the new Palm VII will affect frequent travelers. Perhaps it’ll encourage a few of them to throw out their clunky laptops in favor of the svelte new wireless device, which is expected to be introduced in late 1999. The people at 3Com think so. I haven’t seen one of the new Palm computers, but I like what my old Palm III can do. And it goes without saying that the current tech toy lacks no disciples among the corporate travel crowd.

Details on the Palm VII remain sketchy. It will cost less than $800, according to the manufacturer, and will ship with a wireless modem and bundled Internet access priced at about $10 a month.

Will it be enough to bury the laptop? No, says IBM developer Glenn Ostrander. “I don’t think the new Palm Pilot will become the laptop killer everyone thinks it will,” he says. Why? “The Palm still lacks audio capabilities. It’s still more difficult to use than a PC. And inputting data is still tough. No one likes to type on a small screen.”

True, I’ve always felt the data entry on the Palm III was the hardest part. Learning the proprietary alphabet characters took time. Typing on the tiny keyboard required a pen and a magnifying glass. Couldn’t they just include a speech recognition routine with the handheld computer?

Ostrander says that’s exactly what developers are doing with the new multi-purpose fourth-generation cellular phones. He believes they’ll overtake the laptop as the must-have travel gadget before the Palm does. But not by the end of 1999.

“I think the device that’s going to be the winner is the one that combines the functions of a telephone with that of a personal digital assistant,” he predicts. “It won’t be ubiquitous by the end of next year – they’ll roll them out slowly – but in time, it will overtake the laptop computer.”

Speaking of phones, what’s happening on that front? All this talk about the next generation of cell phones is given a level of urgency with all the static and interference in our collective ears. When’s all that noise going to end?

“We put up with crackly ethereal phones because that’s the best we’ve got,” says Paul Levinson, a professor of communications at Fordham University and author “The Soft Edge: A Natural History and Future of the Information Revolution.” “I think the cell phone is poised to move into a much more full-bodied sound. It’s already gotten so small and portable, there’s not so much that can be done in that area. This is the next step.”

Levinson is talking about the fourth-generation network, a new compression standard that will offer clearer sound and faster data communication across the airwaves. He and other experts agree that these devices will start to become available before 2000. However, like the rest of the technology we’ve looked at in this column, it won’t replace our crackly cell phones overnight — or even, probably, within a year.

So there you go. If I couldn’t promise teleportation or TV-phones by 2000, at least I would have wanted to give you a better phone or a smarter computer.

I guess progress isn’t always as fast as we want it to be.

Christopher Elliott is the author of Scammed: How to Save Your Money and Find Better Service in a World of Schemes, Swindles, and Shady Deals. Critics have called it “eye-opening” and “inspiring” — it’ll “grab your attention and won’t let go.” Order your copy now on Amazon, Barnes & Noble or iTunes.

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