Increasing connectivity

We are becoming increasingly connected, both to each other and to the data that we use in our lives. Mobile phones and internet- connected computers are already familiar to us, enabling us to contact anyone, anywhere in the world at any time. Initially these connections were a convenience to speed up communications, but already our social lives and businesses depend on instant connectivity and accessibility.

This connectivity trends appears to be accelerating as our televisions, mobile computers and [photo frames] are bringing information, entertainment and social networking into every moment of our lives, and in the future even our cars and are homes can connect together into networks to make improve safety and reduce energy.

Today, ARM technology can be found in nearly all the world’s mobile phones, and internet connected devices such as smartphones and mobile computers often contain multiple ARM-based chips. As the number and range of consumer devices start connecting to the internet this is creating new opportunities for ARM-based chips.

Various forecasts predict that the few hundreds of millions of connected devices sold in 2009 will grow to approximately three billion devices in 2014.

All these connected devices bring both challenges and opportunities. There will be challenges protecting our privacy, our data and online identity, creating opportunities for new technologies related to security and data integrity; and there will be challenges related to how we create the most energy-efficient way to share data and distribute the computing resources, for example low-power mobile computers in our pockets combined with more energy-efficient data-centres and servers.