Haneen Shariff

When a number of devices grant users access to their information and data from anywhere, it is called Mobile Computing. PC’s, are now being replaced with devices that use mobile computing, such as netbooks, PDA’s and eReaders. Mobile computing generally makes use of wireless devices that have an attractive interface and are easy to use.

The main advantage of mobile computing is portability. Since PDA’s and smart phones are much more portable than Personal desktops, their demand has been increasing day by day. Secondly they use the feature ‘cloud computing’, which allows people to save their documents on an online server. These files can then be accessed from anywhere at any given time provided there is a suitable Internet connection.
        
There are still a lot of disadvantages involved with mobile computing, one of   them being its limited range and bandwidth. The Internet access in PDA’s and equivalents is a lot slower than the direct cable connections in PC’s. Secondly mobile computers are completely dependent on battery power when there is no other source of power present. This creates a need to buy expensive batteries and thus increases costs. Lastly, since the screen is much smaller than that of desktop computers many people find it difficult to use. To add to this list, the use of smartphones while driving is a serious health hazard and so there is a lot of debate happening about whether banning the use of phones reduces accidents or not.

One of the major risks involved with mobile computing is Security Issues. Many business organisations are making use of smartphones for communication purposes and also to keep a track of their daily meetings, tasks and so on. However, there are a lot of security threats involved with this procedure. It is essential to protect this information, as it is private. The smartphones that function as computers now are on the hit list, they are the main targets of attacks. Nonetheless, there are several measures being developed by various companies in order to minimize such vulnerable threats.

Mobile network is basically a radio network that is distributed over land areas known as cells, each of these cells have a unique set of frequencies, meaning one cells frequency is never the same as its neighboring cells.

The advantages of mobile networking are that it covers a large geographical area making it easily accessible from many parts. Secondly it is also said that they have reduced power use unlike mobile computing.

 

3 Questions

1) What kind of software is used with mobile computing?

2) How can we improve the security of mobile computing?

3) Why does mobile computing consume so much battery power?

 

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