TABLE OF CONTENTS You have probably heard the term smart phones when people talk about some fancy gadgets that look like a combination of a cell phone and a personal digital assistant (PDA), and you must have heard the term wireless many times, mostly from advertisements of cell phones and service plans by big wireless service providers. If you are working in the wireless industry or computer industry, then you should be familiar with the notion of mobile computing and should have some idea of the concept of pervasive computing. What exactly do these terms refer to? What are the similarities and differences between them? Furthermore, what are the cutting-edge technologies and emerging applications of the next generation of mobile computing? What are some of the challenging issues in this domain? Before we embark on an exciting journey into the fantastic world of mobile computing, we should answer these questions.
The first chapter serves as an introduction to the remainder of the book. It begins by defining a number of key terms and concepts used throughout the book, such as smart phone, wireless communication, nomadic computing, and mobile computing, and continues with an overall discussion of the next wave of computing and the role of smart phones in that context. The first chapter briefly introduces a range of mobile wireless technologies and applications, as well as key issues and challenges in this field.
The next generation of mobile...
