Mobility Transforms the Internet: “It’s Happening Today”


location based services

The closing keynote of day one of NokiaWorld was a truly exciting session if you’re at all interested in what’s coming down the pike for mobile devices. Nokia CTO Tero Ojanpera walked us through his vision for the future of mobility and mobile devices. His belief that key innovations, including the massive amount of storage that will be available on each device, the falling towards zero of the capex for bandwidth (and the concurrent increase in bandwidth and reduction in cost) and the inclusion of web servers on every mobile device will as Tero put it “fundamentally change the nature of the Internet”
Nokia’s concept - that this technology must also be convenient, easy to use and most importantly human. As Nokia’s new designer, Alastair Curtis said, the key driver has to be increasing simplicity; making progressively more advanced devices that incorporate an ever increasing array of solutions and services as intuitive and functional as possible.
The idea that over time the multi-media computer, which is really the most personal a person has or will access, will transform our lives because of how completely it becomes integrated into our routines is not a new one. What is new is the fact that in the context in which it was presented (at the closing remarks of day one of NokiaWorld) and the individual presenting (Dr. Tero Ojanpera, CTO of Nokia) gives us something to think about.
Much like Ray Ozzie’s comments about mobility and smart phones at Web2.0, Tero and the folks at Nokia are eminently capable of acting on his vision and bringing it to reality. Tero can predict certain parts of the mobile ecosystem because of the resources at his fingertips and the people that believe in him.
Heady and exciting stuff. Can I please have my 4.5g phone now with the 100 gigabit hard drive, the amorphous surface that becomes a display in one mode and a mirror in another and controls in you another still, a ten mega pixel camera, gig E connectivity wherever I go, and which has near field technology that connects to any pc I put it in front of, instantly pushing my preferred OS and preferences as well as all my crucial files direct to the bigger display so that I can work on my files when I need to without lugging a big machine around to work for ten minutes out of a ten day trip. In any case, it’s an exciting vision and one that I really hope comes to pass so that the devices we are using today, and particularly those devices that represent the “so close but yet so far” iterations of our existing products can be replaced with a new generation of faster, more flexible, easier to use and smarter devices in the months and years ahead.