The coming wireless revolution
What gadgets will we be using a decade from now?
By Gary Krakow
MSNBC
msnbc.com
I wish I could tell you about the one killer wireless device that everyone will be using within the next decade. I don’t know what it is — but that’s not because I haven’t tried to find out. The truth is there probably won’t be “one big thing” that everyone will be using — but, rather, a number of portable devices that will try to fit individual needs.
IT’S NOT THAT I’m trying to take the easy way out. I don’t fear someone taking these words and re-reading them in five to 10 years and laughing at how wrong I was. That’s inevitable. I don’t think anyone really knows what amazing gadgets we’ll be using a decade from now.
When I first came to MSNBC five years ago I brought with me a little device that no one was interested in. People asked me what my Palm Pilot did. When I told them, EVERYONE told me they’d rather stick with their Filofaxes and Day-Timers. They liked writing with pen and ink. Why would they spend hundreds of dollars to duplicate that information electronically?
Needless to say, these days you’ll see lots of Palm, Handspring and PocketPC cradles attached to individual workstations. And people keep asking me what devices to buy.
Now there are Palms, Handsprings and PocketPCs that are able to send and receive wireless messages, telephone calls and Web pages, some in text-only form and some in actual HTML. There are even devices that connect with your main e-mail server and let you send and receive all your messages wherever there’s two-way data service.
Telephones have changed in those five years, too. The wireless phones in your home are much better now than they ever were. We went from phones that transmitted/received in the 49KHz range to the 900KHz band to 2.4GHz and beyond. We’ve gone from large controller boxes and handsets to small, feature-laden stations — some even allow you to use numerous wireless handsets throughout your home/office.
When it comes to cellular and digital phones, the United States is suffering unlike most other countries because, ironically, it was so far ahead of the rest of the world in rolling out its cellular system. Unfortunately it’s an analog network and thus not really capable of much more than voice and rudimentary data transmissions.We’re slowly undergoing that transformation from analog cellular networks to fully digital ones. Europe and the Far East, on the other hand, started off with digital networks and are already working on improving them.
Motorola's Accompli 009 looks like a two-way pager, but it's really a combination tri-band GSM cellular phone and PDA. Expect them by summer.
Pagers are wireless devices that began as group voice paging devices. Those pagers were private one-way radio service mainly for doctors and other professionals. I don’t think anyone, 30 years ago, could ever imagine that these devices would get smaller and so much better. Now they can handle everything from voice message to numeric to alpha/numeric to two-way data, e-mail and fax messages.
And we’re not too far away from our home appliances talking to each other: MP3 music players talking to computers, refrigerators keeping shopping lists and downloading them to your PDA and maybe even health monitors dialing a doctor before you even know you’re ill.
So why are all these different devices important to our future? Because they all, in some combination of features, will be a huge part of our lives in upcoming years. The easiest way to explain this is to tell you about some of the wireless devices that are recently available and some that you’ll be hearing about in the next few months:
Palm VII and VIIx: The first PDA with wireless, two-way communications. Elegant device combines the Palm OS with wireless data transmissions using the Bell South data network. Available: now.
Handspring’s VisorPhone: GSM module turns Handspring PDA into GSM cellular phone and data center. Features include everything that comes in the Palm operating system. Available: now.
RIM Blackberry: Two-way pager that allows you to read and send wireless e-mails. Includes some PDA functions. Uses the Bell South data network. Available: now.
Ericsson R380: Nifty GSM world phone with PDA functions and WAP Web browser. Runs on the Symbian operating system. Available: in Europe now, in U.S. soon.
LG 3000: Digital cellular phone with full PDA functions from Goldstar of Korea. Works on the Sprint PCS network in the United States. Available: now.
Motorola Accompli 009: You may have seen pictures of this in recent magazines. It looks like a 2-way Motorola pager with a color screen, but upon closer examination, you see a little stub antenna on top. It combines PDA functions with tri-band GSM phone. You need a headset to use the phone. Available: 2nd quarter, 2001.
Motorola iDEN/Java phone: A one-piece handset that works on the Nextel iDEN system in the US and runs on the Java operating system. It will combine phone, two-way radio, PDA and the Web. Available: 2nd quarter.
New Palm devices: New devices are rumored to be hitting the market in the 2nd quarter of this year. No word yet on the new features, but Palm’s president keeps promising Bluetooth connectivity in the new devices.
Microsoft's Windows CE operating system shrunk down to cellular phone size. This 3G handset sports a color screen to display HTML Web sites. It's due on the market by Christmas.
Microsoft Stinger: New breed of smart phone from the software giant. (MSNBC is a Microsoft-NBC joint venture.) It will combine cellular and PDA functions with HTML Web browsing on a color screen plus dial-up networking capabilities. Operating on a modified version of Windows CE. Tri-band GSM world phone. Available: 4th quarter, 2001.
PocketPCs: Packed with MS Windows functions (Pocket Outlook, Word, Excel, etc.), some can connect with modem or Ethernet cards; others (Compaq’s iPAQ) can connect to wireless Ethernet and data networks with optional sleeves and PC cards. Ricochet network supports wireless speeds up to 128K. Most hardware is available now. Ricochet network is available in some cities.
As you can see, there are pagers that do e-mail; PDAs that do telephony and paging; handhelds that can surf the Web; and telephones that can manage appointments and schedules. As these devices evolve, expect more cross functioning.
I believe streaming audio and video will be the killer apps that make these devices appealing to everyone — even to retailers. Imagine for instance, your favorite artist releases a new album or video and your wireless ISP automatically downloads it in the background to your wireless device. You get to listen or view the material then get an e-mail asking whether you’d like to buy it. If you say yes, your account is automatically charged. If not, the material is automatically deleted from your device.
To my contemporaries this all sounds a lot like Dick Tracy’s two-way wrist radio did in the 40’s and the way his updated two-way wrist TV sounded in the 60’s. But it’s really not so far off anymore.
Rim's Blackberry 937 looks like a PDA, but it's really a two-way, wireless e-mail device with some PDA functions thrown in for good measure.
My home has a high-speed cable connection to the Web and a wireless Ethernet system. Adults who’ve seen the system can’t believe that all these devices can access the web wirelessly — and at high speeds.
Recently, when my niece and nephew were visiting, we were able to test the system to its limits. Bradley, 13, was using my laptop when Courtney, 10, wanted to IM her friends on AOL. So I gave her my PocketPC with the wireless card.
With no instructions from me, she was able to find the stylus, logon to AOL and message her friends for more than 30 minutes. When she was done she returned the device and said, “I wish the screen was bigger for looking at some of my favorite Web sites. It’s a little too small.” She had mastered the device, the OS and the applications — and wasn’t afraid to voice her opinion on the matter. The “gee whiz” factor was zero. It was just another way to do what she wanted.
What wireless devices do you think she’ll be using 10 years from now? Or 20? Or 50? I can’t even begin to guess.
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Ramblin |
