Mobile tech changes faster than you can cycle through a two-year cell phone contract. By the time a plan suggests it's time for a new mobile phone, chances are the customer has grown weary of the virtually obsolete device they thought was so impressive and feature-laden just a year or two before.
One of the areas in which mobile devices change most rapidly is mobile imaging. The industry has moved from simple phones with monochrome screens to powerful devices that can stream video and capture photos and video at high resolutions.
And the latest and greatest innovations in mobile imaging are just around the corner.
Taken piecemeal, some of these new advancements are interesting and exciting, but taken as a whole, they're truly something to behold. As each new platform emerges, ever-better imaging technology works its way into mobile phones, and carriers continue to push improvements in streaming services, the mobile phone will become more than just a convenient communication device with some bells and whistles. Soon, we may rely on our mobile devices for much of our computing and virtually all of our communication.
Megapixels & More
Oh, how the imaging industry loves to talk about megapixels when it comes to cameras—even the cameras in mobile phones. You may recall the days when the megapixel count of a digital camera was virtually the only feature that mattered. If the camera had more megapixels, you could do more with it. As megapixel counts have continued to rise, we are now at a point where a low-end digital point-and-shoot camera features 8MP resolution and HD video for less than $200. Camera phones have traveled a similar trajectory. When they first appeared in mobile phones, it was truly a sensation; but with 1MP or 1.3MP cameras, they weren't all that useful for anything other than capturing a moment just to prove it happened or taking a small photo to use as wallpaper on the mobile phone itself. The photos were decidedly low-res and grainy.
Later, the megapixel count commonly became 2MP on many phones, but that still wasn't enough to get decent prints. And camera phones were missing important features such as optical zoom and flash. Many current high-end camera phones now commonly have 3MP or 5MP cameras. Some even sport 8MP cameras. According to the Worldwide Community of Imaging Associations' 2009 State of the Mobile Imaging Industry report, by 2010 a quarter of all mobile phone models will sport cameras with 5MP resolutions and higher.
Today, megapixels are only a small part of the story. Many camera phones have built-in LED flash for enhanced picture-taking capabilities, and even those are improving. Some cameras have a Xenon flash, like standalone digital cameras. Other camera phone features that were once the exclusive domain of digital cameras include optical zoom, image stabilization, the ability to shoot 30fps HD video, autofocus, Carl Zeiss lens optics, and more. Kodak announced last year that it was developing imaging technology for mobile phones that could rival that of its line of EasyShare digital cameras. Among the specific technologies implemented are Smart Capture and Kodak Perfect Touch. Users of mobile devices with this technology will be able to access Kodak's products and services, including EasyShare software, Kodak Gallery, picture kiosks and digital photo frames.
Wireless Distribution & Storage
As smartphones continue to add impressive imaging features, the logic follows that users may soon run into storage problems. For instance, 100 high-res 5MP photos take up quite a bit more space per shot than if you'd shot them using a 1.3MP camera phone. Throw in a handful of HD videos and a slew of applications, and a consumers' onboard storage can suddenly fill up quickly. Call it cloud computing if you want, but one solution to this storage problem is to upload much of your content to photo- and video-sharing sites such as Pictavision (www.pictavision.com) or Photobucket (m.photobucket.com). Sprint has an option on its photo-sharing Web site that lets you submit your mobile photos and edit them online. Of course, you can always just off-load your media to your PC, and in some cases you can do this via Bluetooth. Another more direct option is to add a high-capacity memory card to your phone. Not every smartphone will have a memory slot, but more and more mobile phone manufacturers are including them in their newer designs.
Projection From Mobile Devices
Texas Instruments and Samsung have announced smartphones (the W7900 and I4710, respectively) that operate on TI's DLP Pico chipset. Purportedly, the 10-lumen devices will be able to project images approximately 50 inches from content either stored on the phones or streamed from mobile TV. There's no word yet as to whether either device will make its way to the United States, however. The Logic Bolt is another smartphone/projector device, which promises a display of 34 to 64 inches with focus control. Samsung also has the MBP200 Pico Projector, which, although it won't serve double-duty as a phone, offers the capability of a small projector in roughly the same form factor. The Pico Projector also plays music and video and runs office productivity files from a microSD slot—absolutely ideal for delivering presentations.
Mobile Video
Mobile video is one of the most fascinating technologies on the horizon, with a number of hardware makers and service providers honing in on ways to deliver mobile content.
