Technocentral

Okay….. Imagine standing in the middle of a city, a city you have never visited before in your life…. You’re hungry, you’re tired so you want to find food and somewhere to stay, and quick.

You produce a small black handheld device from your pocket and point it in any direction and the device magically lets you know what restaurants, fast food outlets and hotels are in that direction as well as a visual representation of how far away these establishments are. And what’s more, this is a fluid device…. It doesn’t update periodically, as you spin around this information is constantly updated to give you an instant representation of what is around you.

The thing that makes this possible is the magnetometer or Digital Compass and this magical handheld device I speak of, is actually a standard mobile phone…..  well, not entirely standard but many new phones are being launched with this capability and content providers are falling over each other to harness this technology.

www.lastminute.com have are one of these companies that have developed such an application which I have played with on the Android platform but watch this space for many more development ideas and companies using this technology.

Currently the three highest profile phones containing a magnetometer are:

• Apple iPhone 3Gs
  Of course, this was one of the biggest selling points and seems to me that apple are really trying to innovate by adding this functionality.
• HTC Magic
  The magic runs on Googles Android platform
• Samsung Omnia HD
  The Omnia is Symbian S60v5 based previously seen on the Nokia 5800 and N97 but neither of these have capability unfortunatly)

I think the underlying thing here is that just when you think you have seen all that technology can throw at you…. Along comes a whammy to make you sit up and say WOW.

There’s interesting times ahead, mobile is still in its infancy and yet the current crop of applications is so amazing I have to wonder what is around the corner.  Let’s wait and see.