UK Homes Adopting Mobile Over Landline
As crucial as landline communication technology might be, more and more folks in the UK are now letting go of their landline connections and are sticking to mobile phone technology when it comes to communication solutions.
A recent study has shown that about 1 in 5 households in Wales are now solely mobile based when it comes to telecommunications options. To say that the rest of the UK is going to be following the trend is not a far shot.
The big draw here is that landlines have a monthly bill that needs to be settled. With already pretty pricey deals on great smart phones like the Samsung Galaxy S or the Apple iPhone 4 –particularly those that provide decent data plans. Instead of having to handle two different bills, sticking with just the mobile plan is a much better idea.
This is even better in households where all the mobile phones use the basic pay as you go payment option. In the meanwhile, this shift towards mobile phones is seen as a bad thing for stronger and better broadband networks as less people are subscribing to landline connections.
For folks who are often on the go and rarely ever at home, the decision to switch to mobile instead of sticking with a landline connection is a pretty easy decision to make.
The trend is actually not surprising to see; this is particularly true and most applicable to young adults and small families where being able to squeeze the value out of every single quid is a must for day to day living.
Of course, it is unlikely that landlines would ever be completely replaced by mobile phone technology. After all, landlines are still more stable and in many ways, cheaper than the average mobile phone for people who use it every single day. As stated above, broadband internet connectivity tends to be reliant on the landline connection as well.
Smart Phones, Social Networking and Sales
It is not a rare thought or idea for an individual to consult with friends and peers before making a purchase. Even if it is a completely new product to try out or a recommended alternative to an existing favorite, retail purchases are heavily influenced by who and what we surround ourselves with.
Before, these immediate factors were people who lived together and people who worked or went to school together. Proximity was an important factor for word of mouth. Even in the early days of mobile phones, people still relied on direct, one-on-one conversations to get a recommendation through.
These days, you do not even have to be directly talking to a friend to influence their decisions for the coming weekend. Take movies for example, all it takes is a well timed Tweet or Facebook status update about how you felt about the latest blockbuster film that premiered this week and the information is automatically sent to everyone with live status updates –and chances are, that is a lot of people.
The retail industry and the world of market has been turned inside out by the emergence of social networking and smart phone technology. The two elements combined formed into a very powerful medium. After all, social networking may sound good and all, but if internet access was limited to desktop computers, it would not be as influential as it is today, where people can access online content anytime, anywhere.
Commercial research firm Gartner has finished a recent intensive study on the behavioral patterns of consumers, determining what factors will most likely influence a purchase. While friends and contacts were expected, the use of social networking is certainly something that changes the game for many marketers.
Of course, many had not missed out on the marketing capabilities of social networking and smart phone technology, a vast majority of commercial companies and brands are being advertised on Facebook and Twitter.
Phone Recycling: Saving the World, Finding Stolen Phones
Mobile phones are a big target for thieves. After all, most of the newer smart phones are pretty expensive and even the cheapest devices can still be sold off for a price; that price does need to be high either, as the investment cost for stolen items is practically zero. Getting even a single pound for a stolen handheld is already an injustice.
While tracking down high end devices needs hardware and software, finding low-end stolen mobile phones can be a lot harder –especially when thieves have found the perfect place to convert the stolen phone for money; at recycling centers. The devices can be brought in at various commercial establishments or in specific locations where the phone will be replaced by a cash incentive.
Now, mobile recyclers have a brand new protocol: checking for stolen devices. Carphone Warehouse, Mazuma, Virgin Media, 20:20 are all making a pledge to examine each handset sent in for recycling. This will prevent people from using recycling services to obtain money for stolen goods.
It is pretty harsh how the recycling industry is being used by malicious individuals in order to profit from illegal activities. While it is a bit too much to hope that something would be sacred from such persons, it is also important to remember that companies that invest heavily in recycling do so in order to entice people to give up their old handsets for recycling purposes.
Several tons of mobile phone wastes are created on a daily basis and the phone industry accounts for a large percent of the total carbon footprint that our civilization leaves.
Google’s CEO Says that Smart Phones are the Future
Eric Schmidt and Bill Gates would agree that the smart phone technology will certainly be pushing the limits of technology and innovation to new heights and to quote the two men, “it is the future”; they are quite right.
Even at this early point in time, it is easy to see and predict that smart phones will become more and more prevalent in the next few years to come. With many handsets now adopting the basic standard features on smart phones, it will not be long before mobile phones that do not have access to internet (GPRS and 3G) are completely phased out by new smart phones.
Communication will still be the key function that the smart phone services, but aside from the usual call and text functions, these mobile phones will also be delivering email and other forms of internet related messaging and communication functions (such as microblogging on Facebook).
The fact that new wireless technology is helping the industry grow faster also helps –and the boom with social networking is also a major factor in the spread of smart phones. In some ways, many could say that the two are directly bearing proportional growths –the more people want social networking, the more people tend to get smart phones while the more people have smart phones, the more inclined they are to access social networking.
Schmidt is also taking things from the perspective of the Google company; in the past few years, they have changed and innovated plenty of things on the internet, and they see the mobile phone as the platform through which they can do more for people and provide better and faster services as well.
He also points out that smart phones are making companies adapt a more open policy with information –which is a great benefit to app developers and most importantly, the end users.
