Have you lost your way in life? Worry not. One new model of a cell phone will help by giving you your location vis a vis the universe. It will even name the stars aligned to where you might be at the time. Your time-saving devices have left you with free time?

Pop up a cat on the screen of your cell phone. You can talk to it (it will imitate you), pet it on the screen and it will purr, jab its tail and it will meow in pain. The last call left you excited/agitated. Want to know how excited or agitated? Check your heart rate on your phone. Are you driving but feel you must send a message immediately? No problem. Give a verbal command to your phone, dictate the message and after counterchecking with you, it will automatically send the message.

To boot, you can set it to understand different accents. Did you know that cell phones of the future will have ‘fuel cell’ batteries? These batteries will use hydrogen to produce electricity. The fuel cells will allow for new kinds of display screens: you can, to amuse/impress your grandchildren and country bumpkin cousins, poke your finger through without damaging it. Of course these phones will also make calls, tell the time, set alarms and reminders and do all the usual things that we expect cell phones to do.

‘It’s paved with 7,000 hand-embedded crystals and is controlled via a touchscreen mounted on its door…fewer than ten will be produced’; it boasts a ’15-inch LCD display, built in FM tuner, digital photo album, recipe bank and a ‘CustomCube’ ice maker’; ’this …has an integrated 10.4 inch wireless web pad that can connect to all compatible devices such as your TV or the internet’. What are these miracle devices? Why different brands of the fridges of the future? Fridges like mine which just cool and freeze are oh so boring now!

You want a washing machine? Don’t rush… first look at the location: where are you going to put the new machine? Find a place, and take measurements because your new washing machine is going to be extra special. You must know beforehand how much laundry you actually do. Once a day? Once a week? What is the weight of the clothes you intend to wash? All this pre-selection information is important because you see buying a washing machine is no longer a choice between automatic/semi-automatic and front or top load. In today’s machines, tiny silver ions will attack the bacteria and prevent them from reproducing.

In the rinse cycle, another dose of silver ions will coat the clothes and prevent bacteria from reproducing for up to 30 days. The argument presumably is that if you don’t change your shirts for a month, you might be filthy, but bacteria will have a hard time because of the silvers ions. But wait… if you live in the fast lane and are chronically short of time, in 2020 the 1-minute washing machines will be in the stores. A far cry from my ‘Made in Gujranwala’ washing machine which is happy to sit anywhere and doesn’t throw tantrums if I periodically overload it.

Thinking about getting an LED TV? Did you know that it’s just an LCD TV that’s ‘backlit with light-emitting diodes (that’s LED in case you didn’t know) instead of standard cold-cathode fluorescent lights… unlike plasma and OLED, which are emissive technologies where each pixel is its own discrete light source’. You can dim or brighten portions of the backlight independently. Of course you have to make sure that in getting just the right amount of backlight, you don’t lose thread of the programme you’re watching, which is why you got the TV to begin with.

Then again, while you’re indulging in local dimming, don’t let the image ‘bloom’, which is the brighter areas bleeding into darker ones. If you’re anything like me, a six month course will be required to understand your new TV. Next, everybody has to sit in a ‘sweet spot’ to truly benefit from this cutting edge technology. If the TV is placed too high or low, or if you’re sitting off to one side (even by a foot I presume) the quality of the image will be comparatively poorer. Sometimes soon, furniture designers will have to design armchairs that are tiered so that all the family sits one on top of the other in the ‘sweet spot’…how they will sort out the height issue is beyond me, but I’m sure they’ll find a solution.

Gone are the days when phones made calls, fridges cooled, TVs had on/off and four other buttons, and you threw in a dash of antiseptic if you felt bacteria were milling around in the wash load. I’m now waiting for the day when my latest gadget will go to work instead of me!