Google mobile project manager Robert Hamilton has said the company will focus on tablets in 2011, along with expanding into new mobile technologies such as NFC.
Hamilton told the Guardian that mobiles have become more popular, fuelling more mobile searches. “By next year, five billion mobile phones will be in service, out of a total world population of about seven billion. By 2014, there will be more mobile internet users than desktop internet users.”
During the next 12 months, Hamilton said, the internet search giant will focus on tablets and other mobile devices.
“Tablets and an increasing diversity of mobile handsets will demonstrate that there’s room for a wide range of form factors. We’ve added NFC support to Android, and it will be exciting to see how developers incorporate it into their applications.”
“So far NFC hasn’t had huge take-up outside Japan or a few specific applications such as the Oyster Card but there are some big opportunities out there.”
Patrick Stafford is a freelance journalist and a former deputy editor of SmartCompany.
