Mobile interaction

I've been looking into what I would like to cover for my essay in DE, as well as thinking about areas of interest for my third semester project.

Generally I have been looking at mobile interaction, and I've been trying to look at it from a variety of angles. Jan Chipchase's presentation Where's The Phone? for Nokia was quite useful, as it shows how the research methods produced specific observations. I found the conclusion notable;

"The last 10 years have been about converging more functionality onto a single device - instant messaging, radio, television, music, cameras and so on. Each feature creates new modalities of use and can subtly or drastically change carrying and interaction styles. How does having a camera change how a device is carried? Or access to mobile banking?

We are rapidly moving to the point where, due to miniaturization, flexible components and economies of scale, it maymake sense to de-converge functionality on the phone. Hypothetically, if you took all the features on a phone today and distributed them around the body, clothes and in other carried objects, where might these functions be carried, accessed? And why?"

This notion would seem to contrast to what Intel Research are suggesting with their Carry Small, Live Large Research Program. This says to me that they are proposing that phones will get smaller with more platforms converged within them.

I feel that it could go either way. What I think is important is that they are both looking at how people interact with the devices, as well as looking at contexts and environments.