Mobile computing: Mobile computing is a fact

Mobile computing: Mobile computing is a fact

Mobile computing is already a fact. It is an established business valued in billions of dollars.

Long ago, everyone who could afford a mobile phone bought, it at an average price of about 100 euros. Currently, the price of the terminals has been rising until recently, which due to pressure from Chinese manufacturers, which offer smartphones at very affordable prices and with a more than acceptable termination, have made consolidated manufacturers such as Apple or Samsung moderate the price of their devices or even create phone lines for all types of pockets.

Until recently the business was in the terminals but currently, the market is saturated and what is booming is the app market.

Today the operating systems for smartphones are led by Android (three out of four smartphones use Android) and to a lesser extent by IOS (Apple) and in another notch below other operating systems such as Windows Mobile, Firefox OS and others.

Samsung has realized that the smartphone market is becoming saturated (taking into account that many Chinese manufacturers plan to introduce smartphones with more than acceptable features and at extremely low prices) and wants to dedicate more efforts to apps. Samsung has been working on the Tizen project for a long time, which is its plan to become independent from Google's operating system.

Tizen:

Tizen is an open-source, standards-based software platform for various categories of devices, including smartphones, tablets, netbooks, in-vehicle infotainment devices, smart TVs, and more. Tizen offers an innovative operating system, applications and a user experience that consumers can take from one device to another.

The backend and the business process:

Currently, many of the applications that are used in companies have a web interface in which operations can be carried out by accessing with any mobile device. This access from any device and from anywhere has made companies increase their budgets to secure their systems (it will be discussed in the next section of this post). However, saving the security problems that exist, these web services also serve as services for mobile applications or apps which are operated from smartphones and other devices such as tablets.

The advantage of apps is that the application interface resides on the client-side and only its logic resides on the server, making its operation very fluid (very little data is transmitted between client and server).

Security in mobile data communication:

Mobile communication security has become very important as much personal information now resides on smartphones and other devices.

Many of these mobile applications are causing profound changes in businesses and organizations but may be the source of future problems, as tablets and smartphones are increasingly storing a considerable amount of sensitive company and user data. These issues must be addressed seriously because they put the intellectual property of companies and the privacy of users at risk.

Smartphones are the preferred devices to be attacked as they are the weakest devices. Either due to attacks on your communication media (Wi-Fi network, GSM, etc.) due to vulnerabilities in the browser and operating system or simply due to an app that contains malicious software.

In addition to appropriate security measures and the adoption of good practices, users have to take into account that there are settings and software that make a device less vulnerable to malware and attacks.

Mobile data communication:

Currently, data communication is and will be a decisive point in the development of mobile computing.

Mobile devices connect wirelessly to the internet in three different ways:

Via Wi-Fi: They offer good performance and speed. Generally, we connect through private networks or public networks (hotspots) which sometimes have a lot of danger and vulnerabilities.

Via data services (cell phones): In the past, technologies such as GSM, CDMA or GPRS were used until the new 3G services emerged (W-CDMA, EDGE or CDMA2000) that offer an acceptable speed. Currently, there are 4G services (LTE and LTE-Advanced) whose speed and performance is much higher than 3G networks. 

Via satellite: This access offers connectivity where Wi-Fi and data networks do not have coverage. As long as you have access to a satellite, you can use these services. Satellites are geostationary (orbit the earth) and provide high-speed data coverage over a wide coverage area. Some companies offer data networks that combine the previous communication options (Wi-Fi, cellular and satellite).