“What will the next must-have technological innovation be?”

Recently I saw something on Twitter that gives an interesting insight into perceptions of technological process. It’s pretty self-explanatory, albeit a little depressing: On this basis, I’m fine with TV (as long as it’s in black and white and the set, which is the size of a small car, takes ten minutes to warm up and only shows the BBC). CDs are very exciting, as are spreadsheet computer programs (which I almost certainly wouldn’t have got a career without). However, I am completely baffled by mobile phones.

All this is worryingly accurate. I love technology, but we don’t really get along and I certainly don’t understand it (something about cathode ray tubes maybe?). So I really have no idea what the ‘next big thing’ will actually prove to be,

That doesn’t mean I don’t have a wish list, though. Here are a few ideas, any of which – if they did turn out to be the next big thing – would make me very happy:

• Instant teleportation: I like to go to different places, but I’m not always too keen on the process of getting to them.  It would be marvelous if – a la Starship Enterprise – you could just stand in a beam of something clever and step out instantaneously wherever you wanted to be. And if you were energised in the process, that would be a real bonus.
• Omnipresent WiFi: look, if the United Nations, no less, has decreed that an internet connection is now a basic human right, then logically – nay, morally – I should be empowered to check the weather, keep up with the football scores and watch videos of kittens playing with balls of of wool wherever I am and whenever I so choose. And a decent download speed too, if you don’t mind. Oh, and I don’t want to pay for it either; especially in a hotel.
• ‘Fresh air’ recharging for electrical devices: Yes, and while we’re on the subject, it’s all very well being connected wirelessly to the internet, but a lot of that convenience is offset by the need to lug half a dozen different chargers around everywhere you go. All of these have their own wires, not to mention different plugs and connectors, and by the time you stuff all those into a resealable bag that’s half your luggage allowance gone. Not to mention that all those wires will – without fail – get tied together in the kind of knots that even Bear Grylls would struggle with. And he’s the Chief Scout.
• Holograms: controversial, perhaps, but not half as much as the alternative of cloning. If I had a hologram, I could send it to parties or soirees, where it could stand quietly in a corner, hence completely indistinguishable from the real thing, who could instead be at home with his feet up, watching the Cup Final.
• A by-pass for Rouen: C’mon guys: how hard can it be?