In the past ten years within the computing world, the term "mobile computing" has become popular. And owing to the improved performance of mobile information terminals such as cell phones, notebook computers, and personal digital assistants (PDAs), the use of such devices has continued to spread into areas that were unthinkable ten years ago.
Taking the example of mobile phones, we can see that their display size has got bigger year on year, and it has now become a matter of course that internet web pages specially prepared for mobile-phone use can be viewed on these bigger displays. What's more, the entire business area of so-called "electronic commerce" (referred to as EC or e-commerce)--including mobile banking and mobile shopping--is continuing to expand.
More specifically, in the case of mobile banking, a mobile phone can be used for various banking services, such as balance enquiries, deposit and withdrawal enquiries, direct deposits, and money transfers. And in the case of mobile commerce, it can be used for such activities as enjoying shopping from "net catalog" schemes and selling one's things through "net auction" services.
Furthermore, to take the example of notebook PCs, it seems that these days internet environments called "hot spots" are appearing on every street corner, and they have created a situation in which users of notebook PCs can freely use the internet with the same sensation whether at home or at the office.
It is worth mentioning that hot spots started to appear from 2001 onwards; that is, after one type of specification for wireless local area networks (LANs), namely, IEEE 802.11b, and a wireless communication protocol for mobile information terminals, namely, Bluetooth, became popular. This trend has created the situation these days that almost any places where many people congregate (airports, train stations, convenience stores, fast-food outlets, family restaurants, etc.) are invariably set up as hot spots.
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