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Digital Bury Glimpses the Future in 02 Technical Chief’s Talk

On Thursday evening Dr Mike Short, vice president of research and development at Telefonica Europe, gave an enthusiastic audience from Bury’s digital and creative community an insight into tomorrow’s connected world. Charting the stellar growth of mobile phones, mobile broadband, fixed broadband and internet services, Dr Short predicted developments in mobile hardware, networks, broadband capacity and services that will revolutionise every aspect of home and business life.

“We have seen the future,” declared Digital Bury coordinator Tony Tickle. Dr Short explained how mobile technology is driving innovative new services. Roads, cars, homes and education are all now connected and people are using new technologies to enhance their lifestyles. He spoke of how machine-to-machine connections over the internet are creating a new generation of multi-function mobile devices with services for rich-content communication at high speed.

Taking health and wellbeing as an example, Dr Short explained that O2 is part of Continua Alliance, an association of 250 global companies engaged in digital health care. He outlined how mobile communications will support people in living active and independent lives.

In sport, mobile communications allows heart rate, respiration and other key indicators in elite athletes to be monitored continuously by trainers and health professionals. This is the sort of technology that will be diffused to the wider population. This will help both healthy active individuals and others who may have critical conditions to manage their own lives and health care more effectively.

We face a demographic time bomb, Dr Short explained, and as the population ages there may be insufficient carers to cope with the workload. Here again, mobile technologies can provide the essential systems for social and medical support, care and security, making people less isolated and vulnerable.

Looking forward, Dr Short predicted that what we now know as mobile communication will become far richer and more customised to each users needs and lifestyle. It will provide information, entertainment, communication and a range of new applications, the scope of which is limited only by the ingenuity and imagination of their developers.

Analysts predict that by 2020 the machine-to-machine mobile market will be worth 20 to 50 billion pounds. O2 is a major force throughout Europe and so Bury is a major part of this international digital community, a fact that has been recognised with the creation of the industry hub that is Digital Bury.

More Information

Tony Tickle, Digital and New Media Development
Digital Bury, Town Hall, Bury, BL9 0SW
Tel. +44 (0)161 253 6009 E-mail: t.tickle@bury.gov.uk
Web: www.digitalbury.com www.bury.gov.uk

This news story first appeared on CLICKintoPR.com, the leading online PR service for press releases and article writing.

Release issued: March 4, 2010

Additional Note

The next Digital Bury event will be on March 25. Christian Payne AKA Documentally, the freelance social media maker and photographer, will provide an insight into the how to exploit social media by amplification.

Mike Short – Brief Profile

Mike Short’s career spans 34 years in electronics and telecommunication with the last 21 years in the mobile communications field. After looking after Cellnet’s 3G strategy he was appointed VP for technology for the O2 Group in 2000. He is the current chair of the UK government Trade and Investment Information and Communications Technology Sector Advisory Board. He is a fellow and vice president of the Institute of Engineering Technology and also a fellow of the Chartered Institute for Information Technology, the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply and the Royal Geographical Society.

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Dr Mike Short, vice president for R&D at mobile phone company Telefonica O2 gave Digital Bury a glimpse of the future at a recent talk.

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Dr Mike Short - O2