A Paper Presentation on

WELCOME TO THE WORLD OF COMPUTING

 ABSTRACT
 INTRODUCTION
 DISTINCTION BETWEEN WIRELESS AND
MOBILE.
 MOBILE DEVICES.
 CHALLENGES IN MOBILE COMPUTING.
 MERITS.
 DEMERITS.
 APPLICATIONS.
 CONCLUSION.
 BIBILOGRAPHY.
 Mobile

Computing has been undergoing a bit of renaissance

lately. A Few years ago it was a simple matter of
finding a data compatible mobile phone, a PC card
modem, and a matching cable and installing it as
modem. then people started to use PDA’s as well. Cell
phones started to come with infrared ports to allow
communication with laptops. Then cell phones started
to come with modems built in. The connecting methods
of mobile computing, its introduction, connection types,
factors affecting connections, mobile applications and
its limitations are explained.
  Wireless networking technology has engendered a
new era of computing, called mobile computing.
Mobile computing is an umbrella term used to
describe technologies that enable people to access
network services any please , any time , and any
where. Ubiquitous computing and nomadic
computing are synonymous with mobile
computing. Mobile computing helps user’s to be
productive immediately by reducing the training
requirements associated with
traditional automated data collection methods and
provides a higher Level of portability than keyboard
based systems field based uses can access any
information available from the system at any time to
make critical business decisions this information is
available at the point of use wherever and whenever
they need it.
 Portable devices like laptop and palmtop computers
give mobile users access to diverse sources of
global information any where and at any time.
 One of the most important and highly publicized
recent developments in the PC world has been the
introduction of the pen interface. by using stylus to
replace the keyboard , mobile computers are
turning thousands of computer illiterate people
especially those
 Involved with field based data collection into
computer users. the market potential and breadth
of application requirements for mobile computing
has Prompted Numerous hardware and Software
Companies to focus their efforts in providing
solutions to the vertical form oriented market
place .
 The pen interface allows users to interact with the
computer in a very natural familiar way by entering
text, numbers and graphics in “electronic ink “
directly on the screen the pen interface also
provides users with highly intuitive and efficient
applications, whether tapping graphical icons to
navigate through applications or selecting of
options from scrolling lists and check boxes .
 Mobile computing applications can closely
simulate the original paper one form line providing
users with a familiar look and feel through the use
of the latest PCMCIA technology data storage is
large, fast and more efficient with minimal power
consumption and the highest level of ruggedness.
While communications via modem Or wireless is
 also tightly integrated, fulfilling the requirements
of the mobile user and standardized ports give
users across to printers, barcode readers and
various other peripheral devices.

o DISTINCTION BETWEEN “WIRELESS”

AND “MOBILE

 Wireless refers to the method of transferring

information between computing devices, such as a
personal data assistant (PDA), and a data source,
such as an agency data base server, with out a
physical connection. Not all wireless
communication technologies are mobile. For
example, lasers are used in wireless data transfer
between buildings, but can’t be used in mobile
communications at this time.
 Mobile simply describes a computing device that is
not restricted to a desktop. A mobile device may be
a PDA. A smart cell phone or web phone a laptop
computer or any one of the numerous other devices
that allow the user to complete computing tasks
without being tethered, or connected, to a network.
Mobile computing does not necessarily required
wireless communication .in fact it may not require
communication between devices at all.

Here we have seven different types of mobile devices

 Laptop computers.
 PDA’s and, handheld PC’s.
 Pagers.
 Smart phones and cellular phones.
 Task devices, such as bar code readers.
 Bluetooth.
 Bridge.

 Laptops are typically used

and supported in the same
way as desktop PC’s. in
fact many organizations
have replaced desktops
with their portable cousins
, as the work force has grown increasingly mobile.

 PDA’s however, Are

the least planned for
and supported devices.
they are undergoing
rapid evolution and
are being brought into organizations in the same
way the earliest PC’s were .that is adventurous
early adopters buy the devices for their personal
use and then ask IT departments to integrate the
devices in to the corporate IT environment. at
present PDA’s are most often used for storing and
synchronizing personal information such as
 addresses, schedules and E-mail .however the
medical industry has developed numerous
applications for PDA’s .at least one web ring( a
collection of websites with a common topic) has
been created to discuss medical software that
automates functions such as patient and diagnostic
data entry ,patient monitoring and diagnosis ,and
messaging .in a hospital setting, these applications
may include wireless communication between staff
members handheld devices and a base station at
which patient information is stored .
 Smart phones that allow users to access phone
calls, two way radio transmissions, paging and data
transmissions on one device are also finding
applications in hospitals and other situations that
have intense and constant need for time sensitive
communications.
 Pagers that support one and two way text
messaging are also used in similar situations .third
party vendors most often provide support for these
devices .
 Task devices such as the parcel tracking devices
used by FEDERAL EXPRESS(Fed ex) and the
UNITED PARCEL SERVICE (ups) delivery
personal are most often bought as part of a
complete system from a third party vendor.
Because they are frequently mission critical most
corporations support task devices as rigorously as
desktop computers.
 Bluetooth, a short range wireless standard that
specifies radio connections between devices within
 a ten meter range of each other. Bluetooth is
designed as a personal area network (PAN or
WPAN for
“wireless personal area network”)technology with a
wide variety of theoretical uses .

