Smart phones have become geniuses compared to their forefathers (the first cell phones from a few years ago). 2012 should be the year that more smart phones will be sold than personal computers. Researchers say they will continue to make incredible progress in the near future. Here are some of their predictions:

NFC - Near Field Communications - "Pay with your phone" Some smart phones already have this feature that will not only allow the user to pay for things by waving the phone near the sales terminal, but also keep track of their financial transactions. Soon most or all new phones will have this capability, eventually making debit and credit cards obsolete.

LTE - Long Term Evolution - This is the description of newer, faster "generations" of mobile service (3G- 3rd Generation and 4G - 4th Generation - also called LTE Advanced).

GPU - Graphics Processing Unit - This is additional computing power that will enhance games, photos, video editing, and video phone service.

Multiple cameras and greater photo resolution - 12 megapixels, larger screens, and high resolution - 1280 x 720 pixels, and going up!

Multiple keyboards and voice recognition becoming more efficient - The current ability of some smart phones to recognize voice commands and respond to them verbally will advance to the point that the phone will become a personal assistant.

4-core processors next year and 8-core soon - Memory capability of 16 gigabytes is available now and it will grow as needed. More data storage will be going to "cloud" storage on the Internet.

Ability to process, store, print and transmit all necessary office documents and personal files.

Continued Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) functionality for mapping, navigation, even knowing where family members are.

More than a million helpful applications - free or relatively inexpensive

Prophetic Implications of the Smart Phone

Prophecy students know that in the End Times there will be a final evil world government with a dictator whom the Bible calls "The Beast." At the midpoint of a seven-year period of tribulation, this despot will have an image of himself erected in the newly re-built Temple in Jerusalem, and he will require people to worship him and to receive the "Mark of the Beast" which one must have to be able to buy or sell anything. The second beast was given power to give breath to the image of the first beast, so that the image could speak and cause all who refused to worship the image to be killed. It also forced all people, great and small, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hands or on their foreheads, so that they could not buy or sell unless they had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of its name. - Revelation 13:15-17 The capabilities of smart phones, and some of their problems, would make this economic dictatorship plausible. Between smartphones and the exploding culture of social networking (Facebook, Google, etc.) there has been a loss of privacy for many users. Pictures taken with smart phones may be tagged with GPS data that can be shown as a street address. The unintended result is that strangers will know where the picture was taken. It was also revealed recently that millions of smart phones have software installed that enables phone companies to track their every move - from place to place. It also transmits every keystroke and button press. What might never be known is what other secret "back door" features programmers will have included to allow invasion of our privacy. There is an even bigger problem. Once the smart phone has all our personal data and becomes our universal commerce device, and maybe even has a large amount of money stored electronically, what will happen if we lose it? Would someone else be able to take over our finances and have access to all our secret information? Losing one's phone would be worse than losing one's or one's car. The solution will be to make the phone useless to anyone but its rightful owner. This could be done with a tiny Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) device implanted in the owner. Thus the smart phone would not work unless it was near its owner. Meanwhile, the phone could be located by its built-in GPS device. And what criminal would want to take the phone if he couldn't use it, and it leads the police to his door? In the future, when the "Mark of the Beast" is instituted, people may be willing to have some small device installed that would only allow them to use their own smart phone.

"The idea is to be very low cost, very safe and generate very little waste," said the billionaire during a talk at China's Ministry of Science and Technology.

Why do they need to know when I'm logging into Bank of America, when I'm accessing my password? It's a different level of snooping.

...following you on vacation, recording what you buy, when you go to your child's school, when you walk through the park, when you go to the doctor's office...

"We are deeply saddened to announce that Steve Jobs passed away today," Apple said. "Steve's brilliance, passion and energy were the source of countless innovations that enrich and improve all of our lives. The world is immeasurably better because of Steve."

The development could mark a new era in consumer electronics. The technology could be used for applications ranging from medical diagnosis to covert military operations.

I seek to find those technologies that assist me in my mission to express love and reflect God in the world, and then disregard the rest.

Facebook has quietly expanded the availability of technology to automatically identify people in photos, renewing concerns about the privacy practices of the world's top social networking service.

NFC allows people to wave their card or phone in front of a scanner to pay for goods and services. NFC is already found in cards, and can be accepted at drugstore chains and gas stations.

Google's Nexus S already has an NFC chip and the and latest Android software for mobile phones supports this technology.

German scientists have broken a speed record, sending 700 DVDs' worth of data via a single laser beam, in one second.

The writer of the article comments that this may only be a temporary measure for American companies because of the new advances in "Near Field Communication" (NFC) devices such as cards, smart phones, and other devices with embedded transponders that allow contactless transactions.

Last week, CNET reported that Amazon is now selling more e-books for its Kindle reader than it is selling traditional paperback books.

Mobile payments are expected to hit $214 billion by 2015. Transactions made by scanning a mobile phone at the register are forecast to reach $22 billion -- up from "practically none" last year.

As a "mobile wallet" the phone will let consumers store multiple cards, make payments with the wave of their phone, check balances, and use rewards points at the point of sale. In time it will also include insurance cards, driver's licenses, and whatever else one might keep in a wallet.

MIT professor Sherry Turkle explains in her new book, Alone Together, that

Technology is threatening to dominate our lives and make us less human. Under the illusion of allowing us to communicate better, it is actually isolating us from real human interactions in a cyber-reality that is a poor imitation of the real world.

Other current books that are questioning the benefit of our Internet habits include:

The Net Delusion by Evgeny Morozov

The Dumbest Generation by Emory University professor Mark Bauerlein

We Have Met the Enemy by Daniel Aks