Mobile communications move beyond phones

Before we get into Day Three of the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, I'd like to take a moment to talk about the late evening keynote by Google CEO Eric Schmidt. Google is synonymous with internet today. But, in his address, Schmidt put mobiles at the heart of the internet giant's future. According to Schmidt, internet mobile devices will overtake PCs by 2013. With 'Mobile First' being the key focus for Google, he outlined how the web giant's top programmers were now concentrating on mobile.

By taking search to mobiles, Google has created an open platform that brings together location-based search with voice and pictures. Let's say you are in Barcelona and you are looking for Indian food. The search platform will recognise that you are in Barcelona and throw up the most relevant search results — Indian restaurants in the city. The search recognises your location and, while you ask for options for food, it identifies your speech and sends you the desired results.

This technology goes further. For instance, if the Indian restaurant's menu has some parts in the Devanagri script and a non-Hindi speaking person does not understand it, all he or she needs to do is focus a phone camera onto the script. Within seconds, the search will recognise the characters and send out intelligent data on the meaning of the words with corresponding pictures for better clarity.

Google's programmers joined Schmidt on stage to demonstrate the firm's latest developments, as described above. The demo was a merger of speech and image recognition technology: There was an optical character recognition (OCR) tool that was able to recognise and translate a picture of a German menu into English.

Schmidt also proclaimed that three unique areas had now converged on the mobile device: Computing power, interconnectivity and the cloud. He said: "The phone is where these three all interconnect and you need to get these three waves right if you want to win."

Using the examples of Spotify, Facebook and, of course, Google, he emphasised how the cloud concept is being used in both fixed and mobile communications. He also mentioned that Indonesia and South Africa now see more searches via mobile phones than PC.

India’s Adam Vs iPad
Meanwhile, mobile computing is moving beyond phones, too. Tablets, for instance, will be an important focus area for the digital entertainment and telecom industries in 2010. Apple iPad has already showcased the experience and mobility features offered by large-format screens.

Now the global leader in visual computing, Nvidia has launched Tegra — a graphic card specifically created for tablets. In India, Nvidia Tegra powers Adam — a 10-inch, full HD (1080P) touchscreen tablet that comes with a general packet radio service (GPRS) slot and Flash to play videos from their native location.

Manufactured by Hyderabad-based company Motion Ink, Adam will hit the stores in the third quarter of 2010 and is expected to be much cheaper than the Apple iPad.

The product focuses on the education and media & entertainment segment in India. Motion Ink is looking at companies like Ignou & NCERT in the education space to provide superior quality e-learning material. This could include video tutorials, image-based text books and more, to make learning fun.

In the media & entertainment industry, Adam brings an opportunity for content developers to come up with relevant and exciting content. This could pan from songs, videos, full-length movies, high-end gaming to streaming of content. Consumers can access the entire realm of digital entertainment by surfing through various online storefronts.

Introducing a graphic device for tablets seems to be a logical move for Nvidia as most original equipment manufacturers are moving into the space. And, with Adam, the Indian household is set to benefit from an affordable and quality mobile computing device.

(The author is Managing Director and CEO of Hungama Mobile & Chairman of MEF Asia Board)