Innovations in disruptive mobile technology

Disruptive technologies are ones that manage to shake up the landscape of whatever field they are part of. Anything from the miniaturisation of computers to wireless phones vastly changes the landscapes of these two industries. Disruptive technology rarely comes out of left field. Rather, it is more indicative of the right combination of existing technologies that are beyond what most people thought they could achieve.

Let’s take a quick look at some of the biggest areas concerning mobile technology.

Battery tech

The limiting factor of almost all mobile technology is the battery. It doesn’t matter how good the device is. If there isn’t power, it isn’t going to be doing you any good. Unfortunately, innovations in battery technology have never been very fast. But thanks to society starting to move more and more toward electric cars, more money than ever is being put into battery development. In the near future, scientists are hoping to have solid state batteries that have increased energy density and output. But until then, it is the supporting technologies in our devices that keep them powered up.

The two innovations that are keeping us powered are wireless charging and quick charging. If you are having trouble making a better battery, why not make a better battery charger? Quick charge works by talking to the phone and regulating the amount of power being pushed into the battery to the most efficient amount possible. This has meant that you can get large percentages of your battery life back with only a few minutes of charging rather than just having to let your phone die.

Inductive or wireless charging uses electromagnets to produce a magnetic field that hardware within the phone can use to generate an electrical charge. The obvious advantage here is the ability to lay your device on a surface and receive power passively. While many new phones and devices have wireless charging natively, one advantage is that it can be built into protective cases, theoretically letting you add wireless charging to just about any device. Inductive charging plates can also be integrated into almost any flat surface, meaning you could be surrounded by places to charge your devices without having to plug anything in.

High-quality camera sensors

Having a camera on a smartphone has been one of the most disruptive technologies we’ve seen in a long time. No longer are you limited to having a dedicated camera with you since you can get amazing image quality from your phone. Once people realized the value of these cameras, users demanded that they were made better.

Today smartphone cameras compete on the level of just about any other camera on the consumer market. Features such as the laser autofocus and optical image stabilization of the LG G4 mean you can get good quality images in low light conditions or with fast-moving subjects.

Having the capability for high-quality images and video plus the ability to connect to the Internet from anywhere has meant that more and more people rely only their smartphones to capture memories.

Virtual/Augmented Reality

Affordable virtual reality is almost here, thanks to a bevy of technologies that have finally matured to the point of being good enough to really simulate complex scenarios. One of the biggest hurdles that VR has needed to overcome was the need for high enough resolution screens that are small enough to fit into headsets.

In the late 90s and early 200s, the VR we considered as blocky and relatively uninspiring was the best we could do at the time. But after HD and 4K displays became a reality for the mainstream, there was no way anyone would be willing to look at low-resolution images that close up.

In this way, smartphone innovations have been the driving force behind VR. Every modern smartphone has at least a Full HD or Quad HD display that finally achieves the pixel density needed to not see individual pixels when the screen is only a few inches from your face. Along with extremely fast processors, these displays mean you can render objects in real time with a level of detail that is believable to the savvy consumer.