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Seven ways cell phones are getting smarter

Smart cell phones with built-in Internet access should start shipping in volume by the holidays. But beyond Web surfing, what other features can you expect? Unfortunately, not as many as you'd like--at least not yet. Despite smaller, more efficient components, new applications are limited by stringent size, weight, power and cost realities.

Still, you can't stop convergence. The race is on to squeeze the power of the PC and more into a tiny device that was once used solely for a quaint application known as conversation. Here's a quick peek at seven high-tech goodies coming to cell phones that we'll explore in months ahead:

1 Flash storage: Can a cell phone double as a Palm-like PDA and triple as a Web surfer? Why not? The chief obstacle is lack of storage. But next year's models will be decked out with small-footprint, high-capacity flash cards designed for PDA-like Web phones.

2 Java smarts: One way to make your phone smarter is to smarten up the Web server it talks to. That's where Sun Microsystems' Java 2 Platform, Micro Edition, a small-foot-print version of Java, comes into play. Nokia and Motorola both plan to ship Java-based phones in 2001. Java 2 Micro should open the door to sophisticated interactive applications on wireless Web sites, helping to streamline most of the other applications listed here. The key benefit: Developers can quickly adapt applications to new devices.

3 Bluetooth networking: This short-range (10 meters) wireless networking technology is designed to let mobile phone users easily swap data with PCs, PDAS and other phones. Support for the standard is nearly universal, but it may be another two years before the chips are small and cheap enough to integrate into mainstream smart phones.

4 Voice access: The next step in voice access are Web sites that can be navigated via the emerging Voice XML (VoXML) standard. VoXML is a part of Motorola's Mobile Internet Exchange (MIX) technology, which Oracle plans to use with its OracleMobile wireless Web site. Voice-powered control of local calling and PDA functions is also supported by it.

5 Location services: By October 2001, the FCC will require that wireless services be able to locate their customers within about 400 feet. The goal is to improve emergency response, but companies will exploit the technology for marketing and mapping applications. Initially, most will triangulate your position using the closest cell towers. Global Positioning Service receivers that provide more accurate positioning via satellite will take over as they become cheaper.

6 Broadband Web: Once you try the 9.6Kbps to 14.4Kbps wireless Web, your 56Kbps modem may seem like DSL by comparison. Faster wireless is starting to arrive this year--if you live in Europe, that is. Thanks to widespread adoption of the GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) standard, many European cell users will soon be surfing the Net at speeds of up to 115Kbps.

Similar bandwidth won't be available in the United States for another year or two. GPRS and other competing technologies may be ramping up to speeds of 2Mbps or more in several years.

7 MP3 music: Can your cell phone double as a portable MP3 player? By the time you read this, Ericsson will have shipped its MP3 Handsfree clip-on device for its 3-volt cell phones, offering approximately 30 minutes of music playback. Future devices that can download MP3 files directly from the Internet await 3G broadband services.

Eric Brown, a regular contributor to pcworld.com, is a freelance writer living in the Boston area.