COMMUNICATIONS

by Phil Gosset
Mobile Communications Consultant

Mobile communication has become an integral component of people’s lives. The three objects that were always sought when leaving home, namely keys, wallet and watch, have now become keys, wallet and mobile. It has reached this lofty position in people’s lives through satisfying people’s need for communication, but offers many other possibilities as its performance and functionality have grown. Indeed, it could be argued that the mobile has become the first truly ubiquitous and pervasive wearable computer, supporting many of the functions that people currently use their PCs for.

From a technical perspective, the mobile supports both voice and always-on data channels over long distance, and also short range ad-hoc communication via Bluetooth. From an individuals perspective, the ability to communicate with anyone or anything, anywhere and anytime holds tremendous value, whilst new communicative practices emerging through the use of short range messaging are creating new instances of pleasure and pain for people.

The device itself is also becoming more powerful, especially now that a Java execution environment is nearly always present. In this light, it provides an interesting alternative to the more usual devices cited when considering applications for wearable computing, especially when many of the headaches associated with battery life and communication are largely solved.

With regards to incorporating the mobile into fabric and textiles, the development of small, light Bluetooth communication modules now allows the required bulky components of wearable computing such as battery, processor and storage to be offloaded and hidden away. In this way, only the local, small-scale requirements of supporting the Bluetooth module need to be incorporated into the wearable. This clearly has the benefit of reducing production costs, and will make wearable devices more affordable.

Finally, as the processing power of mobile devices increase, so more parallel applications can be supported, such that the number of wearable devices worn or carried at any given time can increase. Thus we can imagine a future where a number of dedicated function devices create the wearable computing experience for the user, and where the innate functionality of each object is appropriately augmented to provide a more natural experience.