August 8, 2003 -- Although Mobile Scalable Vector Graphics is just a few years old, several promising applications have already emerged. Developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the standard for describing vector graphics in Extensible Markup Language was recently ratified as a "shall support"-a mandatory feature for future wireless devices supporting multimedia message service (MMS) messages. Now, with its de facto standardization, Mobile SVG is poised to make 2.5G and third-generation MMS messaging content a reality.

By Jeff Wender and Donna Ronayne. (Wender is Omap marketing manager for Texas Instruments, Inc.; Ronayne is vice president of business development at BitFlash Corp.)