JP/Y/ZATNI1

IT in 2005: From the tsunami to germ-free handsets

Zatni Arbi Contributor/Jakarta

We did not start 2005 on a high note.

The tsunami that hit several Asian coastal areas including Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam left us in deep mourning. For many months, we were wondering what Mother Nature was telling us through this disaster.

Sadly, however, as we have been witnessing throughout the year, fund misappropriations, structured extortion and political power struggles have dominated the headlines of our newspapers.

Lack of morality, sensitivity and compassion aside, it was the time when we were once again made to recognize the power of information and communications technology. During the first 24 hours after the disaster not much news trickled in from the affected areas. For most of us, news arrived from global TV networks such as CNN and the BBC.

The impact of nonexistent digital data and its offsite backup should have been clear. No amount of destruction is impossible, as the tsunami has demonstrated. Only offsite backup could protect important data such as bank accounts, land ownership and population data.

On the other hand, a lot of other rural areas in Indonesia could envy the Acehnese for the Pre WiMAX that has been put together by Airputih, a group of highly dedicated volunteers. Today, a lot of the areas in Aceh are covered under this wireless broadband network, making it possible for anyone with the right equipment to access the Internet without waiting for the landline infrastructure to be rebuilt. Our Aceh friends have leapfrogged to the wireless cyberworld. Once they are able to get back on their feet, Acehnese schoolchildren will have the opportunity to see a wider horizon compared with their friends in other parts of Indonesia.

The building of WiMAX networks has been the highlight of this year. In Taiwan, the WiMAX network has been built in Taipei and its surrounding areas. Soon the entire island will have WiMAX coverage. Amsterdam is another city that plans to have full WiMAX coverage.

Interestingly, the WiMAX standard itself is still evolving. The fixed WiMAX standard, known as IEEE 802.16d, does not support mobility. The latest revision, the IEEE 802.16e, which was released just a couple of weeks ago, was an extension of the fixed WiMAX that supports mobility. This means that with your mobile device you can move from one point to another without getting disconnected from the network.

Mobility's the buzzword

By the way, the world's largest network of hotspots is currently being built in the Republic of Macedonia, according to a report on hesse Online last month. This infrastructure, which can be upgraded later to WiMAX, will enable half of Macedonia's entire population of two million to have access to the Internet. Those who will benefit most will be the students of the republic's 460 schools.

Mobility was another important buzzword in 2005, as reflected in the proliferation of mobile devices -- smartphones, PDAs, even GSM-enabled notebooks such as the FlyBook. Besides the hardware, the software and application development for mobility has been very active in 2005.

One of the most important results of the thrust in mobility is the push e-mail services such as the one offered by Blackberry and, of late, Nokia Business Center. These services ensure that your e-mail will reach you wherever you go, and you can send your replies from anywhere as long as you have the cellular network coverage.

Now, with wireless broadband becoming available through Wireless LAN (WLAN), Voice over IP (VoIP) technology has finally gained momentum. The quality of voice has improved a lot compared to when it was first launched in the 1990s, and the cost is supposed to be much lower as the voice communication goes back and forth as data packets rather than through a circuit switch.

Skype was one of the VoIP providers that enabled us to call a landline phone number at a very low cost. Today, Skype has taken another step forward in offering video-conferencing capability.

Top VoIP vendors, such as Awaya and Cisco Systems, have even come up with solutions that allow you to receive calls with your mobile devices -- including notebook computers -- as if you were receiving them through your desktop VoIP phones. Clearly, a conventional telco company can no longer rely on traditional voice calls to stay in business.

The fast growth of VoIP usage also drives the addition of WLAN and soon WiMAX to the cellular devices. Theoretically, if you are in an area with WLAN or WiMAX coverage, your cell phone will switch from the more costly GSM, CDMA or 3G network to the cheaper Internet access.

TV on the move

Meanwhile, to address the insatiable hunger for music -- and people's apparent need to show off their gadgets -- we also saw the emergence of iPod and iPod-like cell phones. The new multimedia cell phones such as Motorola RokR, Sony-Ericsson Walkman and Nokia N91 handsets can store hundreds of songs. Wherever you go, you will never be out of music.

Talking of entertainment, in Malaysia, where 3G services are already available, subscribers can watch TV on their mobile phones. A journalist friend demonstrated the service to me in Kuala Lumpur recently, and it was using the High Definition standard. Our neighbors over there have already started to enjoy Triple Play.

If no 3G service is available yet, we will need a separate network to broadcast the TV programs based on the DVB-H standard. Nokia is the leading proponent to this solution in bringing TV programs to our cell phones. In fact, Nokia N92 has been designed specially for TV viewing and other video display (see photo).

As for Indonesia, we still need to appoint a DVB-H operator to make this happen. It will not be high definition, though, it will probably give us VHS-quality TV display.

What about the LCD itself? LCDs have finally come to the mainstream in the desktop computer arena as well as TV. However, there is one important thing that you will have to check if you are thinking of buying a new LCD TV.

Because of the motion of the video, it is important to have an LCD screen with very low response time. A high response time will give blurred images on the screen. Samsung is advertising its new LCD monitor four mili-second response time, while in its press release BenQ announced in October its two ms response time TFT screen.

The company claimed that it was the world's fastest LCD monitor in terms of response time, which is said to be comparable to a Cathode Ray Tube (CRT).

Finally, with misinformation about bird flu, dengue and HIV/AIDS causing the paranoid among society to seek out a sanitized environment, Motorola's i870 clamshell handset provided a "solution". This cell phone has an antimicrobial coating from AgION. The coating, which is used in pens, medical equipment, etc., helps kill germs.

Upcoming gadgets

What will we see in the future? For starters, PC-based Media Centers, with expensive features such as extra-large LCD screens, very fast Intel Pentium processors, very-large-capacity hard disks, DVD burners and lots of wireless capability will become more popular.

Meanwhile, notebooks will continue to bite into the market share of the desktop PCs, as people are getting more and more accustomed to computing anywhere -- in the park, in a waiting room and in other public places.

Entry-level cell phones will become cheaper, as companies such as Motorola and Philips have pledged to provide sub-US$30 and sub-$20 handsets. Meanwhile, high-end smartphone makers will have to compete with each other to grab consumers' attention.

As High Speed Downlink Packet Access -- also known as the 3.5G becomes more and more pervasive, we will also see notebooks, PDAs and other mobile devices manufactured to support this high-speed mobile broadband. This will certainly drive mobility even further and faster.

Today, around one quarter of the world's population have a cell phone. For sure, that figure will surge in 2006. We can only hope that the price of making calls will also drop, although value-added services may still be lacking and remain cost prohibitive. Roaming from one country to another will remain expensive, unfortunately.

In general, I believe that telecommunications will continue to dominate the technology landscape in 2006. That is not to say that stagnation will be experienced in computer gadgets.

In short, we look forward to a more exciting year, technology- wise.