Currently, there are issues with mobile video that include prices that are too high, poor video quality, limited channel options, and weak network coverage. Efforts continue to be made to correct these things. One example includes the ability to install a placeshifting client on the mobile device, such as SlingPlayer Mobile or Hava Mobile TV. These tools let you watch and control your home television through your mobile phone. A variation on this is TiVo Mobile, which lets you watch programs you recorded to your DVR on your mobile phone. Beyond placeshifting, however, it seems as though a new mobile TV or video-on-demand service pops up frequently. There are plenty of mobile TV and video standards and services out there. Qualcomm is behind MediaFLO, an open standard designed to work across the mobile TV ecosystem. MediaFLO promises to deliver video at 30fps with a QVGA (Quarter VGA) resolution, AAC+ stereo audio, and a two-second channel switch time.
Other entrants into the mobile TV arena include Nokia's DVB-H (Digital Video Broadcast-Handheld), a derivative of DVB-T (DVB-Terrestrial) that has found a strong foothold in Europe; LG's MPH (Mobile Pedestrian Handheld), which leverages existing ATSC (Advanced Television Systems Committee) broadcasts, thus avoiding infrastructure-building costs; Verizon's V CAST Mobile TV, which is available for only a few Verizon phones; and Orb 2.0, an iPhone application that streams TV programming to your iPhone. Video-on-demand services are also quite popular, and they seem to be popping up just as often. Amazon offers a video-on-demand service, as does Alltel (through QuickPlay Media's OpenVideo platform) and DivX. Technically, placeshifters and TiVo Mobile would also fall into this category.
In terms of the overall quality of mobile video, whether it's video-on-demand or mobile television, the state of things continues to improve. Primarily, this is and will continue to be the result of advancements in mobile processors.
The Real Story: Mobile Operating Systems
Amidst all of the advances and innovations in the world of mobile imaging, one of the main areas to look to for innovation is mobile operating systems. Hardware is one thing; a phone with an 8MP camera and video streaming is certainly impressive, but what you will be able to do with that phone is most compelling. Hardware certainly defines, in part, what you can do with your phone. If the phone doesn't have Wi-Fi, there is no application you can download that will grant you that capability, for example. And no application can magically convert the images you take with your camera phone to a higher resolution if the camera is only 1.3MP.
But mobile operating systems will enable developers to explore the far reaches of what a camera phone is capable of doing.
There are several mobile operating systems on the market today. Blackberry, Symbian and Windows Mobile are familiar names, and they certainly offer many important and useful features, especially for traveling business professionals. E-mail, device synchronization, and the ability to work on Microsoft Office documents are all feats these operating systems have conquered to some degree. Newer kids on the block include Android (the OS backed by Google), Apple's version of Mac OS X for the iPhone, and Palm's webOS. The Apple iPhone has gained widespread popularity and operates on a special version of Mac OS X created specifically for the iPhone. Google's Linux-based Android platform premiered recently on the T-Mobile G1, and the Palm Pre is the first device to use the new Palm webOS. What each of these operating systems has in common is that third-party developers are encouraged to create applications native to each OS.
Just visit the iPhone App Store (www.apple.com/iphone/appstore) or Google's Android Market (www.android.com/market) and browse around for a bit. Or check out Microsoft's Windows MarketPlace for Mobile (www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile), which made its debut in February. Research In Motion also launched its own online store, BlackBerry App World (na.blackberry.com/eng/services/appworld), as well.
You'll find apps that do virtually everything and anything you can imagine a phone doing.
Running The Show: Mobile Processors
Although it's true that a smartphone's OS has a great deal to do with what your device is capable of, behind it all is the mobile processor. Building an OS and applications that run smoothly and offer wide-ranging capabilities for mobile devices is a brilliant feat, but all is for naught if the hardware can't keep pace.
Thus, as it is in the world of personal computing, so it is in the mobile realm: The better your device's processor, the better off you are. As we mentioned previously, operating system and application development is limited only by imagination and hardware; but imaginations are virtually boundless, and hardware developers continue to crank out impressive technologies.
Mobile processors are at the core of these new developments. Some of the more tantalizing mobile processors include ARM's Mali 200 and 400 processors, which help make mobile gaming a more competitive (and entertaining) reality. TI's OMAP processors are designed to enable lifelike 3-D graphics on higher-end phones, offer 720p video quality, and can keep pace gaming-wise with devices such as the Sony PSP.
Other processors and chipsets to be on the lookout for include Nvidia's Tegra APX 2600 chipset and Qualcomm's MSM7227 chipset. Soon, we'll be seeing Intel's popular Atom processor making its way into smartphones, as well. These technologies offer a great deal of promise regarding the future of mobile imaging. We'll be keeping you abreast on further developments…before they happen.
—Reprinted with Permission from www.pctoday.com.
