Morris Lim

Wednesday, February 15, 2006

I downloaded two articles that are both related to mobile devices from the Internet, one is from BBC news and the other is from TIME magazine’s archive back in 2001; they both concentrate on the Internet connection to cell phones.

The one from TIME magazine is old; however the statements found in the article are still up to date. It talks about the i-mode that was introduced in Japan back around the year 2000, and how it has been popularly favored and widely used among Japanese teenagers. At the end of the article, it claims that i-mode would also be a successful hit in the US, however today we know this is not quite true.

The second article is from the BBC News, which I found from Google’s new searching engine, and this article is relevantly new. It is sort of a continuation from the one in TIME magazine. It talks about the new third generation (3G) cell phones, which provide faster connection to the Internet, and are more capable of playing, transferring and sharing multi-media, such as photos and videos.

Towards the end of the article, it also discusses some of the issues that show why 3G cell phones may not be a success hit due to a series of reasons. The price might not be at a satisfying level for consumers, and instead of a monstrous mobile personal theater, people may only want to talk on the phone. The interesting fact is in the very end of this article, unlike the one from TIME magazine, which had the wrong prediction, the author chose words of uncertainty: “hold on and keep watching” how this market will go.

References:

Internet A La I-mode, Tim Larimer, Time Archive, 3/5/2001

URL:

http://www.time.com/time/archive/preview/0,10987,999355,00.html

Mobile Look to Entertain You, Mark Ward, 2/15/2006

URL:

Http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/technology/4709906.stm