The same radio - just ALL of it

More boggling stuff from the world of science and technology - this time courtesy of Wired.

The idea is that a great deal of our communications tech are basically doing similar jobs - they just dip into a different part of the whole electromagnetic spectrum. The only difference between a TV set and your mobile phone is the way signals in that spectrum are decoded and used.

So the clever thought is - why not make a universal receiver!

After all the predictions in the past that tech would get smaller and smaller we reach a new phase: the new "smaller" is actually integration.

Of course the ultimately integrated machine is the computer - a machine which does everything from being a simple calculator to communications device to robot engineer (OK the last one's probably not a use you've put your PC to). So once you have a universal receiver plugged into this integrated device, the essential differences between your TV, mobile or GPS become no more than a matter of software. You plug this widget into your PC and do everything from wirelessly pick up your emails, work out where you are, watch TV and record something off Radio4 - all at the same time. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

I want one - today!