In Star Wars, there is a species called the Yuuzhan Vong. The Vong abhor traditional technology, opting instead for elaborate bioengineered creations. One such device is the head-shaped, head-sized villip.
The gist of it is that two Vong would have a pair of villips, one each. When stroked, one villip contacts the other telepathically, and thus opens a dedicated communications link. The villips can shape themselves into likenesses of their master's heads. Thus, it's a lot like a one-on-one video chat.
Microsoft has a, um, table called the Surface that you may also have heard of. There is also good intel that a spherical version exists.
Once you read up on the villip and the Surface, you may have an idea where this is going.
I envision a head-sized spherical Surface used as a dedicated communication link between two people. As with a villip, simply stroking the orb would "call" the other person. Alternately, depending on the level of trust, you could leave the link open and step into the field of view when you wanted to make contact.
It'd be reprogrammable, of course, to "bond" to someone else. But I like the idea of it being a dedicated link. As simple as simple can get. Tech so elegant it disappears.
But wait, there's more. This real-world villip could make use of the Surface's object recognition tech, too. So to send a batch of pictures to your pal, just stick your camera next to the villip and it'll dump it all over. (There are details to work out, of course, but I'm just talking about general ideas.)
I'm drawn to the villip example in part due to the Star Wars connection, but you could just as easily have a "magic window" that acted like an always-on portal to another place. (It could have shades for privacy.) OK, to a large extent that's already out there, but I think a lot more could be done with it. I imagine this would be great for collaboration between offices (already happening), or for families spread out across the globe (not so much).
Of course, the same data transfer ideas could still apply. You could send photos "through the window" just by waving your digital camera in front of it or something.
It's about telepresence. And on that note, there are a few final links I'd like to pass on:
Microsoft Research video: Surface chess (fast forward to 3:44; I know there's a better version out there, but I don't know where)
OK, here's a better one, but I'll leave that one 'cause it's cool in other ways. (fast forward to 1:00)
Sort of overlaps, but lots of in-depth cool stuff in these two:
...and now I must finish my homework. :)
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