At the speed with which technology is advancing, it's really hard to even try to imagine how the next generation of gadgets will change the way we think about and use our high-tech toys.
In just the past decade we've seen telephones, once firmly tethered to our homes by wires, miniaturized and made wireless, allowing everyone to instantly be annoyed by telemarketers and wrong numbers wherever they may be in the world.
They're not just plain old phones anymore either. They're cameras, appointment books, web browsers and game machines all in one.
And forget buttons. The newest phones work with the slide of a finger on a sexy and sleek touch sensitive screen.
What could be next - I mean besides getting a lot of eye rolling from my wife for referring to a piece of technology as "sexy and sleek"?
Well, what about if instead of sliding your finger over a touch sensitive screen, you didn't have to touch anything - but yourself?
OK, eyebrows down and minds out of the gutter now.
Microsoft and Carnegie Mellon University have been working together on something called Skinput, which would essentially turn a person's hand and forearm into a keyboard and screen.
No, we're not talking Borg assimilation here (it's a Star Trek thing), only a very personal way to interact with your phone.
Basically the system works with your mobile phone sitting in your pocket connected by Bluetooth to a Skinput armband that's lined with sensors.
When a user, for instance, taps a thumb and finger together, the impact sends tiny shock waves down the skin and through the bones in the person's arm. Apparently tapping your thumb to different fingers makes different waves, and the Skinput armband can tell the difference.
So, according to a CNN report on the device, "a person could tap their thumb and middle finger together to answer a call, touch their forearm to go to the next track on a music player, or flick the center of their palm to select a menu item."
Obviously, though, nobody wants to know what happens when you pull your finger.
The system also features a "pico projector," which would display an image of a keyboard or screen onto the user's hand and arm.
Speaking as a seasoned journalist and professional technology writer, I pretty much squeal with giddy, schoolgirl-like delight every time I think about how cool this technology could be.
Seriously. Squealing. Like a schoolgirl. Really.
Although the technology has only been in development for about eight months, it will be only between two and seven years before we'll see this technology out in the real world.
But that would just be the beginning.
Such technology, once refined and applied to other areas, could see us starting our cars with a snap of our fingers, changing the channels on the TV with a wave of our hands and turning off the lights with a clap of our hands.
OK, OK we already have that one, but I'm sure you can see how something like Skinput could make accomplishing everyday tasks seem like magic.
Of course, it would take some getting used to, with people wandering around tapping themselves hither and thither while seemingly talking to themselves.
But the future is definitely coming where our bodies will be part of the technology.
So the next time I'm talking about a "sleek and sexy" mobile phone interface, I may get a lot more than some eye rolling from my wife.
