10 technology trends for 2009

New Delhi:

THE M-APPS

India enters 2009 with 300 million mobile subscribers, and will likely exit it at 400 million. And so, mobile applications (m-apps) will be central to entertainment, information, and banking and other services. And the telcos' revenues too.

You'll see a plethora of m-payment services, and banks will push customers to use SMS and m-banking to drop costs.

The media will also begin to use the platform seriously (a few dabbled with it last year): with SMS services, the mobile web, widgets, m-apps, and m-marketing. Expect lots of SMS spam and the failure of do-not-disturb lists, until a service provider gets taken to court.

The phone will be the driving platform for apps: GPS, digital photography, music distribution - they started off last year, but they'll really take off in 2009.

And the phone will be at the center of a converged, digital universe. With 3G (and 16GB of storage), it'll be your storehouse, your credit and debit card, your identity as a whole.

Green drives tech

India is starved of energy, and any green direction is shaped by that shortage more than by the cost of power or environmental concern.

Mobile devices will lead low-power tech: they need to stretch battery life in the face of 3G and multimedia.

Laptops will move from a four-hour battery life to eight hours: While we saw long-life laptops last year (as long as 20 hours), they are not the norm. Now, low-power processors and displays, aggressive power-save tech, and newer software will see laptops rising to the high-battery-life band.

Energy Star logos will adorn appliances, mains adapters and chargers. And policy changes will drive stricter energy standards for appliances (and cars), and e-waste and disposal laws by year-end.

Disappointments: Battery tech will see no quantum leap, so your overloaded mobile phone will last even less on a charge.

GREEN LIGHT AHEAD

Lighting will finally see a big shift to compact fluorescent lamps (CFL). They consume less power and last longer, and you spend less on backup. Their high cost means that we'll see success stories mostly where power utilities subsidise CFLs, as some are now doing.

We'll also see LED lighting. Already popular for traffic lights and pocket flashlights, you'll find them entering areas where long life and low power offset their initial cost, such as vehicle and aircraft cabins, and also in some homes and offices.

We'll also see a few lighting products using electro-luminescence (EL), seen for years in aircraft cockpits and 'Indiglo' watches. EL panels can cover large areas-backlighting a ceiling or wall, drawing less power than a small lightbulb.

GPS TAKES OFF

GPS entered the Indian market in '07, with maps finally available. Last year saw some products and software for phones--especially Google maps for mobile and Nokia Maps.

In 2009, GPS will enter affordable (sub-Rs 10,000) mobile-phone handsets. Car vendors will begin to offer GPS as an option in midrange cars.

New tech: 3D GPS with 3D landmarks. Nokia Maps 3.0 now has such a feature for some new high-end Nokia devices (head to http://www.nokia.com/betalabs to see if your phone is compatible).

More advanced versions of GPS navigation will combine real-time video with turn-by-turn directions. Blaupunkt's TravelPilot 500 features this, in its 'SafeDrive' navigation.

The iPhone may also soon integrate Google Street View images with satellite data to provide a similar interface.

NEXT-GEN NETWORKS

So far, India's been stuck with older, second-generation mobile tech, the so-called 2.5G. We're trailing the world in 3G, thanks to spectrum issues (Japan launched 3G in 2001, South Korea in 2002, and there were 200 3G networks in over 40 countries in early 2008).

3G finally launched in India in December 2008, with MTNL's service in Delhi. It will roll out in other parts of India, first from BSNL, and then (by mid-2009, with the spectrum auction delayed to early Feb) from Airtel, Vodafone and others.

Many mid-range handsets are already 3G capable, so you may not need to change your handset to enjoy 3G service.

3G mobile broadband networks allow fast Internet access on the move, and offer Internet access to hard-to-reach areas, without expensive cabling.

3G will mean new services, such as mobile video and multimedia. And new PCs and laptops with built-in 3G, such as Qualcomm's Kayak prototype.

Don't expect WiMax taking off. While vendors and service providers debate about WiMax, this always-around-the-corner tech will probably get overtaken by 3G.

THE GREENMOBILE

The oil price swings of 2008 (a high of $140 a barrel, then a low of under $40) was a gift for our planet. It forced the world to look hard at fuel-efficient cars.

SUVs went out of fashion even in the US, where buyers went for efficient cars and hybrids. In India, the quirky Reva electric car generated interest again, and the Civic Hybrid got sold out the moment a discount scheme was announced.

The car tech of 2009 will center around fuel efficiency. Honda's all-new City will pick up some 'Car of the year' awards, with its great blend of space, driver appeal and unprecedented power, combined with fuel efficiency.

You'll see more hybrids in the Indian market, and a range of electric vehicles-from buses to two-wheelers.

Other tech creeping into the car: Night vision, heads-up displays, fog-penetrating laser scanners, and an advanced anti-collision system from Mercedes, who also gave us airbags and anti-lock braking. The system will apply brakes automatically, coming to a complete stop if necessary.

THE NETBOOK

Last year, we saw the Asus EeePC, followed by other netbooks--cheap, ultraportable, minimalist but connected notebook compters. Rising global demand and Intel's low power Atom processor are ensuring that every vendor is rushing a netbook family to market. So you'll have dozens of tiny notebooks to choose from, in the Rs 20,000 price range.

THE INTERFACE

The way we interact with devices is changing. We saw touch and multi-touch replacing the keyboard, with the iPhone; multi-touch will reach laptops and other devices. Lucid touch will let you point and touch from the back of the display-so that your fingers don't block the view of what you are touching. And non-contact interfaces (remember Tom Cruise in Minority Report?) will emerge, as will folding displays, e-paper and (finally) usable speech recognition.

CONTENT DELIVERY

Imagine a new set-top box on your TV set. This box will be your connection to the outside world - your source for high-speed Internet access (providing Wi-Fi to all connected devices), an HD set-top box and movie streamer, transferring video to every TV, and also to mobile devices, game consoles and laptops. It will also store several 100 hours of HD video-and support telephony and VoIP.

HDTV

High-definition TV sets are sitting in many homes, but there's no HD content. While blu-ray movie titles will take time to take off-expect price cuts in the second half of the year-the DTH operators should start off a few HD channels. Such shifts happen during sports events, so the real move to HDTV will be around the Delhi Commonwealth Games next year... but some HD push will come in at IPL 2009.

The author is Chief Editor, CyberMedia

(Additional research by Hitesh R Bhagat, Living Digital)