| So your cell phone can take and send pictures, even | | | | thousands of tracks which play in stereo. Some sets |
| video. You can text message and download ring tones | | | | even include FM radio. |
| and games. You can even watch television and do | | | | Now with the latest wifi systems there is also the |
| some web browsing with UMTS. But if you're person | | | | possibility to connect to your home or office wifi |
| who's been using mobile phones for a number of | | | | security webcam so you can constantly secure the |
| yerars, you can appreciate just how far they have | | | | premises. |
| come since the early days when we carried around | | | | The next generation of cell phones seems all set to be |
| bricks in dubiously bright neoprene covers, and simply | | | | a comination of phones, PDAs, global positioning |
| trying to get a phone and service required the kind of | | | | systems, digital cameras and handheld gaming devices. |
| stringent credit checks associated with entry to the | | | | However, the next generation of mobile phones will be |
| bank of England. | | | | just one facet of the technologies that are likely to |
| The cell phones of the future may not look radically | | | | come together. Servers must run the host software in |
| different, but they will enable users to do a lot more | | | | the case of interactive entertainment software and |
| and a lot differently. High speed data access | | | | networks that connect the phones with these servers |
| usinfgmobile broadband, high quality video playback | | | | are also needed. |
| and over the air downloads, high quality video cameras, | | | | Future efforts to optimize power supply sysyems for |
| or live and time shift broadcast Tv and radio, and a | | | | mobile devices will increasingly involve the use of |
| posse of location position finding applications, besides | | | | multiple power generation technologies with an electric |
| ever growing memory and storage capacity, are just | | | | buffer store. In order to achieve maximum power |
| some of the functionalities on the horizon. | | | | utilization with the highest degree of efficiency, a |
| The biggest and most obvious change is the rapid | | | | system of intelligent power management is needed. |
| take up of mobile phones. Twelve years ago, the | | | | The goal is to link the energy delivere by batteries, |
| were only for the whealthy. Seven years ago they | | | | solar cells, thermoelectric or fuel cells in a device. With |
| were still very rare. Now there more mobiles phones | | | | this kind of system, a laptop could switch to fuel cells |
| than households in Europe, and numbers are still | | | | whenever light conditions were favourable. |
| growing fast. | | | | The local phone company's last line of defence is |
| Today there's no real difference between your mobile | | | | Internet access. Will local phone services still be |
| phone and your PDA. Motorola has introduced a | | | | required to connect to a DSL or dial up Internet |
| phone, the much heralder Rokr, that runs Apples Itunes | | | | connection? Today you can hook up your laptop or |
| while Sony Ericsson already has mp3 phones on the | | | | desktop computer through your cell phone and UMTS |
| market which can hold up to 1500 songs. Nokia, the | | | | connection giving you nearly the same ADSL speed |
| world's largest mobile phone maker, will be introducng | | | | as your local isp so who needs a land line? |
| music playing handsets which are able to store | | | | |