Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) is being geared up to take advantage of new GPRS technology, which will be rolled out throughout Europe next year.
This emerged at the recent annual Nokia Mobile Internet Conference in Prague, where the future of wireless technology came under the spotlight.
New WAP standard
[VIDEO]Richard Him Lok, TranXactive`s director of Mobile Internet Technologies, attended the conference and reports: "The European telecos are getting ready to roll-out GPRS in a big way in 2001 - over a dozen of them will start implementing the new platform on their networks in mid-2001.
"The starting base will be 28.8k bandwidth - about three times more than the present 9.6k bandwidth that currently restricts WAP access. Essentially, you will have Internet-modem access speeds from the start once GPRS is implemented."
[VIDEO]Conference delegates also heard that XHTML will replace Wireless Markup Language (WML) once the new WAP standards specification is released in Europe next summer, allowing developers to implement WAP pages with colour graphics, animation, large file download, multimedia, location services, device provisioning, an advanced user interface on the operating system and data synchronisation via the new SyncML standard.
Wearable communication
[VIDEO]During the conference, Nokia showcased its first experiments with the incorporation of cellular technologies into ordinary clothing.
One model was a cellular unit to be inserted into a jacket collar, allowing the user to talk hands-free and unobtrusively. Another possibility is a hands-free device that synchronises with other devices through a simple pat on the shoulder, so enabling hands-free, walkie-talkie-type communication between users.
Nokia`s new 9210
Him Lok says the highlight of the conference was the launch of the new full-colour PDA-come-cellphone Nokia 9210 handset with full active 4096-colour display.
"The 9210 is the first next-generation mobile phone to be based on the Symbian platform," he says. "This allows third-party developers to write powerful additional applications, services and content and it means that customised corporate mobile applications can be developed - not against the proprietary Nokia standard, but an open one which is supported on Symbian PDAs other than the 9210."
Nokia WAP technologies
Nokia`s new WAP technologies also include the Active Server software to support "WAP push", which means that instead of a user connecting to a WAP site to browse and pull information off it, a service can send WAP pages - much like enriched SMS messages - down the phone at predetermined intervals or events.
The handset will be able to display the page with WAP URLs, phone numbers, information records or other information at a much higher detail level than an SMS can.
Says Him Lok: "The limitation is not 160 characters, but the maximum size of a WAP page."
The year ahead
[VIDEO]Alastair Koevort, CEO of TranXactive, says the growth of the cellular phone market has been "nothing short of astounding" in recent years, and he expects this rapid growth to continue.
"The next progression in mobility is to take applications on to the mobile platform - allowing the user to do anything, anywhere, anytime. It`s important to have a high degree of personalisation in these applications, giving extended reach to both organisational and personal services," says Koevort.
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