As this week’s Mobile World Congress slowly winds down (tomorrow’s the last day), I thought it was appropriate to summarize the top 10 trends of the conference as identified by Infoworld magazine.
- GPS on board. Amongst the manufacturers, Nokia “plans to sell 35 million phones with GPS” this year.
- Better cameras with “face detection, image stabilization, and the ability to take better pictures in the dark”.
- Linux. Google Android prototypes. ’nuff said.
- Movies on your phone.
- Geotagging that “combines built-in support for navigation and photography. When you take a picture, your location is also saved. Then you can overlay that information on services like Google Maps and see where you’ve been.”
- Windows Mobile. “Four out of five of the biggest phone makers have phones based on Microsoft’s Windows Mobile operating system”
- High-speed mobile Internet
- Wi-Fi on board.
- FM transmitters.
- Touch-based interfaces.
What it means: phones are becoming more and more like mini-portable computers and trying to be at the center of your mobile life. In addition, more GPS on board and the geotagging functionality are very exciting stuff for a local search freak like me! I was also intrigued by the better face detection. Expect a day where you can take a picture of someone and, with his/her permission, become a “friend” in a social network…
Seb Provencher's Blog 