Internet has become mobile and very handy

For many, the internet revolution has been tremendous. For some, too much to comprehend. For others, the revolution has only just begun. The big leap is at our doorstep when more and more people shift to internet use from their mobile phones.

The benefits and opportunities are tremendous.

It is fine to switch on your PC, login on your operating system, connect to the internet, find the Facebook link in your bookmarks and update your status. Fine - but hardly quick. It takes long enough to change your mind on what you're going to list on your status by the time you switch on the PC and log on to the social network site. And it takes even longer to download those photos from the camera, then upload them again on whichever social network site you want to use.

A speedier alternative is already possible. Using a mobile phone, one can take a photo and with the touch of a single button, post the picture online instantaneously. Even better, if the mobile phone supports GPS, one can decide to 'geotag' the picture, when others see it online they can see the locality the photo was taken on a map. This is quite neat when used for sharing those Paris holiday pictures and showing the photos on Google Maps next to the locality the photo was taken whether it's the Tour Eiffel, Champs-Élysées or inside the Louvre next to the Mona Lisa!

The latest smartphones are already giving us a taste of the future. With makers such as Nokia, Apple, HTC and Blackberry at the forefront, one can already see some pretty cool innovations. One of the big differences we are looking at now are devices with 1GB processors with big widescreens and high speed wireless internet, with access to 'cloud services' where information and services are found on the web rather than on the device itself.

No longer are smartphones pre-customised for the customer. Instead, a developer anywhere in the world is able to think of an application or service that a particular device can offer, develop it and make it public. To date, no one was more successful at this than Apple Inc. One can debate whether the iPhone is the best or worst of the present smartphones, but few can argue that with all the applications, games and utilities available, this device can be transformed into any product one may need from a barcode reader to a calorie converter, from an elaborate periodic table to a soundboard or arcade game. Such applications are now being emulated by the other major suppliers. Where will all this lead? The possibilities are endless, and one thing is for sure - no one is looking back.

One interesting taste of the future is coming by courtesy of Google. One of their services, called Google Goggles, is able to carry out searches based on the images transmitted via a camera phone. For example, if you are in front of the Tower of Pisa and you're perplexed by what that sloping structure is all about, you would be able to point the camera towards the structure and Google will search the image in real-time and return information from the web on the leaning tower.

An extension of this is augmented reality. This technology is not new. It's been used extensively in recent years - albeit in a simple adaptation - in sports events on television. These are the graphics that show you the 'distance to shot' and offside area during a football game in real-time. In essence, it's the imposition of digital media over real-time events.

But this is only the beginning. Prototype smartphones which have these capabilities already exist. By looking through the camera of the phone, as if about to take a picture, you would find this digital media imposition on the area within the screen of the locality in front of you. So if you are in Valletta and you're looking at Republic Street through the camera, digital impositions take place, some coming up for commercial reasons and others from open sources from the web.

For instance, you may find an arrow with an advert of a take-away showing the latest menu or the distance to it. Another imposition may be found on the Royal Opera House, possibly, with a link to Wikipedia on the subject. Developers are only just beginning to get a grip on the types of implementations that are possible with this technology.

So the future is bright. From the first call in New York City to augmented reality via mobile internet, this relatively recent technology has changed the way we communicate forever.

Mr Cassar is terminals senior executive at Vodafone Malta.