Cell phone can provide information more than you expect

GPRS and 3G have enabled your cell phones to browse on the web for a while. Nevertheless, many websites are not constructed based on the screen design of cell phones. When you are browsing those websites, you probably come across a lot of pains. Recently, the cell phones providers and the Internet content providers have been working together to resolve the issue. Williams (2007a) reports that LG Electronics Inc. plans to launch at least 10 cell phones this year with preinstalled software and services from Google Inc., and a Japan Web portal operator has repackaged the content of Wikipedia so it can be searched and viewed on cell phones Williams (2007b). Really! They are great news to customers.

I really see two points here. Definitely, very thin client and wireless technologies will be the direction of the ICT developments. The other one is we have the infrastructure ready but we still need the applications and software to drive it. Taiwaneses are crazy with iPhone even though it is not yet available for sales in Taiwan and will not be able to be operated as a cell phone at least until 2008 (Nystedt 2007). I do not really understand why people rush to preorder a cell phone without the key function. Oh yeah! They can still use the camera and music player function of the iPhone. Perhaps they can go to US or other European countries and use it there.

But anyway, this is the iPhone hype. We are dreaming that one day a cell phone is much more than a communication device, which could be a digital camera, DV, MP3 player, PDA, TV, wireless portal, GPS..., even a computer. This is the concept of ‘Ubiquitous computing’. Are we getting there soon?

References

Nystedt, D 2007, 'Taiwan hit by iPhone craze' , ComputerWorld Hong Kong Daily, Taipei Bureau, viewed 30 June 2007, <http://www.cw.com.hk/computerworldhk/article/articleDetail.jspid=438634>.

Williams, M 2007a, 'Wikipedia appears on cell phones', ComputerWorld Hong Kong Daily, viewed 29 April 2007,<http://www.cw.com.hk/computerworldhk/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=423022>.

Williams, M 2007b, 'LG phones to carry Google software, ComputerWorld Hong Kong Daily, viewed 1 April 2007, <http://www.cw.com.hk/computerworldhk/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=414987>.