E-commerce has already changed the way we live and do business. But more is still to come, and the new innovations will create a wealth of opportunities for businessmen. Like all trends, the best way to take advantage of them is to be there in the beginning, understand their development and what they offer, and use them as you need to gain an advantage. To help you do that, and to give you some insight into the future, we've selected 10 revolutionary products about to come onto the global markets and make a huge impact.

1. Smart cards

Smart cards are essentially tiny computers built into a wallet-sized piece of plastic. They look like the credit cards and magnetic-strip cards we're familiar with, but they're in another realm of power. It's a bit like comparing a modern desktop PC to a 20-year old calculator. The significance of smart cards - and the coming smart-card revolution - is their potential to be the medium through which a vast array of financial transactions, especially at consumer level, will be conducted. In many areas, they will replace money. As the chips embedded in the card get smarter, they carry more information and handle more tasks. Card security becomes virtually foolproof (see Biometrics below). Smart cards are being used for increasingly complex tasks. Soon your cash, credit cards, bank cards, bank accounts, discount cards, club memberships, personal financial records and access to numerous other personal financial assets will be located in, and controlled by, just one card, which will be recognized anywhere in the world. These little pieces of plastic are undoubtedly becoming the personal building blocks of global e-commerce.

2. Biometrics

Smart cards are a great concept, but unless they're completely secure the potential for financial disaster is frightening. Current security methods such as PIN numbers simply aren't adequate. Enter biometrics, a technology that identifies an individual by six unique physical attributes: fingerprints, palm prints, iris patterns, retina patterns, facial details and voice. Fingerprinting is the most widely used, but iris scans are more accurate - and they're remarkably quick, clean and easy to use. To confirm your ID, you peer into a scanner, which takes an instant reading, does a quick check against your stored ID and provides an immediate result. This technology is already in limited use: at international airports in Amsterdam and Paris, airport staff and select passengers have biometric cards that enable speedy transit through security points. Biometrics is the magic wand that promises to make all e-commerce secure, and some believe biometrics will eventually enable us to do away with cards, keys and personal ID. For example, in a supermarket all you'll do is look in the scanner, and the cash register will connect you to your personal bank accounts.

3. Organic chips

A number of major advances in e-commerce depend on microchips becoming faster, smarter and cheaper. It's tough to come up with just one of those improvements, let alone all three in a single chip, yet that seems likely in the immediate future. The breakthrough that's going to make it possible is the development of "organic" chips, which are made from semi-conducting polymers instead of silicon. The potential of these devices is extraordinary: Already some of the polymer materials have enabled device features to be scaled down to less than 20 nanometres (a nanometre is a billionth of metre, and objects at "nano size" are about 1000th of the thickness of a human hair.) Unlike silicon chips-which require a complex, expensive and time-consuming production process-organic chips can be produced quickly and simply, and this makes them cheap. An added bonus: they are flexible, and this is opening the doors to some interesting developments. Organic chips are already used in cellular telephones and car-audio equipment, but they have the potential for unprecedented applications such as wearable computers and even flexible display units that can be rolled up and carried around like newspapers or magazines.

4. WiMAX

Anybody who's used a wireless laptop knows you need to be close to a Wi-Fi transmission point for the system to work. They're not like mobile phones, which you can use virtually anywhere. That will all change when a new system called WiMAX becomes widely available. It's a powerful transmission system that will enable wireless-broadband access, even in remote areas. According to developers, Wimax is far more powerful than 3G-which will no doubt have further implications for the development of hand phones. To put it in perspective, WiMAX is 30 times faster than 3G, and one WiMAX radio mast covers 10 times the area of its 3G equivalent. The primary goal for WiMAX is to take broadband access beyond the restrictions of fixed lines and Wi-Fi, and to establish global standards that enable full wireless compatibility for products and technologies related to the business PC. WiMAX is just what the doctor ordered for areas where it is uneconomical to invest in cable, and it's going to be a godsend for business travelers who are constantly plugged into their laptops.

5. Internet phone

It's a concept that's been around before and promised a breakthrough, but didn't live up to expectations. Now it's back, but looks like it can really deliver. We're talking about Voice-over-IP or, to put it simply, Internet phones. The original promise was a phone that could be hooked to your computer, and software would run it through Internet channels, enabling cheap voice communication anywhere in the world. The snag was the encoding, transmission and unscrambling of the voice signals, a process so slow it created time lags between talker and respondent. In a business context, it didn't work, but now that's changed, and the combination of broadband, accelerated transmission speeds and new software not only allows you to make cheap international phone calls via the Internet, you can also use Webcams to enjoy video-conferencing for virtually no extra charge.