  Bridge, a device that

connects two local area networks (LAN’s), or two
segments of the same LAN. bridges simply forward
packets from one segment to another without
analyzing or routing messages this allows them to
connect dissimilar networks (ex :a bridge can
connect an Ethernet and Token ring network).
 Wireless and mobile environments bring different
challenges to users and service
 Providers when compared to fixed ,wired
networks .Physical constraints become much more
important, such as device weight, battery power,
screen size, portability, quality of radio
transmission, error rates . Mobility brings
additional uncertainties, as well as opportunities to
provide new services and supplementary
information to users in the locations where they
find themselves. The major challenges in mobile
computing are described including ;bandwidth,
high error rate, power restrictions ,security ,limited
capabilities, disconnection and problems due to
client mobility.

 Wireless networks deliver lower bandwidth than

wired networks. As a result, mobile applications
have to be carefully designed to control the
bandwidth consumption.
 Software techniques to improve effective
bandwidth usage include data compression
logging requests to combine multiple short ones ,
lazy write back, difference based updates, caching ,
pre fetching, usage of proxy, priority scheduling
etc.
 The network quality varies as the mobile computer
moves across the heterogeneous network
connections . The wireless environment exhibits
higher error rates, which results in retransmission
and affects the quality of service . By minimizing
the usage of wireless transmission , the data is less
exposed to transmission errors. In addition ,error
correction schemes can be employed to improve
performance . However , these schemes add to the
communication overhead and reduce the usable
band width.

 Mobile computers are concerned with the limited

power supply, an issue that does not appear in
distributed wired environment. Hardware
improvements on batteries can help to lengthen the
life of a charge and reduce the battery weight. In
addition effective software operations can help to
lower the power consumption. Examples include:
shifting the processing to a fixed host,
aggressively caching and pre fetching data to
reduce disk traffic, and transmitting less data while
receiving more.
 Security and piracy are of specific concerns in
wireless communication because of the ease of
connecting to the wireless link anonymously.
Common problems are impersonation , denial of
service and tapping. The main technique used in
encryption . In personal profiles of users are used
to restrict access to the mobile units.

 Unlike stationary computers mobile computers are

similar in physical size and have smaller storage
capacity. PDA’s like info pad and parc tab are
designed to have extreme portability and provide
ubiquitous information access. However, their
application relies heavily on the interoperability of
the pads and other servers. Even ordinary laptops
typically have less RAM and smaller hard disks
than stationary computers.

 Disconnection and be voluntary or involuntary.

Voluntary disconnection occurs when mobile users
want to disconnect the mobile unit from the
network temporarily, like working on a plane.
Involuntary disconnection is mainly due to network
failures.
 The mobile application should not be disrupted
under these circumstances. Some applications are
designed to run entirely locally on the mobile unit,
but it may not be feasible for distributed
applications where users have to communicate with
one another. Again, pre fetching and lazy write-
back are some useful techniques that allow to work
under disconnection.
 The CMU CODA file system allows shared files to
be modified even during disconnections.
 Upon reconnection, application-specific conflict
resolution schemes are used in the file servers to
reconfile any update conflicts maybe by various
clients. It also uses concurrency control and pre
fetching techniques.However ,this approach is
designed mainly for file systems and does not for
all kinds of applications.

 There are two types of mobility described

(a) mobility of clients
(b)mobility of resources.
Mobility of clients raises the issues of unique naming
of the clients and finding their current locations.
Unlike stationary computers ,where information on
location is configured statically mobile computers
have to configure information dynamically mobility
of resources addresses this problem. When a mobile
host moves into a new cell or administrative domain ,
it has to discover the resources available there. At the
 same time , any server that needs to communicate
with the mobile host has to identify its new location.
Location transparency should be provided to the
mobile applications by the underlying runtime system
so that the users are not aware of the effects of
mobility.

The benefits of automating data collection applications

with mobile
computing are the reduction of hard and soft costs,
enhancement of
revenue potential , and a distinct competitive
advantage through:
 Improving the data collection process.
 Improving data accuracy.
 Reducing paper work.
 Facilitating collection of more useful
information.
 Eliminating redundant data entry.
 Reducing administrative costs.
 Reducing billing errors.
 Reducing data backlog.
 Improving information flow.
 Allowing faster adaptation to change the business
conditions.
 Increasing responsiveness and customer
satisfaction.
 Providing access to unavailable information.

