Tomorrow sees Nokia holding an event in London to sit round a table with local bloggers and discuss the possible future of the mobile handset in relation to the internet and what future direction Nokia may need to consider. Obviously mobile handsets will all get better looking interfaces, better quality cameras, super fast processors, and extra long life batteries, but what about the mobile at the internet?
Within 5 years the mobile industries which were constructed round microprocessors, displays, software and services and social networks will probably intersect due to the way things are happening at present in the mobile telecommunications space. It may sound far-fetched and no obvious, but the mobile you carry with you now will eventually change everything.
Processors today are cut from 300mm silicon wafers; with the size decrease of transistors going from 65 nanometres down to eventually 32 nanometres which means more chip extraction per wafer. Companies who participate in the industry are being pushed to transition to 450mm wafers, and when combines with 32 nanometre technology only 7 fabs will be required to supply world need for transistors.
LCD displays are being shipped at a rate of 30% growth every year, and iSuppli, having done an analysis say in 2011 in excess of 165million handsets are predicted to sell. Take the humble TV, Sharp reckons that by 2015 the average size of a TV in European homes will be 60inches, some now have WiFi, others wireless networking, some with Microsoft’s Windows Media centre Extender preinstalled; thing is TV’s are getting smarter.
The internet has shrunk the world with the arrival of social networking, FaceBook is currently the most talked about, but MySpace still remains the most popular. But none of the social networks can talk to each other while Bebo and LinkedIn remain oblivious of to their existence. People don’t want to continue to restate their friendships and acquaintances, and so the tread heads towards a singular identity which is already underway with OpenID which as of back in July 07 120million people and 45,000 websites are using that technology.
OS’s seem to be becoming less relevant as software moves forward but is in danger of becoming mere website inside a browser yet the method of information delivery still doesn’t exploit the potential of hardware underneath. Native apps are beginning to make a comeback thanks to Rich Internet Application runtimes; Adobe moves towards desktop space with Air and continues to increase Flash Lite for mobile handsets. Microsoft is trying to break into web with Silverlight and with the same runtime into mobile. Nokia brought Trolltech for their Qt framework which will eventually bring that rumtime to S40, S60 and Maemo devices.
Bringing this all together means the future of these industries will feel the impact of mobile and as such some predictions can be made. When the switch to IP v6 completes everyone should have their own namespace and their mobile phone will be a server. Displays will be everywhere, displays that will detect a personas mobile phone and ask you if you would like to connect then present you with an interface which can be manipulated via your handset. \not TV out but user interfaces created specifically for the television using cross platform runtimes which connect the mobile and enable it to act as an input mechanism.
Creation of future content won’t be held on FackBook or LinkedIn it will be hosted in the cloud while services ask permission to interact in unimaginable ways. Data won’t be hosted on website servers but on a friend’s device and storage space which can be accessed by trusted parties. The future is the individual in the centre because the mobile device is smart enough to know the users preferences and can communicate those preferences through its display.
Source — intomobile