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Communication and all that jazz
IN the not-too-distant future, cellphones will not be merely used for communicating as technologists predict that cellphones will do a lot more than just transmitting voice and text messages from one end to the other, which quite possibly be the least important use.
According to Jeff Belk, senior vice-president, marketing, for San Diego-based Qualcomm, developer of cellphone technology and the world’s second-largest maker of cell-phone chips, “two years from now, I don’t think they’re even going to be called phones...I don’t know what they’re going to be called.”
Already, a small but growing number of wireless subscribers in the US use their cell phones to play games, email photographs and send text messages.
However, experts say that within the next few years, a number of new services may revolutionize the way cellphones are used.
It is quite possible that in the near future, one will use cellphones to tune in to as many as 100 television channels, find directions to the nearest coffee shop, and pay for purchases. In fact, in Japan and South Korea, subscribers can find everything from English-Japanese translation dictionaries to dating services on their cellphones.
Cellphones in these countries are available with video-camera phones that can play back video on TV, phones with surround-sound and those that can go into Disney mode, complete with Mickey Mouse’s laugh and a Goofy icon on the screen.
Television
Wireless experts predict that future celphones will have a television, or at least a small-screen version of it. “You have to think a little bit about what sort of content can be done better in a mobile environment,” said Rob Chandhok, vice president, engineering for Qualcomm.
“Content providers think of cellphones as the third screen. It’s a new distribution channel for their products.” These shows will probably come from familiar TV networks, but they will be shorter versions, especially produced for cell phones.
Earlier this month, Twentieth Century Fox announced it would create a series of one-minute dramas based on its hit show “24” exclusively for Vodafone in the United Kingdom. It plans to introduce the “mobisodes,”(mobile episodes), in USA next year. Instead of a show starting at a particular time, it will start whenever you happen to tune in. “You’ll be able to go to a website or subscribe to a service where you’re going to be able to select your favourite TV shows, record them on your cellphone, then watch them whenever you want,” said Brad Akyuz, mobile wireless analyst for the research firm.
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A cellphone’s connection also opens up the possibility of viewers interacting with programs — care for a jacket you see on a cellphone TV clip from your favourite soap opera? You can buy it with the click of a button.
Think of a resolution that is four times higher with bigger cellphone screens than what is available today. “If you’re watching sports, it’s the difference between being able to read the scoreboard and not read the scoreboard,” added Chandhok.
Qualcomm announced this month that it will build a nationwide network for delivering videos on cellphones. The company plans to use the technology that it has developed to deliver television programming to cellphones in a easier and less expensive way.
Music
Tunes on cell phones will go beyond ringtones. Japan has developed a phone with built-in FM stereo radio. The screen displays the name of the song that’s playing, and the user has the option of downloading the song as a ringtone or playing up to 40 minutes of radio broadcast.
Cellphones will also be able to download full songs instead of just snippets of tunes. “Basically, you’re going to turn your phone on, go to a website, select the songs you want, hit ‘purchase,’ and then they will be downloaded on to your phone instantly,” Akyuz said.
Location services
In future, your cellphone will know where you are. Depending on the carrier, your location will be calculated based on either the nearest cell tower or on global positioning satellites. This is clearly useful for criminal investigators as police will use the service to find a cellphone user who calls 911.
Beyond that, experts predict the technology will be used to help motorists or pedestrians find their way to a destination, similar to GPS devices used in many vehicles.
For example, a Japanese cellphone sends the map and navigates all the way, if one wants to find one’s way to a restaurant or to a friend. In Korea, cellphones may also one day display real-time images of traffic along the roads you’re driving.
Cellulars will double as credit cards and be like “an electronic wallet.” Instead of paying cash for a purchase, or swiping a credit card, a shopper would hold the cellphone up to a terminal that has an electronic sensor. The cell-phone user would put in a personal ID number, and the user’s credit card would be instantly charged for the purchase.
Using a cell phone to pay for purchases is growing, especially in Japan and several Scandinavian countries. One can even buy airline tickets in Japan from a machine using a cellphone. Hold up a phone to the machine, and it prints out boarding pass.
Photo and video
The quality of still and video cameras on cellphones will continue to improve. While one-megapixel camera phones are already on sale in USA, phones of upto five megapixels are just down the road. Samsung has recently unveiled the world’s first five-megapixel camera phone.
Camera phones increasingly have more megapixels, which means they are capable of taking higher-quality pictures for printing. Now, they also boast of features found on stand-alone cameras — red-eye reduction, auto-focus, automatic flashes, etc. To print photos, the phone will be able to wirelessly transmit them to a printer.
Video cameras on phones in USA are able to produce about 15 seconds of 10 frames per second. In future, they will shoot video at four times the resolution, with 30 frames per second, along with recording lengthy videos.
To view both the photos and videos shot, users will one day simply plug the phone into a television to display images on a larger screen.
Customization
In future, cellphone users won’t be limited just to changing the face plates of their phones for a new look. They’ll be able to change the entire theme of the phone. Cellphones that offer the option of adding a Disney theme whenever the user wants are already available in Japan.
John Chier, spokesman for Kyocera Wireless, a San Diego-based maker of cellphones, sees the day when the phone you’re calling rings with your personally selected tone.
Cellphones will have a new look, more memory and more power. One new design concept is called “metaphoring.” For example, a phone that’s also an MP3 player will look more like an MP3 player.
A phone that’s also a camera will look more like a camera than a cellphone. Kyocera has introduced a phone, the Koi, a 1.2-megapixel camera phone that sports a sleek design intended to be held like a camera.
Bigger phones
After decades of shrinking cellphones, experts believe phones are going to grow once again to accommodate larger screens. Removable storage devices are in the offing as are hard drives. Experts expects to see hard drives as large as 80 gigabytes in cellphones, no different than what one has at home on a DVD recorder.
The hard drives will allow users to record hours of video or audio. Stereo audio, faster processors, higher-resolution screens and, of course, longer-life batteries needed to power these digital devices are also on their way, point out experts.
They’re counting on the “thumb generation” of 18- to 30-year-olds who grew up using cellphones and playing video games to keep the revenue from games, email, video, photos and other data flowing.
Still, no matter how many tasks cellphones are able to do, there will always be users like us who simply need them for their original purpose — to talk.
The writer
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