Nikola Petrovski's Blog

nikolapetrovski — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 13:24:58 +0000

VISUAL STORY

Mobile Computing

nikolapetrovski — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 19:35:28 +0000

The biggest innovation of today is probably the mobile computing, but what is mobile computing and what kind of mobile computers do we have today?

Mobile computing is a generic term which describes the ability of a person to use technology while moving, as opposed to portable computers. Since 1990 a lot of different types of mobile computers have been introduced such as:

Wearable computer
Personal digital assistant/Enterprise digital assistant
Smart phone
Carputer
UMPC

Are these types of mobile computers really useful? Well not a lot because they have many disadvantages such as technical and other limitations. First of all is the bandwidth which in many cases is insufficient. If the user want to connect to a network such as Internet, they have to resort to slow wireless WAN systems which are primary intended for a telephone use. Second is the security standards which are not that great, because while the mobile is working he is connected with public networks and is depending on them so we have to be vary careful with the use of the VPN keys. Further on is the power consumption. Since the grid can not be used the rely entirely on battery power, suggesting that the batteries do not have a long life and the user has to change the batteries quite often which is of course expensive. Next is the Transmission interferences, followed by the potential health hazards and the human interface with the mobile computers. We can have some problems such as bed reception,with these technologies and that all depend on the weather conditions, distance/limited connection and of course the terrain. For example in some buildings and the tunnels the reception is really poor. Even though some potential health damage from cellular radio frequency is still unknown, most of the car accidents are connected to drivers who were using or talking on their mobile devices while they were driving. Also it is really risky because cell phone and especially smart phones can easily connect and interfere with sensitive medical devices. As HMDs are still uncommon, screens are most of the time too small and the keyboards are really impractical, so because of that the user of these mobile computers has to put a lot of effort so he can be able to operate with them. But somewhere down the road there are also many advantages. With their help we can easily be in contact with the rest of the world at any time, they are made so they can withstand different temperatures while operating, they are resistible on vibrations while we are moving. Probably one of the biggest features is the touchscreen which can allow as(the users) to easily operate with them.

Smart Phones

nikolapetrovski — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 19:31:09 +0000

Smart phone is a phone that offers advanced capabilities with a PC like functions and it is a little bit different then a normal typical cell phone. There is no standard definition of a smart phone even though they differ from normal cell phones is two ways: how they are built and what they can do. For some is a phone that runs hole operating system software and for others is just a phone with advanced features like Email, Internet and a full keyboard. The devices that are considered as Smart phones are usually run on open and identifiable operating system which has the ability of adding applications which differ from the normal cell phones who only support sandboxed applications (like Java). Smart phones can be developed from any network developer, by the manufacturer of the device or from any other software developer, since the operating system is open. In terms of features Smart phones have email capabilities with complete personal organizer, small keyboard, touchscreen, built-in camera, built-in hardware and software. They also have the ability to read variety of personal document formats such as PDF and Microsoft Office, they also contain Internet browser, we can browse pictures and video clips and they have a media software for music. One of the most common feature of Smart phones is the Contact list. We are allowed to store as many contact as the available memory allow as. In contrast the regular phones have a limit of maximum number of contact that can be stored.

The first Smart phone was made in 1992 design by IBM and it was called Simon. It was released for public in 1993.

Besides being a cell phone Simon contained calendar, address book, calculator, email, send and receive fax options and games. Simon did not had any buttons to dial with, but instead he had a touch-screen to select and dial numbers or to create and use other options. Today Simon would look like a poorly low-end Smart phone. These days we can see a lot of different Smart phones such as iPhone, Blackbarry, Windows Mobile, Linux, Palm and others. All of these Smart phones are really popular now days and all of them contain really fancy features, some of them useful and some just applications for fun.