6. Softphones

As interest in Internet phones grows, software-based phones - often referred to simply as "softphones"-are set to take over as the leading edge of digital phone communication. Also called "SIP-phones", they're the next step after the Internet phone, a marriage of the wireless laptop and the mobile phone. They enable any broadband-connected computer to act as an Internet phone connection (though you definitely need fast data-package swaps for good sound quality.) Using a softphone, so long as you are online, you can make an Internet-connected call directly from your computer, whenever and wherever you are. You don't even need the analog telephone adapter that you usually use to plug into a network; and you have at your fingertips all the attributes and functions of a sophisticated desktop phone. Basic Internet phones don't offer that.

7. Multifunctional mobile phones

Mobile phones are already the centre of the mobile-devices empire, and may soon become absolute rulers. The mobile phone is evolving into a robust, multifunctional platform that will free mobile users from the need to carry different devices for different activities. Even now, your phone is a PDA, a digital camera, video camera, MP3 walkman, handheld games console and portable movie theatre. But most of these innovations are entertainment oriented: The big breakthroughs are required in business and commerce applications. Already secure biometric ID techniques, including fingerprinting and iris scans, are opening the way to phones functioning as smart cards for financial transactions. But to really extend its power as a business tool, the mobile phone needs a powerful hard drive that can be produced at an affordable price, something still in development. The hard drive will enable storage of business information, appropriate software and provide the processing power to make it usable in any context. Super-fast 3G networks are already driving the need for additional storage capacity on mobile devices, so the mobile PC phone will soon be within calling distance.

8. RFID

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is a type of automatic-identification system that uses a minuscule transmitting device - a tag - to relay information to a special receiver. The system is particularly useful for product manufacturers, freight forwarders, wholesalers and retailers wanting to keep track of orders, shipping movements and inventory. The data transmitted by the tags usually provides identification or location information, specifics about the product tagged, its price, colour, date of purchase and other required details. The information enables the user to track anything from a bunch of bananas to a whole container load of fruit, and provides real-time information on those movements as well as a backlog of appropriate information. Hitachi has developed an RFID chip small enough to be embedded (almost invisibly) into food packages or the inedible parts of fresh fruits and vegetables. Measuring only 0.4 millimetres square, the chip has an antenna that allows an external device to read encoded information, allowing the product to be traced. Retailers use this technology for effectively monitoring warehouse inventory.

9. Wearable electronics and PAN

Though in its early stages, wearable electronics are gaining attention from garment and electronics manufacturers. What started decades ago with the pocket-sized transistor radio - probably the first popular portable electronic device - has evolved into fabrics that conduct electricity and can link audio-video equipment and pocket computers. Wearable electronics are no longer limited to comic books and geek fantasies: they are serious business. But Nike's integration of digital equipment like MP3 players into sports clothes, and the wristwatch phones created by Motorola and Swatch, are mere toys compared to what's coming. Wearable electronics work by mixing conductive textiles, fabric switches, fabric wiring, fabric stretch sensors, high-sensitivity fabric antennas and flexible electro-luminescent displays to create a "personal area network", or PAN: an electronic network woven into the jacket connects various devices just as local area networks (LANs) connect computers. The hardware devices are clipped on or inserted where appropriate, and the PAN allows transport of data, power and control signals within a garment. Several devices can be clipped to a PAN, and a central controller with a small display alerts the wearer to incoming phone calls, e-mails - or just the title of the next song on the MP3 player. Of course the garment - minus the hardware - has to survive the washing machine and dryer.

10. Clickable cash earners

The Internet has always held the promise of riches for anyone smart enough to find a way to turn its power into hard cash. This promise fuelled the infamous dotcom boom; and when making profits on the Internet turned out to be more complicated than expected, the lack of viable business concepts created an equally rapid dotcom bust. These days, cyberspace entrepreneurs have lowered their sights and seek gains that are modest, but achievable. One concept that is gaining ground is getting paid for redirecting visitors from one site to another, a process called "clickable cash earners". Several technologies in this category provide a way for a site owner to earn what amounts to an introduction fee, and these include clickable hotlinks, sponsored links and banner advertisements. Whichever is used, the click-through registers as a "request" on the host site's server and is billed to the client. For sites that are popular because of the information they provide rather than the products they sell, it's a small, but significant, step towards making that essential Website investment pay off.