Simply handy: Designers are also coming up with ways to integrate cellphones with what you wear. This combo, by homegrown designer Nic Wong,was inspired by street and army gear and shown at Motochic in conjuction with the Singapore Fashion Festival.

When the first generation of "mobile" phones was introduced in 1945, they could not even hand a call over from cell to cell.

In other words, the user had to stay in one spot throughout the whole call, or his call would be dropped.

Fast forward to 2007, and mobile phones have become both more portable and powerful. Phone makers have also found creative ways to add value to their portable gizmos.

In Japan, mobile operators send messages to their subscribers to notify them of earthquakes, typhoons and other natural disasters.

The operators can even locate survivors trapped under fallen debris by tracking the signal emitted by their mobile phones, speeding up rescue efforts.

Nokia, the world's largest manufacturer of mobile phones, has a few tricks up its sleeve, too. In October last year, the company unveiled a concept phone known as the Aeon. This features two touch panels connected by a central band, which also houses a fuel cell power pack.

The touch panels can change their look to match what the user is currently doing, from displaying a numeric keypad for making calls to media keys for listening to music on the go.

In 2000, Levi's and Philips teamed up to offer the ICD+ jacket - a line that was later discontinued.

The jacket came with an integrated mobile phone, allowing the wearer to make a phone call by speaking into his jacket lapel.

In the future, though, carrying your mobile phone, or even wearing it, may be unnecessary. Students at the Royal College of Art in London developed the world's first cellphone implant in 2002 - a phone that fits into a user's molar.

A small chip within the tooth picks up signals via a radio receiver and transmits them as vibrations along the jawbone. The vibrations reach the ear, where they are processed by the brain as recognisable sounds.

The developers speculated that stock traders and football team managers would be particularly interested in such a device. And it is not just phone cords that will be cut with mobile phones of the future. Even the good old power cable may be headed for the junk heap.

Fashion forward: South Korean electronics giant LG teamed up with Italian fashion house Prada mobile phone, which was shown at the 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona in February.

At this year's Consumer Electronics Show in January, a company named Powercast snagged the "Best of Show for Emerging Technologies" award for a wireless power system that charges mobile phones and handheld computers minus cables.

The technology comprises two parts - a transmitter and a receiver. The transmitter, which runs off a wall socket, broadcasts a low-power radio signal at a predetermined frequency. The receiver, which can be embedded in almost any device, picks up this signal and converts it to electrical power that the device can use.

A single transmitter can power any number of devices within its transmission range, meaning you can take along a transmitter when you travel, and charge all your devices that way.

Gone will be the days of having to lug around separate chargers for each device.