I’ve gone on at great length recently at what I reckon is going to be the future of mobile phones, and it’s name is the Symbian Foundation. I’ve said many times that when they go open source, with the sheer number of people who are signed up to it, it can’t not be a widespread phone revolution.
It turns out I’m wrong… I was thinking too conservatively…
It may very well be an even bigger revolution than I thought, after seeing the news on the JustAMP blog this morning. Symbian have partnered up with microchip manufacturer, ARM, to work towards multicore processing in mobile phones, using symmetric multiprocessing, or SMP, just like it says in the pic on this post. Or, in other words, your mobile phone’s about to become as powerful as your computer, as the video presentation they’ve produced implies very strongly we’re not a million miles away from seeing quad-core mobile phones.
Now, I appreciate that a fair few people reading this won’t appreciate the significance of having a mobile phone with a quad-core processor in it, or aren’t sure what a quad-core processor is. So, in true, time-honoured tradition, I’ll break it down for anyone who’s not up on technical jargon, or can’t be bothered to learn technical jargon (and fair play to you, if that describes you).
Quad-core’s a term that’s well known in the world of PCs. Basically, what it means is that the central processor in the middle of it all, instead of having 1 brain (1 core), has 4 brains. So, it can run far, far faster than the processor with 1 brain, because it can split up any jobs it’s doing (say, surfing the net on 1 brain, and plotting a route in GPS on a second brain), meaning everything gets done quicker. That’s the beauty of multicore processors, whether they have 2, 4, 8, 16 or 900 billion cores.
Now, imagine that in a mobile phone. Imagine how ludicrously stupidly powerful that would be! Of course, you could do it with having a single processor, and ramping the speed up about 900 times, but then your battery’d last about 38 seconds between charges; whereas with a multicore mobile phone, each core only draws power when it’s doing something, so when it’s not, it doesn’t use up juice. So, on average, it uses less power. So, your mobile phone doesn’t run out of juice in less time than you can blink.
Oh, and, side benefit, it won’t get as hot as a faster, single core processor, so it won’t make the skin on your hand start to smoke and bubble…
To explain it in visual terms, here’s the video Symbian and ARM have put together:
So, when that goes into mobile phones, we’re in for a treat, I reckon. As Symbian are the ones pioneering it, it’s a fair bet we’re going to see it on S60 mobile phones first, followed, when S60 becomes the full basis for it, Symbian Foundation mobile phones. So, the successor to the Nokia N96 may well have a ludicrous quad-core processor, and be more powerful than your PC is now!
I think I’ll christen it the Nokia Skynet…
Quad-core mobile phones may be a way off, yet, but Symbian is here right now! Grab yourself the Nokia N96, the most eagerly anticipated Symbian mobile phone in ages, today!