Research could drop smartphone battery draw by 70 percent
updated 05:45 pm EST, Fri November 25, 2011
Nework proxy could help most in developing nations
Researchers at Aalto University in Finland have designed a device that can cut the power consumption of at least 3G smartphones up to 74 percent. The device serves as a network proxy that sits between the Internet and mobile phones. It handles most of the effort required to transfer data to a smartphone, potentially significantly reducing power consumption.
The researchers see the greatest benefit of their solution in developing countries, especially in Africa, where cellphones present the largest opportunity for providing both communications and internet access. One of the greatest challenges in the content is getting regular access to power resources needed to charge a smartphone battery.
The researchers calculated their power consumption savings estimate based on results from a case study conducted in Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya. The study concluded that the power usage of smart phones could also be significantly reduced by mobile optimized websites, HTTP compression, and more efficient use of data caching. Developers like Opera already use compression to reduce the overhead on the web. [via Physorg]
