By Erin Dann
Need to do some banking in the car? Want to watch television on the bus ride home from work? New cellular phone technology is making this possible.
And in Ottawa, it’s giving drivers with Internet-linked phones an edge in the battle for cheaper gas.
Non-Linear Creations and OttawaGasPrices.com co-editors, Glen Gower and Derek Tam, have created a service that sends information on current gas prices around the city to users’ cellphones.
The information can be customized so commuters can get the scoop on the least expensive station in their neighbourhood.
“We wanted to demonstrate wireless technology with a practical application people can use everyday,” says Daniel Roberge, the chief operating officer at Non-Linear Creations.
The service takes gas prices submitted to the OttawaGasPrices.com Web site and sends them to subscribers’ mobile phones.
When drivers pull up to a gas station they can use their phones to send updated prices to the Web site.
The gas prices service has plenty of company in the world of new cellphone applications.
The Bank of Montreal has launched wireless banking services so users can now pay bills and trade stock from the palm of their hand.
Soon, cellphones will also let advertisers beam coupons to cellphone users during TV commercials.
VEIL Interactive Technologies has created a product that allows digital information to be delivered by an ordinary television signal.
This signal is then picked up by a cellphone with a receptor chip.
Of course there’s no need for cellphone users to stay at home to watch TV.
Last September, Samsung Electronics unveiled a cellphone with a 4.6-centimetre screen and an antenna that picks up mobile phone and television signals.
But the hype surrounding new technology doesn’t necessarily mean consumers will want it, says Steve Bowser, the major accounts coordinator at Cellular One on Catherine Street.
“Cellphone usage in general is definitely going up but I don’t attribute it to wireless data applications, not yet,” he says.
Bowser says many of his clients ask for Internet-linked cellphones, but then go back to using their desk or laptops to check e-mail and surf the Web when the novelty wears off.
“People expect to go in and mouse around,” he says. In reality “it’s more primitive.”
Roberge says he believes the gas-price service can succeed because it works within the limits of cellphone technology and because it could save users money.
“People won’t use the technology until they see the benefit,” he says.
Over one quarter of Canadians are already seeing the benefits of owning a cellphone, according to the Canadian Wireless Telecommunication Association.
But only three per cent of owners use their phone to access the Internet.
Those numbers are going to grow quickly says Marc Choma, a spokesperson for the association.
He says all of the phones now being sold are “dot.com ready” and one in five people planning to buy a cellphone in the next year want it to have Internet access.
“When TV came along everyone said it wouldn’t work because we already had radio,” says Choma.
“Cellphones have only been in Canada since 1985, 15 years isn’t a long time.”