Always-on GPS is the next big innovation in mobile phones, coupled with better graphics processors, but the biggest limitation will always be the speed of the wireless links, Mike Bryant, CTO of Future Horizons told the IFS-MT2010 seminar in London today.
"Shannon’s Law dictates how much date is available over any link and Sod’s Law dictates this will never be enough", Bryant told delegates.
LTE deployment is being limited by the availability of new sites with LTE cells only supporting a maximum of 600 users – much smaller than 3G cells. However, now that LTE equipment is being produced, it is being installed as fast as it is manufactured, said Bryant.
"Wimax is on its last legs", said Bryant, "Intel has spent a lot of money on one of the poorest investments of all time."
Further out, a major innovation will be in fractal compression. "The patents on fractal compression are expiring in 2012", said Bryant, "these techniques have been mainly used by the military and the technology has not been licensed."
"Fractal compression technology delivers a ten-fold reduction in the amount of data needed for an image", added Bryant, "if Apple and Google pick that up, we could see a huge improvement."