They're the most essential gadget today, but a University professor is predicting that in the short span of just 5 years, mobile phones will be extinct.

Taking their place, Professor Nigel Linge, of the University of Salford, Greater Manchester, United Kingdom, predicts will be mobile computers that he says is where technology is heading.

As for how this would be possible, well Prof Linge says that the new technology would take shape when functions of cell phones will be dispersed into components which will be embedded in a person's clothing.

"In five years instead of mobile phones we will all carry mobile computers on us. So for example the communicator on our collar might send signals to the keyboard on our sleeve," The Sun quoted him, as saying.

Prof Linge revealed that at the pace technology was advancing, the world would soon come to the point where carrying something like a mobile phone would become "pointless"," and that it was inevitable that mobile computers would soon be on the market.

"Hands-free technology is very sophisticated at present and will continue to advance to the point where carrying a phone will be pointless," Prof Linge said.

"Already we are seeing simple everyday objects such as wheelie bins with in-built communication systems which can relay information via a computer," he added.