A world of convergence

Mobility Now seemed like an appropriate title. Mobility means many things. Certainly a mobile phone, but true mobility means being able to do things, the things you’re used to be doing, but at any location. Being able to do phone calls while on the road is not new. Early cellphones from the 1980s allowed people to talk while on the road. But that was not true mobility. Phones were huge, they were of low quality, and the calls were restricted to analog signals, and often to specific networks. Every year new features were added. First came SMS messages, where phones would now allow people to type and receive messages. Then technology got better, we saw color screens, and additional functions were added such as a calendar, calculator, a better contact book and much more.

At one point, when connections got fast enough and phones powerful enough, the cellphone world and the Internet world connected for the first time, and this was a revolution. No longer was the cellphone user trapped in the closed world of the network provider. With the early browsers, now all the technologies of the Internet started to open up to mobile users, from web browsing, email and much more. At first this was a very painful experience, because suddenly a device meant to do phone calls was being used to render and display web sites, and accept complex input from the user. More powerful technology, even faster networks, and the introduction of the QWERTY keypad was the second revolution. Phones were powerful enough, input was easy enough, and software was advanced enough to bring raise to the smartphone, not only a phone but one that has all the capacities to be expanded and used for brand new things.

Only a few years ago smartphones were making their entry into the world of mobility, and enthusiasts were seeing the birth of true mobility. Companies were started, web sites appeared, and developers multiplied at a breakneck speed to improve and facilitate this brand new world, a world where anything that can be done on a standard computer was now being translated to the mobile space. Now, we’re in the most exciting era of true mobility. Devices are becoming mature, technologies are being deployed and software developers are out there. Almost every week a new breakthrough appears in the domain. From IM (Instant Messaging) clients, new web browsers, VOIP, 3G, push email, the Internet is full of buzzwords, and interesting solutions are available for all simply by searching for them. This is why I decided to create this site. This is where I will chronicle the changing world of mobility.