Artilium

Thursday, January 28, 2010

10 Mobile Predictions for this Decade

1. Mobile Payments
Mobile payments and money transfer must become a proper reality this decade. There is evidence of a strong demand for this. The idea of paying for your parking ticket, train journeys or a can of coke via your mobile has few detractors, the technology is capable and yet the systems are not yet joined up. The use of near-field communications (NFC) technology in mobile devices may help the security aspects in verifying a point of sale. The ability for subscribers to transfer credit between devices without excessive charges will help small scale commerce transactions. Mobile payment technology will be led by the existing credit card and charge card players since they already have worldwide payment networks in place and their brands are trusted. Vouchers issued to mobile phones will become a major technology used as a token for collection of prepaid goods. Airlines are already using this technology for boarding passes sent to phones in the form of barcodes.

2. Mobile Remote Control
The mobile phone is a convenient device to uses as a universal remote control. They have the capability to send duplex data over the cellular network, via Bluetooth or using WiFi. Thus, it is possible to communicate with almost any device in the world that is wirelessly or IP connected. A common applications area of the mobile as a remote control will be in home automation. Standards like x10 enable electrical devices to be switched remotely via the IP network, webcams are easily connected and motion detection allows the security to be monitored remotely. Mobile is much more convenient than the PC for remote control functions since it tends to be with you at all times. Some new devices are also being fitted with NFC technology which provides a good degree security for applications such as operating door locks.
Remote monitoring and controlling of the home will become widespread during this decade. The interface with your home may have a familiar look and using social network APIs has been suggested. Talk to your home in the same way as you communicate with your friends. For example, it is possible to automatically send you a Tweet when a door lock is activated. Similarly you may Tweet a message to your home which can be an instruction to switch on the heating. Security issues aside, it does make some sense, why do you need a new application and interface when you already have a familiar one to hand?

3. Augmented Reality
The traditional view of augmented reality is of a display that superimposes data on top of a real image in real time (such as head-up displays for cars). Mobile phones are now able to determine their location and some already have digital compasses. It is thus possible to augment data related to the users current position, the most obvious application is to provide a map or photographic view of their current location augmented with additional data relating to a local resources relevant to the subscribers current context.  Augmented reality applications and games will emerge and generate significant revenue within the next ten years. Mobile gaming, where the real environment is the background to the game, has the possibility to get gamers out of their bedrooms and back onto the streets to play some 21st century games involving real physical activity!

4. Mobile TV
In Europe DTV-H (digital television – handheld) standard will be incorporated into new phone devices in the coming years. This combines the world’s two most successful consumer electronics products (i.e TV and the mobile phone). By the end of the decade almost all phones will be capable of receiving mobile TV and we will snack on short programs, news summaries and video clips. Over time TV content will become tuned to delivery on the mobile.

Mobile TV on-demand is attractive; however the demand on the cellular infrastructure once mobile TV becomes popular would not be sustainable without additional bandwidth infrastructure. In reality higher bandwidth infrastructure is being installed but if the bandwidth is used it needs to be paid for. In all probability both broadcast and cellular on-demand models are likely to co-exist in most countries. It is the level of service offered and charging models that will differentiate these two types of mobile TV service.
Towards the end of the decade autostereocopic 3D displays (i.e. those not requiring special glasses) will have advance sufficiently and become standard on higher-end mobile phones.  A significant proportion of 3DTV and 3D games content will be available as these devices roll out.

5. Mobile Advertising
Mobile advertising is going to become a very significant business. Why did Google buy AdMob a couple of months ago for $750 million? Google’s entire business model is based on advertising revenue and they understand the business of making adverts relevant. Apple recently acquired Quattro Wireless for $250 million and claim they will shake up the market! So, the big hitters are definitely arriving in the mobile advertising marketplace and we can expect significant developments in the next couple of years. Adverts will be delivered alongside mobile content or embedded within content. Ad agencies will learn how to use the mobile media and advertainment content will grow on mobile to ensure the subscribers are engaged and not turned away. By the end of this decade mobile advertising revenue is likely to exceed that of on-line advertising.

6. Mobile Brands
Throughout the world we have seen the proliferation of mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs). In some counties there can be tens of MVNOs hosted on a single network. This has been possible due to the creation of multi-tenant service delivery platforms. The MVNO does not own any part of the physical network infrastructure, instead they just “rent” the required capacity from the operator or the mobile virtual network enabler (MVNE).

It has become much easier to host multiple tenants on a single platform so there is no reason why brands, such as High Street retailers, cannot simply establish a mobile arm to their existing business giving a one to one communications channel between the brand and their customers. These new mobile brands would take the form of a branded reseller and the brand themselves would not need to be directly involved in running the network.