Predicting Smart Phone Trends
With manufacturers focused on current technology and what new features the various operating systems are delivering, some might say that the level of innovation in smart phone technology has come to a slow down.
While there is no decrease in the number of concept devices being made by various manufacturers and product developers in order to inspire the industry to push forward, the innovation has been concentrating more on software than the hardware itself.
This does not mean that the hardware is not changing, it is but only in a single direction of “better specs”, which simply means that the easiest way to predict what tomorrow’s handsets is by looking at the devices available today in simply increasing the speed, power, capacity and performance.
Still, there some new (and old) technology that is being developed that might change the way mobile phones are being used. Take Nokia for example, they are now bringing back short range device communication, this technology as originally developed as a more secure alternative to Bluetooth thanks to its limitation with proximity for devices to communicate.
The development of new touch screen technology is also being implemented as well. Larger, thinner and more flexible touch screens are being developed and this may help change the way mobile phones are designed and made. However, since the current form is quite effective and efficient in terms of functionality and practicality, it will be a long time before a new form factor is accepted.
As stated above, the real change in hardware is simply in improving the current specs. Chip manufacturers are racing to create not only faster and more powerful processors, but also in finding ways to cut down on power consumption. Since mobile handsets rely on rechargeable batteries with limited capacities, there are limits to how fast a modern CPU can be.
Vodafone UK Now Offering the Android Wildfire
It looks like we will not be running out of Android options for the coming months. Considering the current lineup of smart phones for manufacturers such as Samsung, HTC, Sony Ericsson, Motorola and others, there are going to be plenty of Android devices coming out in the next few months and the HTC Wildfire is one such device.
Fortunately for this HTC made Android smart phone, it brings together a good mix of features and provides an excellent degree of social network integration that makes it stand out among the many other Android smart phones available on the market.
Outright, this smart phone was made for user who access social networking sites very often. The Wildfire was designed for major Twitter and Facebook users, which means that if you love checking the latest status updates and would punctuate every major decision with a Tweet, then this smart phone is a match for you.
The device not only makes accessing social network accounts easy, it also brings in Flicker, YouTube, Picasa and more. These web media sharing services are quite important since that allow users to easily upload and share media with friends a family –an important consideration for anyone who uses social networking heavily.
Aside from that, the device also comes with multimedia playback capabilities as well. The Wildfire’s media player can handle a wide range of music and video formats, and the built in camera can take high resolution images and video.
The device itself comes with a nice 3.2 inch TFT capacitive touch screen display, a 5 mega pixel camera, a 528 MHz CPU and of course, Android 2.1 Éclair. So far, no word has been given as to when an update to version 2.2 Froyo will be available but with the HTC Desire getting a patch in the next few days; it would not be long before the Wildfire also gets an update as well.
How Powerful Should a Smart Phone Be?
Technology moves, and when it moves, it moves fast without waiting for anyone, not even our society. As our daily lives become more and more entrenched with the use of smart phone technology, WiFi, and 3G access, the more we leave ourselves chained and tethered to the limits and capabilities of the very handsets we use.
A person who does not check Facebook or send Tweets often will not be reliant on a smart phone with live updates or similar social networking tools. On the other hand, a person who has come to enjoy the benefits of being able to send new updates to friends and colleagues at almost any time will feel rather out of touch and disconnected when forced to use a basic 2G handset without WiFi access.
And that is just the start of it. Web browsing and internet access are now considered to be very basic features, and for many people, owning a social networking account or Twitter account is commonplace. They would actually raise an eyebrow when told that an individual does not have either (a reaction that was not so common when net access was restricted to desktop computers). While this reaction can still be shrugged off, it is a benchmark about what we consider accessible and doable for the average person.
When mobile phones start getting higher capacity batteries that are able to handle faster and stronger processors, the range of things that a person can do with a smart phone will also increase. Employers often expect their smart phone-bearing employees to be able to stay on top with email and basic documents since the device can handle the document processing. At this rate, the speed and power that we see in the desktop computers of today will soon be available on smart phones of the future.
How Smart Phone Technology has Changed the Business Environment
There is something that is unbelievably versatile about the smart phone. More than a laptop or a netbook, a mobile phone is a device that can be accessed almost anywhere and anytime –especially when most other electronic gadgets cannot. They are small, easy to carry and discreet, and most of them can be operated with just one hand.
The smart phone is not just a very easy to access tool, it is also very versatile when it comes to form and function. Business enterprise devices most particularly, have a very unique set of features and capabilities that make them invaluable to businesses.
First off, the basic, 3G and WiFi are among the fastest ways of connecting to the internet and with it, access to a company’s secure network, email, research materials, and other valuable resources. They are also loaded with software that can handle most files that are used in businesses such as Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, PowerPoint slideshows and Adobe PDFs. Being able to view, edit and even create these files on a smart phone that you can carry around with you all the time can save precious time and energy.
In application, these convenience afforded by smart phones is hard to match.
Take e-mail for instance. This basic form of digital correspondence is used heavily by many companies, and as such, people often spend at least an hour each day checking and replying to mail –and some even longer. Being able to access your email when waiting in line at the concession stand, or while on the tube will not only saves time, but also gets employees up to date on the important announcements.
Coordinating employees is also a lot easier when company databases are easily accessible –of course, these smart phones are also equipped with many important security features to ensure that company data is protected and not easily accessed by unauthorized devices.