Developed through the wireless communications techniques created by Marconi in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s and a combination of the complicated electronics that have streamlined and enhanced such technologies, the mobile phone is a modern communications device that has evolved more in the past decade than the entire past century alone, and is shaping our everyday lives and social interactions.
The mobile phone has evolved from providing users with simple analogue voice communication in the late 80’s and early 90’s to providing digital voice communications in the late 90’s to now provide us with Digital voice and data communications in the form of third-generation mobile phone technology. Mobile phones are now more powerful than personal computers that existed just 7 years ago (The O2 XDA-II which resembles a palmtop computer has a 400mhz processor and 128MB RAM). Providing digital communications on the spot allowing access to the Internet, access to files such as PDF, and text documents, and even the ability to play movies and MP3 files. Mobile phones now operate operating systems such as a mobile version of windows and Symbian OS, and run Java virtual machines that mean that they can be controlled and manipulated by programmers using high level programming languages such as Java.
Mobile phones have helped to shape cultural phenomenons. One particular phenomenon is that of the text message, or ‘txt’ message. The text message is an example of how individuals have adapted to get better and more efficient use out of a service provided by the phone. The common text message abbreviates words and sayings creating a range of new words and acronyms to elicit more information using less space and time. This idea closely follows those of Claude Shannon and information theory. Shannon attempted to determine the capacity of a communication channel in terms of a common currency of bits. On the mobile phone the communication channel could be considered the text message, and the currency of the channel would be 160 characters. Those who used text messages strove to convey as much information in a message as possible incurring as little cost as possible.
Mobile phones are always evolving. They form a rich and controversial subject relating to health; ethical considerations need to be considered with the development of cameras being built into phones, also with the ability to triangulate the location of a mobile phone receiver. Txt messages are linguistically and culturally interesting. The way people communicate and why people communicate has changed, in theory people are constantly in touch with one another. For better or worse an individual is only a button away from a member of their address book. The mobile phone also opens the world to an individual, because they can continually move around with it, continually communicating with others and allowing individuals to explore the realms of the Internet should they have a phone capable of this, it also allows them to take the time to contact individuals they might not otherwise contact.
In terms of the development of the mobile phone they look like becoming more analogous to personal computers. Their portability is paramount to their popularity so we could see a change in size or convenience. The work of Kevin Warwick may play a part in mobile phone culture. The integration of a mobile communications device within a human being and attempt to use the nervous system to operate the device is a likely progression of his research. The mobile phone may benefit from other research into virtual reality such as augmented reality, providing users with a constant database of information about their current surrounding area, landmarks, sights and images they may come across. The ability to recognise music is available using mobile phones, the technology ‘Shazam’ will recognise any music track played through the microphone and communicate this information back to the user through text message. More complicated augmented reality projects could be developed from ones such as this, but certainly they don’t seem too far away.