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Palmtop convergence
Vanu Bose presenting the future.
THROW THOSE cell phones away. Palmtops, televisions and the boring cordless phones too. Maybe not just yet, but in about three years, you should be able to roll them all into one tiny handheld device.
Click an icon on the palmtop-like device, and it's a cell phone. Another click and it's your regular cordless phone. Touch another icon and it's streaming your favourite television shows. Or it opens your garage. Too futuristic?
Vanu Bose will tell you it's real. And already happening. ``If you have just come to Chennai from the U.S., all you have to do is download a software and it becomes a Chennai mobile.'' Software Radio is the future, Dr. Vanu tells you.
Maybe, he's not saying it just because his company, Vanu Inc, manufactures and sells software radio products. Maybe, he speaks as one who has applied for a patent for his software radio technology, as a doctorate in Computer Science from MIT, and maybe, though he may not accept it, as the son of Amar Bose, founder of Bose Corporation. ``The most obvious advantage of software radio is its simplicity. You need just one device to connect to any wireless system, anywhere in the world,'' Dr. Vanu said, presenting the concept to a mostly lay audience at the Children's Club Society on Friday.
With a radio satellite device, you don't need a new unit with every new version. Just download the software and you have upgraded to the latest in town. There's no risk of changing standards — again, just download the new software.
It allows sharing of infrastructure, and offers extended coverage and better spectrum utilisation at lower costs. Compact antennas positioned all over the city can replace the huge ones we see today.
Cellular handsets though are some years away, chiefly due to power constraints. But the system is already applicable in ``lower battery markets'', like in vehicles for radios, GPS, etc.
``It's in countries like India and China where these can be implemented easily,'' says Dr. Vanu. India, typically, is technologically fresh. Not many systems have to be undone and its tech-savvy people can easily adapt to a new, advanced device. Tune in.
By Feroze Ahmed
Photo: S.R.Raghunathan
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