Then there's Windows Mobile. That's even more interesting because it's not linked to any handset vendor, not even a consortium. It's of course Microsoft and powers a wide range of handsets from vendors such as O2, i-mate and HTC (which makes the stunning iPhone-like HTC Touch), to traditional handset companies like Motorola, Samsung and tech companies such as HP, whose iPaq evolved from a personal digital assistant to a smartphone.
Where there's Windows, can Linux be far behind? Linux runs a small but growing range of handsets, from Motorola and others. In 2006, Motorola, NEC, Panasonic and Samsung along with Vodafone and ntt DoCoMo set up the LiMo (Linux Mobile) Foundation. Then there's OpenMoko, a Linux-based open software development platform for smartphones, using free software.
The Google Phone
This will be the iPhone of 2008, the mobile phone event that takes up the media and public attention. It's not a phone but an open-source platform called Android, driven by Google, which has strung together further support from over 30 vendors and telcos into the 'Open Handset Alliance'.
With Android, announced in November, Google hopes to bring a PC-like open architecture to the mobile phone, with all of its software in the public domain, as published source code. That means developers can quickly get cracking on creating hundreds of programmes for Android-equipped phones.
The Google specs, on the face of it, are not radical: they're available on current phones, while Android-equipped phones, shipping in volume, are a year away. But you get a hint from the dismissive reactions of Microsoft, Symbian, Nokia and others that this could change things in the mobile phone world.
But my bet is that Android will accelerate the pace. We will quickly get to a Rs 5,000-phone with a host of features and applications seen today in phones five times pricier. Instead of a long development cycle for a hardware design, the gameplan here is to provide the open platform and let thousands of developers get to work. In the Rs 5,000-10,000 range, we'll have features like better browsing and e-mail to calendar and office functions, multimedia and entertainment, GPS and supporting applications. These could be better integrated and more smoothly supported.
The good thing is that Android will do this not just for supporting phones, but also for the competing platforms. The competition won't sit around. You can be sure of rapid development of built-in features and external applications. Both from companies such as Apple and RIM (BlackBerry) that can leverage their proprietary design and development to rapidly add features (and acquire companies along the way) from the platform and software vendors, especially Microsoft.
All this activity will converge onto the device that we call the mobile phone. Yes, it will still make phone calls. But that will become a small part of its immense functionality, at the centre of the tech and applications universe. The universal personal terminal, the mother of all gadgets.
Global Positioning System
This will be the big new addition to our tech products arsenal in India, in 2008. And much of it will be via the mobile phone.
The Global Position System (GPS) came into India a decade late largely due to the poor availability of maps, an area tightly controlled by the government. Even today, you don't get India-wide street-level maps that help you navigate, telling you the shortest route to where you're going. And there's no supporting information such as weather and traffic.
Loud and clear: A Dect handset with digital sound, linked to Skype adaptor. Long distance calls can be made from the regular home phone system. It automatically goes through Skype and is nearly free.
But mobile phones like the Nokia N95 are now beginning to support GPS. And many other phones can connect to a GPS device over Bluetooth. In 2008, most smartphones will support a GPS application, even if that's not highlighted as a feature. They'll connect to a GPS device through Bluetooth, run maps or navigator programme and will show you where you are, where you're headed, how fast, for how long. Today, I use a $99 Nokia Bluetooth GPS device with my E50 phone and Google maps, over a gprs or Edge data connection.
Dedicated GPS receivers will have their place too—mostly on the automobile dash. Most cars in the US, for instance, have a GPS option. They don't in India—mainly because of the poor quality of maps. Every aircraft, ship and boat, however, has GPS.
The Battery
This is the only bit of tech—covered on these pages—that's a distant dream.
This is the last frontier for the mobile gadgets. There are very few limits to what you can do with a mobile device. Can you have a power-packed phone, complete with video, GPS and more in a wristwatch? Sure, you can. The only barrier is the battery. They don't make them small enough or long-lasting enough.
Remember the days when phones really lasted on a charge? My Nokia 6310i ran for up to seven days. My E50 lasts one day. My wife's BlackBerry Pearl lasts about a half day. Today's batteries can't keep up with the power-packed phones, even with their amazing power conservation features.
Think about it. So much depends on the future of the battery. The perfect battery could change how we live and work. We'd get cheap 5 kg battery that could give us 500 amperes for 24 hours and survive 1,000 charge cycles. Electric vehicles would rapidly take over. We'd be immune to power cuts because the inverter would last for days and support airconditioners and heaters too. We could use solar power effectively because we'd be able to store power in it for evening and night use.
Smaller versions, probably lithium polymer-based, would power a laptop for a day of continuous use or a mobile phone for ten days. Button-cell versions would power wristwatch phones for a couple of days. What you will see is the gradual return of lithium polymer batteries that will power phones for at least two days, as both phone and battery become a little larger, crossing the 100 gm level again, upward.
Blu-ray Disc
The revolutionary new Blu-ray Disc supports 25 and 50 GB optical discs, over 10 times the capacity of a DVD and with support for high definition TV. Blu-ray Disc players aren't brand new: a few have been around since 2006. But they were expensive and buggy. Then they got a boost from the November 2006 launch of Sony's PlayStation 3 which included a Blu-ray Disc player; the launch was much-awaited and peppered with real-life shootings, robberies and gunfights over the limited units available.
The public verdict in the format war of Blu-ray vs HD-DVD will be evident in 2008. The latter had a head start and thus, has cheaper players out there, but packs a smaller (30 GB) punch.
Flash
In my college days, Flash meant Gordon, the sci-fi hero. That was when my state-of-the-art PC had a 10 MB hard disk. If you say flash to today's schoolkid, he'll say memory. This is when my phone carrier is a microSD card, the size of my smallest fingernail and it holds 4 GB—400 times the capacity of that lumbering old desktop computer.
Flash memory is everywhere. There are gigabytes of it in consumer devices like the iPod and other MP3 players, digital cameras, and of course, mobile phones. The lowest capacity for any memory card or thumb drive you'll get in 2008 will be 1 GB, and that will cost a few hundred rupees. We're beginning to see hard drives replaced by solid-state flash drives.
