“CloudPrint is a new service that allows you to share, store and print documents easily using your mobile telephone. From your desktop computer, print your documents to the CloudPrint “virtual printer” and your print job will live “in the cloud”.
“When you print a document to CloudPrint, we’ll notify all the people you send it to with an SMS message containing a unique document code. With just your telephone number and that document code, you can retrieve your documents from anywhere. Send CloudPrints to yourself to easily make your documents accessible wherever you go, or send CloudPrints to friends. Now wherever your go, your documents can go too”.
“Cut the cord“ is something we have been hearing for the past few years from well known vendors such as Nokia (2003 press release) when illustrating the sense of freedom implied in a truly mobile user experience enjoying voice, video and data communications anytime, anywhere. Here is another example from Intel showcasing new devices to that end:
In the meantime, the telecommunications industry has also delivered hybrid solutions under the “convergence” term, which involve [a] fixed broadband connections (e.g. DSL, Cable, Fiber) coupled with [b] relatively small wireless base stations (e.g. WiFi and Femtocells) and [c] a new category of mobile devices which are also able to seamlessly connect to cellular networks. In any case, the vision on the user experience remains cordless or wireless, which ever term works best.
A great variety of consumer electronics can also wirelessly sync up with one another (e.g. phones with earpieces, laptops, printers, etc.) when in proximity by leveraging Bluetooth and Wireless USB to name a couple of increasingly popular examples. And, as shared in quite a few of my previous posts, a growing number of services live in the cloud, such as HP’s new printing service, further illustrating the Web 2.0 trend.
You can also kiss the power cord goodbye. Check out Wildcharge’s new product (conductive charging). Their pad can charge up to five devices simultaneously. If interested in this, I would also suggest visiting ecouple’s website (inductive charging).
One can only guess that future releases of these “cable free chargers” will eventually be leveraged by all kinds of consumer electronics, including large flat HDTV sets, which can be hanged up as if they were picture frames anywhere you like. Speaking of which, you would not need to worry about the cable jack either: Amimon talks about WHDI™ technology for the wireless delivery of uncompressed HDTV throughout the home with video rates of up to 3Gbps, with the same quality as a wired connection and no latency.
The following is just a collage of relevant trends portraying paradigm shifts worth studying. The first one points to the fact that while broadband access was first deployed thinking of business productivity (and corporate IT budgets), but it turns out that the consumer market is driving quite a few of the most interesting innovations:
“In many cases, business are following -not leading- when it comes to network-based service innovation. This is particularly true of high-bandwidth media applications (…) The functionality associated with social network and the growth of online media isn’t slowing down; rather it’s spreading rapidly. Today’s multimedia and Web 2.0 trends are merely a forerunner to the Internet environment of the future (…) We expect mobile networks increasingly will be used to access multimedia content and visit community sites”.
The overall number of wireless subscribers is confirmed to grow quickly by all accounts:
“There are now considerably more mobile wireless subscribers than wireline switched access lines – something that was hard to imagine when the Telecommunications Act passed in 1996″.
“Another growing trend is wireless substitution. The migration from wireline to wireless is taking hold – in terms of minutes of use, as well as consumers who “cut the cord” or those who never sign up for wireline service (…) For a growing segment of the population, mobile wireless has become their only telecommunications service”.
“Wireless broadband subscription also is growing (…) in the first half of 2006, 59% of new broadband customers opted for mobile wireless broadband services”.
Market analysts forecast broadband services becoming a substantial part of wireless operator’s mainstream revenues, which is significantly different from today’s market where voice calls remain the predominant source in most cases:
“Mobile broadband will represent close to half of all mobile service revenues in 2012, making it one of the largest and most strategically important segments of the mobile industry (…) Some mobile broadband vendors and operators are clearly betting that a significant number of fixed broadband subscribers will migrate to mobile broadband”.
Mike Roberts, principal analyst at Informa Telecoms & Media, as quoted by Robert Jaques on vunet.com
“According to research carried out by Juniper, there will be over 1.2 billion people using mobile broadband on mobile phones and laptops by 2012 (…) The ‘Internet outside’, as I’m going to call it, means much more than just being able to search Google at a bus stop. The Internet outside means having access to information and services almost everywhere you go, which will change how those services work and what they offer”.
Andthe number of mobile broadband subscribers could end up being larger than those on fixed broadband:
“Revenues from mobile broadband services will generate more than $400 billion globally by 2012. In 2011, there will be more mobile than fixed broadband subscribers”.
“The arrival of the mobile web on the mobile handset over in 2007 and beyond will see users embracing the same content they take for granted on their PCs (…) Operators need to ensure they are firmly locked into this value chain, or risk missing out on what will be an enormous market by 2011″.
Welcome. My name is J. de Francisco. Originally from Barcelona, I live in the Chicago area, working at Alcatel-Lucent. Most know me as "Josep" (Catalan) or "José" (Spanish).
I am the co-founder of consultaglobal, an initiative focusing on sharing and discussing innovation practices.
Views expressed here are solely my own and do not reflect those of my employer and/or partners.
You can also kiss the power cord goodbye. Check out 
Chicago, 30 October 07 
