New Interests

Having mobile internet at my fingertips whenever I want lets me access information online whenever I have down time or nothing to do. Before I had a phone with internet access I didn't pay much attention to the news or the economy. Now that where ever I am I have internet I am always keeping up to date with the world around me, whether it be local or national news. I have recently took on an interest to the stock market because of my phone. The stocks application on the iPhone has always been one that I never paid attention to. I tried multiple times to delete it because I felt that it was a waste of space. Lately I have been adding different companies that I feel are going to be a good investment and watching them day to day on my phone. The application has news articles and a historical graph to see how the given company has done on stocks. Most of the time even if I am on my computer and want to look up a stock I will pull out my phone and check it on there. Overall I feel that my phone having internet on it makes me a more aware person. If I ever need or want to find out information on something I can instantly research it on my phone.

Here is an article that talks about how many people are actually using mobile internet
http://searchengineland.com/there-are-75-million-us-adults-on-the-mobile-internet-more-than-half-of-them-daily-45943

Games/Applications

When I first got my iPhone I was blown away at the games and applications that it had to offer. Going to the app store was fun because there were new entertaining applications and games every day. Different apps such as ones that lets you listen to police radio scanners all around the country, an app called Shazzam that listens to music and tags the name of the song for you and will even give you a link to purchase it or listen to it on YouTube. The games that have been coming out recently seem to be more and more advanced. On the iPhone 4 there are games that take use of the phones gyroscope which move a weapon when you move the phone. Other games that I have found interesting over the last couple of years have been the games that are online and you can play with other live people. Games such as Words with friends, which is a Scrabble type game that gives you the ability to play with friends or random opponents. There are poker games that are like this where it puts you in a room with live people playing for fake chips. It seems that every day there are new applications, at first they were free, now they are starting to get more and more expensive. It is not rare to find an application in the app store that reaches up to $100. Recently I have been trying to think of some sort of application to create that will help people out and make their lives easier. Making an application seems like an easy way to make a few dollars here and there.

Mobile Television

I have always been a huge sports fan. I follow pretty much every sport but I am a huge Orlando Magic fan in particular. When I got a phone with mobile internet this changed everything for me. I get updates and can watch games on my phone with game cast or I even have the ability to watch them live on television off of my phone for a separate cost. Ever since I have had access to the internet where ever I am I have also become more interested in staying updated with the news. Mobile television seems to be the latest trend in the technology world. Mobile television offers all of the main channels live and also some others that are just for the mobile world. People can watch television where ever they may be. This has recently became more popular in Asian countries where people have long commutes to and from work and they primarily take public transportation. It started off with small devices that look much like a PSP or an iPhone that was just a television that people pay a monthly fee for. The introduction of smart phones that have the capability to do pretty much anything has provided America and other countries with the convergence of the portable television and the phone into one device. It seems as if every day there are is something new that blows my mind. Every time I talk about or think of how far technology has come, I can't help but wonder what cell phones will be like and what kind of features they will have to offer in 20 years from now.

Here is an article that I enjoyed reading that is about a year old that talks about mobile television spreading to the US and Europe.
http://biz.yahoo.com/nytimes/080506/1194771946810.html?.v=18

My favorite part of having mobile internet

So recently I was told by a friend of mine about Pandora Internet Radio. I started listening on my computer before bed or while I was doing homework. I would choose a song that I liked and it would come up with a play list that picks songs similar to the one i chose. I was just recently informed that I could download this application on my iPhone. Once I learned that I could do this I was ecstatic. I started to use it when I go to the gym. There are stations that are on there that are perfect for listening to while working out and running that really pump you up. I also use it in the car from time to time. I used to have satellite radio, which was also accessible from my cell phone but my subscription expired a few months ago and with me being introduced to Pandora I really don't see the need for it. The only nice thing that satellite has that Pandora doesn't is talk radio but with it being free it makes up for it. Pandora was great on my phone but it was annoying that whenever I would get a text or needed to do something different such as use the GPS on my phone it would turn off the music. Ever since the new iPhone 4.0 software and the Pandora update came out it has all been fixed. Now you can listen to Pandora and do other tasks on your phone at the same time. The iPhone updates' main component was for multitasking, which made it possible to complete multiple tasks at once on the iPhone 3G and 3GS. I currently own the 3GS and am thinking about upgrading to the iPhone 4.