Imagine Oxfam shops in the High Street offering Oxfam branded SIMs where the profit share from the phone revenue supports the charity. They might also accept your old phone for recycling and possibly sell second hand phones in their shop. During this decade we will see a rapid growth in well known brands establishing a mobile arm to their businesses.

7. Device Convergence
Consumer devices are converging at a surprising rate. You can watch TV, listen to music, make phone calls and watch DVDs on your PC, your games console plays DVDs and connects to the Internet, and TVs have become home entertainment centres, mobile phones are used for games, music and displaying video, etc. These devices have many things in common (visual display, user input interface, communications, audio system and processing capability).  While the general capabilities are converging each device is optimised for its intended environment. The TV is dominated by the visual screen, has good audio but a limited user input capability. The mobile phone is optimised for mobility and has restricted user input facilities and a small display. Games consoles are obviously optimised for games and may use a TV as the display device. The PC has the best user input devices (keyboard and mouse).

Device convergence can go further through technical innovation, e.g. with the emergence of pico projectors the display capabilities of mobile devices can be greatly enhanced. However, what is equally likely to happen is that we may connect available resources when appropriate. If a mobile device requires a better output device and a TV display is available then they will be paired together and communicate with each other.

Another change we will observe is a move towards what we may term device shifting. The concept of time shifting has been widespread for many years through the use of recording technology which allows us to delay the viewing of broadcast media.  We have also seen place shifting through the use of remote logins where you can access your data or media from any place via a remote access point. Device shifting refers to the ability to transfer media from one type of device to another and to have that content suitably rendered for that device. For example many games have been produced for large format games consoles but eventually become available for small phone devices with many different screen resolutions – the adaptation for each phone variant is done automatically so only a single source code version is required. The Web is another area where device shifting is used to render web pages suitable for mobile devices but avoiding having different variants of the pages.

During this decade we will see more device convergence and common content will be used between different device formats via automated device shifting technology. We will also see a marked decline in traditional desktop PCs in the home since their functions will be better served through the use of alternative devices; netbooks, TV systems with wireless keyboards, entertainment consoles and mobile phones. The need to run software packages such as word processers will be catered for through the growing use of software hosted on a remote server rather than running on the local machine.

8. Software as a Service
The idea of software as a service (SaaS) has been around for the last decade but it will become the dominant software model during this decade. Most offices, homes and mobile phones are plugged in to the internet and now that we are all connected the SaaS model will grow in importance.

In the mobile world this is a model accepted by subscribers accustomed to paying for services as they are consumed, whereas, the PC model is one of purchasing, installing and running software. This PC model became well established prior to the Internet being available and will not be changed overnight. Advertising will play a key part in the SaaS model since you can expect that some basic services can be funded by advertising, whereas premium services, especially those for business, will be on a pay as you use basis.

9. Evolution of Apps
In the last couple of years the number of applications being loaded onto smart phones has seen massive growth. Gartner predict the mobile apps market will reach almost $30 billion by 2013 (i) Over the next decade many apps will become genuinely useful tools. Apps will start to become connected and will rely more heavily on external services including many provided by the network operators – such as call control and automated messaging. Government and public services will use apps to connect to subscribers in areas such as health care monitoring and providing automated public information services which target the correct people.

Technology that will become increasingly useful within applications is location and presence. Forget the term location-based services (LBS), but rather think of location-aware services and context-aware services. Existing tasks and applications will be enriched by adding the dimensions of real-time location and presence. Semantic web technology will increasingly be used to access contextually relevant information for use within applications.

10. Something Unexpected
What we can predict with some certainty about the future is that our predictions will be inaccurate. In the next decade something will emerge in the mobile market that will become unexpectedly successful. In the 90s it was SMS in the 00s it was probably ringtones. Who predicted these correctly? Anyone that possesses such foresight is sure to find success this decade.

What we really need!
We are groaning under the weight of more and more new technology. We get frustrated dealing with technology that ought to be simple to use but rarely is. As Marvin the Paranoid Android from Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy once said “Life’s bad enough as it is without wanting to invent any more of it.”

If we are to sustain our consumption of new mobile technology then substantial progress in the area of seamless convergence and intuitive standardised user interfaces is required.  Maybe progress has been too rapid for evolution to shape the best interfaces. If you look at the motor car, the user interface evolved to become a fairly universal standard which enables us to step from one car to another with ease and without the need for a heavy user manual.  Some smart thinking in terms of our interfaces with mobile technology is thus required. We have seen that the technology can do almost anything imaginable, but we are incapable of doing much with it unless we invest significant time trying to understand how to use it. Unfortunately that “investment” often becomes worthless when the next generation of technology arrives.  Our homework for this decade should be to figure out a better way to interface man to the ever evolving mobile machine. Each time the technology advances the interface should evolve; not be completely redesigned!

(i) http://www.mobilemarketingwatch.com/4952-4952/, 22 January 2010