Stephen Euin Cobb (author, futurist, magazine writer--and your host) is today's featured guest.

Smartphones are the topic. The Internet in your pocket. What smartphones are, trends in the growth of their popularity, and a detailed sampling of some of their current features and many of their useful apps which may be downloaded for free. Also described are: the touch screen; the still camera and video camera; Weatherbug; Google Maps (and especially Google Traffic) Navigator (just like a GPS navigator and will likely put standalone GPS device makers out of business); Pandora (which is actually better than a radio); thousands of free audio books from Librivox  (free because they are out of copyright classics and have been read by volunteers); and a number of apps which transform the smartphone into various useful scientific instruments.

Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the December 15, 2010 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 32 minutes]

This episode marks the show's 5th anniversary. To celebrate this milestone Stephen has decided to release one of his novels as an audio book for all the listeners to download and enjoy for free.  The novel is the SF thriller: Bones Burnt Black.  It will be released in half-hour segments, one each week, every Sunday morning, for about 12 weeks. The segments will be found in the same place listeners already find the episodes of this show. The first segment will become available on December 19, 2010.

Stephen Euin Cobb is an author, futurist and host of the award-winning podcast The Future and You. He was a columnist and contributing editor for Jim Baen's Universe Magazine for three years; and has written for Robot Magazine, H+ Magazine, Grim Couture Magazine, and Space and Time Magazine. He is also a game designer, artist, essayist, transhumanist, and is on the Advisory Board of The Lifeboat Foundation.