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With mobile subscriber base crossing 300 mn, Google sees the increased usage
of mobile Internet in India as a big opportunity. And its India R&D team in
Bengaluru is constantly working on making the user experience better. According
to Vinay Goel, product head, Google India, We are witnessing tremendous growth
in accessing rich content in ordinary phones in tier-2 and -3 cities and towns.
We took this into account and made YouTube available in Hindi. Google is also
eying the introduction of 3G in India, and it aims to provide a rich experience
for mobile users in India through some innovations, which is currently underway
at its R&D center. Goel thinks SMS has no future once 3G becomes widespread. He
says, Google wants to help accelerate the 3G development in India with its
mobile innovations. For example, with the company adding newer capabilities to
its Google Talk application, mobile users will be allowed to make phone calls.
Some of the innovations introduced earlier this year include mobile voice search
and the capability for Orkut users to transfer photographs between mobile
phones.
|
 |
| Over a period of time, mobile
browser will be the entry point for many users, as browser based
applications would be able to provide seamless transition from desktop to
mobile
Vinay Goel,
product head, Google India |
Google also sees affordable data plans for mobile users becoming a reality
soon with more and more service providers entering the fray. According to Goel,
Googles browser strategy gained its first breakthrough with the open source
Gears software which enabled more powerful web applications, by adding new
features to browsers.He also feels that over a period of time, mobile browser
will be the entry point for many users as the browser based applications would
be able to provide seamless transition from desktop (during office hours) to
mobile (after office hours). And this is where Googles Android strategy fits
in. Therefore, the company is also banking on the launch of Android based mobile
phones which it helped develop. Android is a WebKit based browser which provides
improved mobile Internet experience by improving the speed of its mobile search
engine.
| From AJAX to
HTML5 |
| The revolution which started with the
introduction of AJAX (around 2005) continues with the progress being made
around HTML5. One of the biggest challenges faced by users include the need
to install proprietary plug-ins for a rich Internet experience.
HTML5 is the next version of HTML, and in an extension of HTML4 and
XHTML1.0. This is a global standard that is being built to provide powerful
web applications to users without the need for proprietary plug-ins. This
takes web forms 1.0 to the next level in order to provide interactive
applications. It is expected that HTML5 will reduce the usage of plug-ins,
though Microsoft (Silverlight), Adobe (Flash), and Sun (JavaFax) opines that
it will still remain important. Incidentally, Googles YouTube uses Flash
technology. And it is only time that will tell whether the situation will
remain the same once HTML5 is fully operational. Also, Apple (a strong
supporter of HTML5) appears not so impressed with the mobile capabilities of
Flash technology. The technology does not support iPhones which results in
the lack of poor web experience for its large user base. Goel of Google
India says, We want to accelerate and enrich the capabilities of web
applications, and this is where HTML5 has a big role to play. Moreover,
HTML5 allows video and audio tagging capabilities as well.
Google and other software companies have a big role to play in the future
success of HTML5. Its complete functionalities will take about five years to
have an impact, when the standards are ratified. Apart from this, some of
the key features of HTML5 include canvas, local storage, and web workersall
intended to provide users to have an improved experience when working on a
browser. Canvas lets the users draw 2D images on a browser while local
storage will allow them to work on it even when the Internet connection
drops. An example of this is the mail application in iPhone. The user, for
example, can check his email on an iPhone even if it is not connected to the
Internet. And he/she can use all its features of email including reading,
composing, etc. |
Sudesh Prasad
sudeshp@cybermedia.co.in
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