TABLE OF CONTENTS The next wave of computing, many believe, will be mobile computing. Mobile computing does not simply imply using a cell phone on the move and checking schedules, e-mails, weather, and news occasionally with a laptop computer or a PDA. In fact, future mobile computing reflects a far broader and deeper vision than our current perception of using mobile devices to access cellular wireless networks and services, which represents just one of the components of the mobile computing paradigm. The rapid evolution of enabling mobile wireless technologies and the need for information access to be available "anytime, anywhere, from any device" and, even more aggressively, "all the time, everywhere, from all devices" have naturally raised a few key questions regarding technical trends in the mobile arena, enabling technologies, and the role of cell phones in the future. This chapter aims to answer these questions by looking into the evolution of cellular technologies, PDAs, and other mobile devices. The chapter discusses the rise of smart phones, the increasingly popular converged mobile device, and then moves the discussion a step further to identify the trend of convergence within the broader context of general computing, as well as research and development directions in both industry and academia.
Cellular communication is by far the most widely used wireless communication technology worldwide. A study by EMC (Hopkinton, MA) in 2004 showed there were about 1.5 billion cell phone users worldwide, and the number is expected to...