 The demerits of the mobile computing are

discussed as fallows.
 Information access via a mobile device is plagued
by low available band width, poor connection
maintenance, poor and addressing problems.
Unlike their wired counter parts, design of software
for mobile devices must consider resource
limitation, battery power and display size.
Consequently, new hardware and software
techniques must be developed. for example,
application need to be highly optimized for space,
in order to fit in the limited memory on the mobile
devices.
 Mobility brings additional uncertainties , as well as
opportunities to provide new services and
supplementary information to users in the location
where they find themselves. in general, most
application software, operating systems, and
network infrastructures are intended for more
 conventional environments , and so the mobile,
wireless user has great difficulty exploiting the
computational infrastructure as fully as he or she
might . there is an emerging consensus among
researchers that a new architecture and dynamic
infrastructure is an appropriate way to address this
problem .
 Day by day as the standard of the mobile
computing is increasing the boons of mobile
computing are changing to banes. eg : the most
deadly terrorist attack occurred on September 11th ,
2001
  New technical and application developments have
established that mobile systems can be a cost
effective, efficient and productive solution in
several different types of application
environments . they are :-a new generation of
satellites , especially low earth orbit systems
(LEOS)are under development with the internet in
mind .companies like Teledesic and Orbcomm are
actively promoting internet access .
 Vertical industries where mobile technology has
already been successfully adopted include
consumer goods. Delivery and root sales ,
government , healthcare , market research ,
pharmaceuticals , transportation and utilities .

Typical applications include inventory, merchandising ,

order entry and sales automation. features found in these
applications usually provide access to stock and pricing
information, monitor promotion , and perform shelf space
analysis including number of facings and product age .
customer detail helps reps to act more as consultants than
order takers .
 With fierce competition and an increasing
inventory , having timely and accurate information
is more important than ever.

 Applications center around assessments,

inspections, and work orders. Most of these
applications involve auditing some sort of facility
or process(food service, restaurant, nursing home,
child care, schools, commercials and residential
buildings).

 The focus in this industry has been on automating

patient records, medication, dispension, and sample
collection. A common goal is to leverage mobile
computing in the implementation of positive
patient identification.

 Automating the survey the process has enabled

these companies to get their data more accurately
and quickly while being able to customize their
queries at will.
 In addition to the reps need to perform account
management and cell reporting functions ,the
FDA’s requirements for physician signatures for all
drug samples dispensed was an ordered
complication that was eliminated through the use
of mobile technology.

 Transforming freight damage inspection from

paper to mobile computing greatly expedites the
process and reduces cost by providing online pre-
shipment inspections. This technology also offers a
more efficient means of storing and transmitting
maintenance inspection reports . in conjunction
with GPS(global positioning systems),
 Mobile computing allows companies to provide
better customer service by being continuously
aware of exactly where any given shipment is when
in transit .

 Eliminating the rekeying of data and providing a

means to perform on site analysis are instrumental
to an industry that is required to perform inspection
on routine basis.
 There’s more happening than many people suspect.
the difficulty , though is to provide the right
network , the right device , the right price and the
right applications. Wireless is not wired, and there
are numerous advantages and disadvantages. The
wireless industry “mindset” is different from the
computer communities. these different
philosophies produce what we call a “wireless-web
culture clash”. Also much of the information we
obtain via the internet isn’t worth paying for in a
mobile environment. the internet will change is
already changing the way mobile companies and
computer companies offer products and services,
and deal with customers. Indeed, many wireless
subscribers will demand these changes, ranging
from online customer service to electronic bill
paying to creating profiles that automatically
transmit personalized information via the internet
to wireless devices. We are in a period of
tremendous change. It’s mobile computing jungle
where old technologies must evolve to survive and
where proponents of new technologies are
jockeying for dominance. it’s a dangerous and
exciting time where existing business models can
crumble and more nimble , innovative companies
can usurp established institutions.
 Uncovering these developments, analyzing there
impact and recommending solutions to
 corporations is what wireless internet and mobile
computing consulting is all about.

 Mobile computing is rapidly becoming popular,

and user demand for useful wireless applications is
increasing.
 Additionally, this paper shows how these
behavioral extensions serve as a powerful
abstraction for practical systems.
 In this paper, we have looked at issues related to
portable devices, merits, demerits and applications
in mobile environment.
 Because of these banes of mobile computing the
security level should be improved.
  Terry Watson:- application design for wireless
computing.
 Application design for wireless computing;
M –mail a case study of dynamic application
portioning in mobile computing.

Christine julien and gruia – catalin roman : active co-

ordination in adhoc networks.

 Raymond j.Brunsting:- quality of service issues in

wireless networks.