Monday, January 14, 2008

Death of Mobile Terminal...

...and rebirth to gateway.

In the most recent episode of Nokia's technology podcasts Nokia's CTO Bob Iannucci delivers an idea that I have been trying to put to words but unfortunately hasn't been able to do so. I have been trying to think mobile phones as servers that can provide all kinds of services to other devices (e.g. user's position) and people (e.g. immediate access to person who has access to terminal) - in a way thinking mobile devices as data producers instead of data consumers. That hasn't been completely hopeless way to see mobile possibilities from a new angle but I have felt that something certainly has been missing.

Today I listened Bob Iannucci's podcast titled "The Future of Mobile" and there it is! We can stop thinking mobile devices as "terminals". Instead devices are "information gateways between the real world and the information world". Couldn't agree more with Bob. He gives an example how phone/terminal/gateway camera can be used to take a photo from a barcode which opens a browser page displaying more information about the product. Here mobile phone is the gateway between physical world (barcode) and the information world (website) in a such way that it blurs the boundaries between those two worlds. 

This idea makes my imagination fly, I hope it does the same for you, too.

//Harri

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