According to Comscore, smartphone adoption exceeded 40% penetration with mobile users in the U.S. at the end of 2011, representing an increase of 15% in just one year. As rapid as that growth is, however, tablet devices have proliferated at an even greater pace. Comscore also found that consumers can now choose from more than one hundred different tablets, and while it took seven years for smartphones to reach 40 million U.S. consumers, it has taken tablets less than two. Already, tablets are accounting for nearly half as much mobile data traffic as smartphones.
The explosion in mobile device usage has caused several wireless operators to stop offering unlimited data plans. The result is to shift the responsibility for managing connectivity to users, who must switch to WiFi hotspots whenever possible in order to minimize their data usage from 3G and 4G cellular networks.
Users of the first generation of 4G LTE smartphones are also finding that they must manage their connectivity by manually reverting to 3G frequently, in order to conserve battery lifetime. But, to make matters more difficult, getting data into your mobile device is only half the battle. If you want to share a downloaded video, photos, or a slide presentation, users must often purchase and carry special USB or HDMI cables to connect with a larger display. While we can all marvel at how the power of our smartphones and tablets exceeds that of mainframe computers from not so long ago, the “inconvenient truth” is that the difficult task of managing the many modes for connecting mobile devices continues to challenge users.
One obvious solution to the battery life problem, at least for tablets and notebook PCs, is to switch to a standby mode when not in use. You can do that for your smartphone as well, but manufacturers have not implemented the capability to automatically wake up a device when a call is received. The downside of going into standby has been that no new data can be received, which delays your return to productivity while you wait for a device to power back up and synch with applications such as email. This is the problem that Intel has addressed with their Smart Connect and Rapid Start Technologies, which the company has featured in Ultrabooks, and has now built into Atom processors such as Cedar Trail as well.
With Smart Connect, a device will wake up from standby periodically and temporarily go into a low power on-state, enabling a user-defined set of applications to synch with the cloud or local servers. Users can specify a list of allowed access points, or set a time period for automatic refresh cycles. Rapid Start shifts data from dynamic memory (DRAM) into non-volatile Flash memory during standby modes, where it can be quickly retrieved when a device is returned to an active state.
Consumer Electronics (CE) manufacturers have a number of wireless technologies that they can employ to replace the need for a cable-display interface in mobile devices. The Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) is an industry association of more than 200 companies that have established interoperability standards for wireless connectivity of a variety of CE devices, from phones and tablets to appliances and home theater audio/video equipment. An alternative solution was offered by Intel at the 2012 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES), where they announced that their new Atom-based smartphone platform would incorporate WiDi, the company’s Wireless Display Technology. Also, in their CES press conference, LG Electronics announced that their new generation of Smart-TVs would have WiDi built-in. With WiDi, users can wirelessly transmit pictures with up to 600p resolution to a compatible display. You can also transmit video for display at 450p resolution, at 30 frames-per-second over WiDi, as well as stream audio.
In the world of wireless, manufacturers and network operators have placed a great deal of emphasis on competing for the highest data rate. Cellular service providers have co-opted “4G” as a marketing slogan, with little regard for its technical meaning. CE manufacturers add new input-output ports to their devices, but make consumers purchase the necessary connection cables separately, often at exorbitant prices. Meanwhile, the WiFi alphabet soup continues, from 802.11/a/b/g/n, rolling around to the latest – 802.11ac. Tremendous advances have been made in the compute power of mobile devices, but all too often ease-of-use issues have taken a back seat. If manufacturers want to encourage continued adoption of new devices, they should focus more on using some of that computing power to efficiently manage connectivity and power for their users.
The explosion in mobile device usage has caused several wireless operators to stop offering unlimited data plans. The result is to shift the responsibility for managing connectivity to users, who must switch to WiFi hotspots whenever possible in order to minimize their data usage from 3G and 4G cellular networks.
Users of the first generation of 4G LTE smartphones are also finding that they must manage their connectivity by manually reverting to 3G frequently, in order to conserve battery lifetime. But, to make matters more difficult, getting data into your mobile device is only half the battle. If you want to share a downloaded video, photos, or a slide presentation, users must often purchase and carry special USB or HDMI cables to connect with a larger display. While we can all marvel at how the power of our smartphones and tablets exceeds that of mainframe computers from not so long ago, the “inconvenient truth” is that the difficult task of managing the many modes for connecting mobile devices continues to challenge users.
Go to sleep to save power
One obvious solution to the battery life problem, at least for tablets and notebook PCs, is to switch to a standby mode when not in use. You can do that for your smartphone as well, but manufacturers have not implemented the capability to automatically wake up a device when a call is received. The downside of going into standby has been that no new data can be received, which delays your return to productivity while you wait for a device to power back up and synch with applications such as email. This is the problem that Intel has addressed with their Smart Connect and Rapid Start Technologies, which the company has featured in Ultrabooks, and has now built into Atom processors such as Cedar Trail as well.
With Smart Connect, a device will wake up from standby periodically and temporarily go into a low power on-state, enabling a user-defined set of applications to synch with the cloud or local servers. Users can specify a list of allowed access points, or set a time period for automatic refresh cycles. Rapid Start shifts data from dynamic memory (DRAM) into non-volatile Flash memory during standby modes, where it can be quickly retrieved when a device is returned to an active state.
Eliminate cables for display connections
Consumer Electronics (CE) manufacturers have a number of wireless technologies that they can employ to replace the need for a cable-display interface in mobile devices. The Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) is an industry association of more than 200 companies that have established interoperability standards for wireless connectivity of a variety of CE devices, from phones and tablets to appliances and home theater audio/video equipment. An alternative solution was offered by Intel at the 2012 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES), where they announced that their new Atom-based smartphone platform would incorporate WiDi, the company’s Wireless Display Technology. Also, in their CES press conference, LG Electronics announced that their new generation of Smart-TVs would have WiDi built-in. With WiDi, users can wirelessly transmit pictures with up to 600p resolution to a compatible display. You can also transmit video for display at 450p resolution, at 30 frames-per-second over WiDi, as well as stream audio.
Keep it simple…
In the world of wireless, manufacturers and network operators have placed a great deal of emphasis on competing for the highest data rate. Cellular service providers have co-opted “4G” as a marketing slogan, with little regard for its technical meaning. CE manufacturers add new input-output ports to their devices, but make consumers purchase the necessary connection cables separately, often at exorbitant prices. Meanwhile, the WiFi alphabet soup continues, from 802.11/a/b/g/n, rolling around to the latest – 802.11ac. Tremendous advances have been made in the compute power of mobile devices, but all too often ease-of-use issues have taken a back seat. If manufacturers want to encourage continued adoption of new devices, they should focus more on using some of that computing power to efficiently manage connectivity and power for their users.