Here is a blog post that was written by the CTO of Pandora, but it announces and explains the background listening of Pandora on the new iPhone 4.
http://blog.pandora.com/pandora/archives/2010/04/pandora-backgro.html

Email

Do you remember the days where you had to go home or to an office to check your e mail? Before I had my cell phone I would check my e mail once a day, and that was on a good day. Many times someone would tell me that I needed to check my mail for something special and I would have to wait to get to a computer to do so. E-mail was first started in the 1970s through a network called ARPANET. What is interesting about it is that at that time e-mail would come once a day just as if regular postal mail does. It is funny to think how far we have advanced in about 40 years. Now we get our e-mail on our phones instantly like we are receiving a phone call or a text message.

I've attached a link that explains more about ARPANET and the beginning of Email.
http://www.livinginternet.com/e/ei.htm

Back from vacation

I recently just got back from going on a trip from Tallahassee, FL to Greenville, South Carolina. I went to Greenville to visit my dad who lives up there. While I was visiting my dad I was also working for him. He is the general manager of a BMW dealership so he was having me deliver and pick up cars around the area. I also took the opportunity to visit some friends for a few days who happened to be about an hour away from where I was located in Greenville at Tugaloo State Park on lake Hartwell in northern Georgia. All in all it was a great trip, which involved a lot of driving and having to find different roads and businesses that were not familiar. Most of the driving up to South Carolina took me through backwoods and on many roads that would be hard to navigate without the availability of GPS. I used my cell phone for as a GPS unit on the trip and when I was delivering cars I would use the GPS to locate the dealerships that I was going to. This trip made me realize how important and convenient having a cell phone with mobile internet is. Without my iPhone I would not have been able to get through the roads and find the places I had to find without the turn by turn directions that it offers. It took me until the last leg of my trip on the way back home for me to encounter my first problem. I was driving and my phone lost service. I was unable to locate where I was and ended up getting lost for about 5 minutes. It was funny to think to me that people in certain towns are not able to get certain cell phone companies due to the lack of service in their location. It got me thinking that this is a great example of the digital divide. The reason being that many of these towns are not up to date on technology is because it is simply not offered where they are located. Sure there are different providers but many of these places are not covered by anything more than just basic cellular service. Cell phone companies are advertising their 3G and some even 4G coverage. If one were to read the fine print they would see that the faster speeds are only offered in larger cities, but the services are expanding. In India the cell phone creator Ericsson is attempting to close the digital divide by providing not just the urban areas but the rural areas as well. This is not just mobile internet, cable and regular high speed internet are also services that are often times not easily provided to small towns and back woods of the world.

I have attached a picture that was on Wikipedia, which is a graph that I think does a great job to show the number of mobile phone subscribers in different countries around the world. I also attached a link that explains about Ericsson and the urban-rural digital divide.

http://www.ciol.com/Technology/Networking/Interviews/3GHSPA-can-help-bridge-urban-rural-digital-divide/117457/0/

My First Ever Blog Post

So I thought that the convenience mobile internet would be a great topic to blog about and how the use of it makes my daily life easier. I never had mobile Internet until I purchased my first iPhone about two years ago. I never thought that having internet on my phone was necessary and that it was a complete waste of money. My whole idea on this however changed once I had access to it on my phone. Everything I do is now simplified. There are times where I would rather use the applications on my phone to find out quick information rather than using my computer. I always carry my phone on me so no matter where I am, with the exception of the middle of nowhere, I have internet access. If I get lost I can always find my way with online maps. I can access news stories the second they come out. There has been multiple times where I have been in class and the professor announces that test grades have been posted and rather than having to wait for the class to end I pull out my phone and find out instantly. Having a phone with access to the web also makes it simple for me to take pictures and quickly email them to my friends or family, or upload them to Facebook for them to see. Over the next few weeks I will post different stories and information about how mobile internet is changing my life and the lives of my friends and families.

Here is an article/presentation that I found interesting about how mobile internet is growing faster than the use of "fixed internet"
http://gigaom.com/2010/04/12/mary-meeker-mobile-internet-will-soon-overtake-fixed-internet/
And here is another about how mobile internet is changing
http://www.pcworld.com/article/184876/mobile_internet_to_dominate_within_5_years_study.html