We have seen the future and it is pocket-sized, battery-operated, slim and seductive. The next generation of pocket communicators will deliver voice and multimedia data services, including video, to their users any time and anywhere.

Prototypes of these so-called third-generation smart communicators, on show at the CeBIT annual information technology fair in Hanover which ended on Wednesday, are designed to make all types of information accessible, usable and immediate.

In addition to voice, these devices will allow the sending of data over the airwaves from device to device, and they will be able to take files from the Internet and send them from mobile communicator to the office or home PC.

In Hanover they jostled for attention with the web-surfing wireless communicators and integrated voice and data handheld terminals that enable ordinary telephone calls to be made over the Internet. There were also webphones, which will allow the sending and collecting of electronic mail as easily as making a voice call.

The CeBIT fair had it all. There were mobile phones equipped with a port for a smart card that will enable users to download digital cash over the airwaves, and dual-band handsets designed to work on any continent on earth. Many feature new technologies such as WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) and Bluetooth.

The WAP standard will enable mobile phones to display information such as train timetables and web pages, while Bluetooth is a short-range wireless technology designed to enable mobile phones to exchange information with portable PCs, just by placing them near each other.

As telephone equipment groups race to deliver devices that integrate computer technology with telephony, computer companies are scrambling to add wireless communications capabilities to their machines - a process that underscores the accelerating pace of convergence between the two industries.

Britain's Psion, for example, unveiled the Jedi, its prototype mini-notebook with in-built mobile communications features. Cyrix, the US chip group, showcased its WebPAD, a hand-held concept device with a colour touch-screen that enables easy portable Internet access.

Elsewhere at CeBIT, Exact Sprachsynthese, a German technology group, was showing a pocket-sized, satellite-based and voice-activated navigation system. C Technologies of Sweden exhibited a digital marker pen with photographic memory.

Most of these products were prototypes, many awaiting the agreement of industry standards before coming to market. Some will be on sale by next Christmas, but most will not appear in the shops until next year or later.

For today's technology, it was the giant consumer electronics groups that stole the show. Mobile phones were smaller, slinkier and smarter. Hand-held digital assistants were slimmer, lighter and came with colour screens for the first time. Notebook computers were more powerful, brighter and had longer-lasting batteries. Digital cameras were sleek, compact and can take higher resolution images.

Among the stars of the show was the world's smallest multimedia, colour, palm-top computer from Casio. Sharp's ultra-thin silver notebook computers drew attention. The Japanese group also unveiled a digital camera the size of a cigarette packet and capable of recording an hour of video on a 36Mbyte memory card.

Meanwhile, Motorola weighed in with the V3688, the smallest mobile phone. Digital cordless telephones like Samsung's SPR5260, based upon the Dect (Digital European Cordless Technology) standard, have quickly entered the mainstream and were strongly in evidence.

Both Hewlett-Packard and Compaq, leading players in the computer industry, launched Palm PCs, which are designed to run Microsoft Windows CE programmes in colour.

3Com's Palm division was showing the new Palm V machine, a super-slim pocket PC encased in smart brushed metal. On Sony's stand, which attracted many viewers, the Japanese consumer electronics group was showing off the latest additions to its Vaio line of ultra-slim, lightweight notebook PCs with their high-fashion purple and silver livery.

Many of tomorrow's gadgets on display at CeBIT are designed to appeal not just to the technophiles and technology geeks, but to the growing band of fashion-conscious consumers for whom technology must be fun, "cool" and preferably pocket-sized.