To open the creative floodgates on the occasion of the Intel® Mobile Mod Challenge, we interviewed Satheesh Subramanian, Product Lead of the Intel® Laptop Gaming TDK. Satheesh is up-to-the-minute on all things mobile-not just gaming-and has a refreshingly broad view of the mobile landscape. He sees interconnectedness between all forms of mobile computing. He understands how innovations that first benefit the gaming community might then spawn applications that save lives in hospitals, or in rural areas cut off from modern medicine.
Satheesh spoke with us about the past, present and future of mobile computing:Q: What do you think are the most important developments in mobile computing over the past 10 years?In my opinion, the growth of the accessibility to information is the biggest thing that has happened in the past 10 years. Today, mobile computing is just taking that to the next step by providing all kinds of information whenever, wherever you are and in whatever format you want. It could be on your cell phone-getting directions or music anywhere you want it. It could be getting information on the nearest restaurants to your location. The fact that you could have a device that gets you the information you want where you want it is the biggest thing in mobile computing in recent years.
Q: Are we moving from simple access to more practical or customized uses of mobile technology?Yes, I think so. For instance, the moment you say I am mobile and I want to access information, you want information pertaining to your location. Let's say you have a UMPC device and it has a GPS sensor. If you call for a pizza, the restaurant will not ask where you are, they'll know where you are. Mobile devices are getting more localized and more personalized. Network communities are a symptom of that. The community thing is big today. It's not enough that you have information out there. You have to start modifying that information to what applies to you as a user, and communities help you do that. As an example, take a mashup Web site called housingmaps.com. It looks up Craigslist* and uses Google Maps* to map a list of rentals near the place of choice. Now that's a very simple app that customizes the information for the user based on 2 APIs. Similar customizations will be made available on the mobile space to connect and correlate information as needed by the end user.
Q: So from both the user and the developer points of view, you can take what used to be raw information and tailor it to meet your needs.Yes. It's the open sourcing of information access that's important here. You could build strategy games on top of the popular mapping tools. It allows the average Joe to write cool apps for himself and for the rest of us. I think that's where the strength of the information era is. And mobile computing is right there in the middle. You can do all of this and you can do it anywhere that you want.
Q: Is there a particular area in mobile computing that you think needs attention? Where would you see developers concentrate their work? There is a lot that can be done. Take gaming as an example. You do see mobile gaming happening on cell phones, on notebooks, on PSPs and each of them work in a different way. I cannot use the cell phone technology for the notebook and I can't use notebook or Wi-Fi technology for the cell phone. If I were to go buy a notebook and a cell phone and a PDA and whatnot, I'd have to buy 4 different gadgets and still they cannot all work together. It would be cool if there were some standard established and a lot of these devices could interact with each other. Maybe the UMPC device could be the answer to that.
Q: How can these kinds of innovations go beyond personal productivity and entertainment?I'd like to see more apps based on social networking. I would like to see strangers on a train improve their socializing through mobile devices that can break the social networking barriers.
There's a lot of need for mobile devices in the medical space to provide treatment-preventive and curative-to people in remote places with minimal access to good medical facilities. Consider this: just using mobile devices you could send three people to the remotest part of any country, and they could access records stored on a secure database elsewhere. Doctors could diagnose problems remotely and healthcare can reach at a much better rate than today.
Q: We're asking Mod Challenge contestants, so it's only fair we ask you: What are your ultimate personal fantasy apps?I'd like a device that would create a virtual workspace for you anywhere so that you can access your data there and I don't have to worry about keeping information at home versus keeping it at the office. An app that would seamlessly provide me information from my numerous machines and devices. I would like one device to use for my computational, communication, networking and entertainment needs.
I'd like to see WiMAX be a huge hit. Then, maybe you wouldn't have to use cell phones anymore. You can just use your UMPC device and talk. That would reduce my devices by one, and that would be great.
Q: We've heard about all the possibilities. Now, let's move to getting there-the development side of things. Can you tell us a bit about the benefits this TDK brings to mobile developers? How it helps them make their mobile "fantasies" come true?The
Intel® Laptop Gaming TDK as it stands today is an attempt to improve mobility awareness in the entertainment space, specifically games. The notion here is to provide a set of utilities for the game developers to make their games mobile aware. It could be as simple as showing a battery meter or wireless meter, or could be as complicated as changing gameplay (for example, reducing particles in a particle system) based on changes in the platform state. As development progresses on this tool, we hope to provide additional capabilities to reduce the efforts needed to improve the playability of existing and new games on the future ultra mobile devices.
On the other hand, the
Intel® Mobile Platform SDK is intended for a wider range of applications and will provide for a lot of the capabilities that I've mentioned earlier.
There you have a broad view of the mobile landscape from Satheesh's inside perspective. What's your take? What's your "killer app?" Take the
Intel® Mobile Mod Challenge and tell the world.
