Short messsage service (SMS) is a messaging method included in GSM system which allows sensing short messages from one cellular phone to another. GSM Short Messages have a maximum length of 160 characters (from the SMS character set), or 140 octets. However, Short Messages can be concatenated to form longer messages. Besides normal text based user to user messaging SMS system has been used to impement interfaces to on-line services and for carrying other kind of data (like alarm tones and logos to certain GSM phones). Short message service (SMS) is a globally accepted wireless service that enables the transmission of alphanumeric messages between mobile subscribers and external systems such as electronic mail, paging, and voice mail systems. SMS has also been used for tranporting data like cellular phone ring tones and screen logos (for example in Nokia Smart Messaging system).
On-line sites which provideo free SMS messaging services.
A global specification for wireless connectivity. The Bluetooth solutions promise to provide a cable replacement technology that simplifies the interaction between people and machines.
The Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) is an open, global specification which gives mobile users with wireless devices the opportunity to easily access and interact with information and services. It is a collection of languages and tools and an infrastructure for implementing services for mobile phones. WAP makes it possible to implement services similar to the World Wide Web. Unlike marketers claim, WAP does not bring the existing content of the Internet directly to the phone. There are too many technical and other problems for this to ever work properly.
The protocol is developed by WAP Forum http://www.wapforum.org/, an organization of some of the most powerful Internet and telecom companies. WAP is advertized as bringing "the web"on your mobile phone, but in reality the bottom line is that WAP is not "the web" on your mobile phone, but something a lot less. WAP can be used to build many mobile phone specific services and used for giving very limited web access form th mobile phones.
WAP consists of markup language (WML), scripting language (WMLScript), picture format specification (WBMP), microbrowser specification, freamework for wireless telephony applications, protocol stack and secure connections (WTLS) specifications. WML is an XML based markup language used to describe the contents of the WAP pages. WMLScript is a scripting language used with WML pages (this scripting language is loosely based on JavaScript). On the WAP server side you can use a standard web server to store wap pages and standard HTTP protocol to transfer pages from the web server to WAP gateway. A WAP gateway is a piece of software between WAP device and the web server. WAP gatway has to following functions: converting the markup language (WML) from textual format to tokenized (binary/compressed) format which is readable by the WAP device, translating the requests from the WAP device to HTTP requests for the "web" world, convert between the SSL encryption used in the "web" world and the WTLS encryption used in the WAP world and conversion from TCP protocol used in web to WDP transport protocol used in WAP world. Optionally many gateways also perform other conversions such as converting other types of files (plain text, simple HTML) into a WAP readable format.
iMode is a technology used in Japan to add Internet conenctivity and web features to their PDC mobile phone system. iMode is a way of providing information to mobile devices. It uses CHTML (Compact HTML) as a markup language, and uses more traditional internet protocols to deliver it. The content is served using HTTP to a so called iMode center (under the control of the developers of iMode, NTT DoCoMo). The iMode center performs protocol conversions which enable the content to be delivered to the phone.
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