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You may have heard a lot about 4G mobile lately. It should be ready to launch in the UK in 2012.

Wondering what it is? Here’s a quick run down…

Technically, what can we expect?

1. Faster – lots faster than 3G and faster than much of broadband in the UK. It’s not clear exactly how fast 4G will be in the UK, maybe 10 times as fast as 3G.
   [In the US “Verizon 4G LTE” is available at 5-12Mbps – that’s up to 10 times faster than it’s own 3G service.]
2. Better coverage – Ofcom are saying they will make licences conditional on the licensee achieving 95% UK population coverage.
3. Better connectivity – 4G will support Quality Of Service (QOS) – this means operators are able to manage and prioritise different kinds of traffic. Services that require more bandwidth can be guaranteed the best quality of service, so they don’t get interrupted.

So this will be mobile that offers faster data transfer than many (most?) of us get using broadband at home or in the office. And just as reliable. Of course, broadband in the UK is currently (slowly) being boosted to even faster speeds of up to 40Mbs.

What should that give us?

1. The big winner will probably be online HDTV. Maybe that’s superfluous on your mobile phone, but great on all the laptops we’re buying nowadays. Just add a 4G SIM card.
2. Gaming will be another big winner. Multiplayer online gaming things. Expect to see 4G support in the next round of portable gaming devices.
3. Video communication and collaboration services will improve in leaps and bounds. The ability to HD-video-conference whether you’re in the office or on the road will obviously be a big bonus for many companies.
4. Expect lots of new services and in the years to come ‘pervasive computing’ will become a reality.
   That’s where everything has a computer chip in it that can communicate over the internet. From your electric meter talking to your supplier, to your toaster ordering more bread for you from the grocer! (Well, maybe not your toaster).

Q. What’s the catch?

1. We’re slow on the uptake in the UK. Japan and the USA are already running 4G services. We won’t begin to see them till 2012 or maybe later… Probably closer to 2015 before we’re 4G all over the place.
2. It’ll be expensive. Remember how expensive 3G data was in 2001-2005? I think it’ll be worse than that. The UK government is looking to make big bucks (quids?) from selling the 4G licenses. That involves a very heavy investment from the mobile companies. They’re going to need to recoup those investments – it took something like 7 years for the mobile companies to recoup their investments in 3G in the UK.
3. The pay-wall. Maybe a separate issue. Many content providers are already looking to charge for online content, with newspapers leading the way. For instance, expect to see HD-TV and other services offered to you ‘anywhere’ for a premium…

That’s it. 4G will be fast like we’ve not known before. It has the potential to enable some very ‘Tomorrows World’ like scenarios. But we need some patience. That’s OK, some of us remember Michael Rodd making a call with an experimental mobile phone in 1979. How far have we come in just over 30 years? Maybe not that far really…

I was going to make the Amazon Kindle my ‘Awesome stuff – number 7’ post. But Alan has beaten me to it by posting his mini rant. It would seem churlish to write that post now, so out of respect, there will be no ‘Awesome stuff – number 7’ post. RIP number 7.

I could harp on about Luddites and getting with the 21st century, or suggest Alan return to a typewriter for sending his communications (or even quill and ink). No, I won’t do that.

I love books. I love reading. I love the feel, the look, and the smell of books. The sound of crisp pages turning. But, do most paperbacks stimulate me like that? Not really. I read them once, escape into the story, and put them on a shelf to collect dust. Or into a box where they stay for years on end. Just because it was an interesting/exciting/meaningful read, it doesn’t mean that I need to keep the book handy for the next five years. Not if I’m not going to read it again. And ninety nine times out of a hundred (with paperbacks), I won’t read them again.

My Kindle frees me. It frees me from viewing books as dust-collecting-shelf-space-filling–deforestation-guilt-ridden objects. And it allows me to:

1. Read ‘paperbacks’ on the Kindle. Enjoy them. Recommend them to friends and family. Take them on holiday without filling up my suitcase. Get the book I want or browse through the excellent Kindle store with all it’s recommendations. And save money – there are many excellent reads for a pound or less.
2. Read at night time without the light on (I bought a case with an attached light) – so I don’t keep the wife awake.
3. Send pages I want to read to it from the web; then I can read them whenever I want, without needing my laptop, and without printing webpages. This is really easy, thanks to the excellent Klip.me utility, now available in Chrome, Safari, Firefox, & IE9.
4. Reserve my book shop browsing, book buying, and limited bookshelf space for books that I want to keep. For instance, I love photography books. I love browsing through collections of photographs from (for instance) Dorothea Lange, Edward Weston, Ansel Adams, or Jim Brandenburg. Now that’s a stimulating book experience. Choose a subject you like: Gardening, Cookery, Sport, Music, Architecture, whatever you like. Then go and buy some books that you’ll want to open over and over again. (I find it hard to believe that a Dan Brown, Sophie Kinsella, or John Grisham paperback can do that).

The Kindle is a great piece of technology; it does one job really well and I like that. What’s more it doesn’t do away with books at all.

I think that makes it awesome.