This is probably going to be the first of many rants about the drive to make everything possible "mobile". Just because you can, doesn't mean you should... At CES a couple of years ago the industry buzz was around mobile video - ways to deliver it, devices for consuming it, stores to buy it etc etc.

Clearly I'm not "in the know". I don't have any access to sales figures or forecasts so I'll have to go on common sense: Does anybody spend money on downloading an episode of lost/desperate housewives/big brother/whatever to watch in jerk-o-vision on a crappy 320*240 screen, when they could just wait a couple of hours and watch it on the 40" telly at home? Really? Sure, I could see myself catching up on the news or watching a podcast if I've got an hour to kill but those services are essentially free. Plus I don't care about the quality too much. Actually spending money on a mobile download though? I just don't get it.

Prediction time: Mobile TV will not be the killer app that lights up the 3G airwaves and makes the world a better place! Just like WAP it won't go away, because its here now so why not keep it around, but I don't see it growing.

This assumes portable playback devices stay as limited as they are now. If somebody invents a 3 foot wide holographic screen, all bets are off but until then the mobile viewing experience will just remain painful. And yes, I know the N95 is pretty good but it's all relative - "pretty good" compared to other phones, but "woefully inadequate" compared to a decent TV.

This site has (as yet) no traffic as it's just getting started, but if one day you find this in google and happen to have spent money on a TV / video download to your phone - leave a comment and tell me why, OK?

(image courtesy of letsgomobile.org, reporting last year that the mobile video market was set to explode)

OK, who remembers WAP? In particular the over-hyped drivel being spouted in adverts of the time about "mobile internet".

WAP was the first major attempt to get mobile phones doing something else besides making phone calls. It was, to put it kindly, rubbish. Even the internet as it was then (and we're talking about last century here folks, when having a 56K modem was luxury) was still too much for the tiny mobile phone screens and bandwidth available at the time.

So the industry created WAP, which was an attempt to introduce a slimmed down version of HTML that could be transmitted over the available bandwidth and interpreted by the phones of the time. WAP sites were text only (perhaps you'd get a banner graphic if you were lucky) and slow.

You've probably guessed by now that I wasn't in love with it when it first turned up and if I was writing this prediction then it would have been a solid "going nowhere".

I think that's true by and large, WAP itself did go nowhere. It did spawn user interest though and prompt the development of phones and networks that make "mobile internet" more than a pipedream. It might have taken 8 years for the iPhone 3G to turn up and do the job properly, but "Mobile internet" is very much a reality these days and things can only get better from there.

So was I right? Yes, mostly. WAP was useless, but I didn't see what it would turn into. Or at least if I did, I didn't record it anywhere so I can't prove it! We'll call that one a draw...

E-Ink technology has progressed from the lab into consumer products, but it's still a pretty niche item - even though it's been around for a few years most people probably haven't heard of it. One common use is as secondary screens in mobile phones but it has also spawned a whole new product category in Ebook readers and I think this is what will bring it to people's attention.

Ebook readers are essentially mobile libraries that hold hundreds of books in a tablet the size of an A5 notepad. The Sony PRS-505 is probably the most mainstream of these, but there are other devices available from a variety of manufacturers.

E-Ink / E-Paper has two defining characteristcs that make it uniquely suited for a book reader:

1. It can be read in bright sunlight, just like normal paper.
2. It draws no power while displaying a static image, it only uses power to change the displa. This means battery life can be extended to weeks of regular use.

These properties also carry two large downsides:

1. It's monochrome only.
2. Refreshing a whole page takes a *long* time - seconds or at best milliseconds, rather than the nanoseconds conventional LCD screens require.

This diagram shows the make up of an e-ink display (lifted directly from E-Ink's website, hopefully they won't mind)   

If they could make it colour and faster refreshing they'd change the world with it, but I can't see it. Colour possibly but I suspect the refresh speed is an inherent consequence of the design (I'd love to be proved wrong though).

So what do I reckon - will it sink or swim? Well it's not going to sink, as it's in production already and new devices keep popping up. The question is will it get any more traction? I think it'll go places. It won't replace your TV, but I have a feeling that ebook readers will become big business and they'll take e-ink with them.