Mobile data increased very much last year. I expect the growth to continue. If operators do not invest enough to their network and/or find suitable charging schemes the network can become more congested than before.
4G mobile device speeds becomes the new standard. As competition move to that end, there will be fast growth there. Shipments of ’4G’ LTE devices, that is handsets, dongles and tablets, reached almost 103 million units in 2012, according to figures published by ABI Research. It interesting that almost 95% of the devices shipped went to North America and the Asia-Pacific.
3G will become the low-cost option for those who think 4G option is too expensive. What is interesting to note is that not everyone who upgraded to an LTE-capable device last year took out an LTE subscription; in fact, only around half of LTE device owners also have an LTE subscription.
The shift to 4G can take many more than year to fully happen even in USA. ABI expects the rate at which 3G subscribers with LTE handsets upgrade to LTE connections will gather pace over the next two years. And even longer in Europe. Carriers should not be panicking. And 3G will live and expand besides 4G for quite a long time. For many of those living outside cities, 3G internet connections are still hard to come by.
Apple and Samsung will continue to make money this year as well as people rate Apple and Samsung more highly than ever. Accountant Deloitte predicts that Smartphone sales to hit 1bn a year for first time in 2013.
Samsung is currently the world’s leading seller of phones and televisions. Those leaders should be careful because competition is getting harder all the time. Samsung boss has given warning on this to employees. Remember what what happened to Nokia.
Android will dominate smart phone market even stronger than before. Digitimes Research: Android phones to account for 70% of global smartphone market in 2013.
Windows Phone 8 situation is a question mark. Digitimes predicts that Shipments of Windows Phones, including 7.x and 8.x models, will grow 150% on year to 52.5 million units in 2013 for a 6.1% share. There is one big force against Windows Phone: Google does not bother doing services for Windows Phone 8, Google’s sync changes are going to screw Gmail users on Windows Phone and there are issues with YouTube. Does Windows Phone even have a chance without Google? For active Google service users the changes are pretty that they get this phone.
Competition on smart phones gets harder. It seems that smart phone business have evolved to point where even relatively small companies can start to make their own phones. Forbes sees that Amazon, Microsoft, Google, will all introduce branded mobile phones.
Patent battles are far from over. We will see many new patent fights on smart phones and tablets.
Mobile phones still cause other devices to become redundant. Tietoviikko tells that last year mobile phone made redundant the following devices: small screen smart phones (4 inch or more now), music buying as individual tracks or discs, navigators (smart phone can do that) and a separate pocket size camera. Let’s see what becomes redundant this year.
Many things happens on Linux on mobile devices. Ubuntu now fits in your phone. Firefox OS phones from ZTE will come to some markets. ZTE plans to make Open webOS phone. Meego is not dead, it resurrects with new names: Samsung will release Tizen based phones. Jolla will release Sailfish phones.
Cars become more and more mobile communications devices. Car of the future is M2M-ready. Think a future car as a big smart phone moving on wheels.
Nokia seemed to be getting better on the end of 2012, but 2013 does not look too good for Nokia. Especially on smart phones if you believe Tomi T Ahonen analysis Picture Tells it Better – first in series of Nokia Strategy Analysis diagrams, how Nokia smartphone sales collapsed. Even if shipment of Windows Phone 8 devices increase as Digitimes predicts the year will be hard for Nokia. Tristan Louis expects in Forbes magazine that Nokia abandons the mobile business in 2013. I think that will happen this year, at least for whole mobile business. I have understood that basic phone and feature phone phone business part of Nokia is quite good condition. The problems are on smart phones. I expect that Windows Phone 8 will not sell as well as Nokia hopes.
Because Nokia is reducing number of workers in Finland, there are other companies that try to use the situation: Two new Finnish mobile startups and Samsung opens a research center in Espoo Finland.
Finnish mobile gaming industry has been doing well on 2012. Rovio has been growing for years on the success of Angry Birds that does not show slowing down. Supercell had also huge success. I expect those businesses to grow this year. Maybe some new Finnish mobiel game company finds their own recipe for success.
Late addition: Wireless charging of mobile devices is get getting some popularity. Wireless charging for Qi technology is becoming the industry standard as Nokia, HTC and some other companies use that. There is a competing AW4P wireless charging standard pushed by Samsung ja Qualcomm. Toyota’s car will get wireless mobile phone charger, and other car manufacturers might follow that if buyers start to want them. Wireless charge option has already been surprisingly common variety of devices: Nokia Lumia 920, Nexus 4, HT, etc. We have to wait for some time for situation to stabilize before we see public charging points in cafeterias.
1,261 Comments
Tomi Engdahl says:
From Google Glass to Snowfalling: What will journalism look like in 2014?
http://pando.com/2013/12/13/from-google-glass-to-snowfalling-what-will-journalism-look-like-in-2014/
One student, Patrick Hogan, spent the semester experimenting with Google Glass as a reporting tool for Digital First Media’s Thunderdome project. The insights he gathered were fascinating: When taking photos or videos with Glass, “Your eye is a lens, and your body is a tripod,” he says. Peripheral objects that your eyes instinctively ignore end up crowding the frame. The slightest body movement can make it look you’re covering an earthquake.
Moreover, there are a lot of misconceptions about how Glass works that made Hogan’s reporting subjects suspicious and even angry. Many assumed that the Glass video recorder was always on, even though that would require “a battery pack the size of my head,” says Hogan.
Glass also underlines the frustrations of working on someone else’s platform, on their rules. Hogan imagines that one of the most effective uses of Glass is livestreaming. But despite the fact that Glass is technologically capable of livestreaming, Google refused to unlock the feature, even after numerous pleas from Hogan and the team at Thunderdome.
Where Google Glass really shines is in capturing first-person experiences.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Evernote for the enterprise: Huddle rolls out notes feature alongside redesigned iOS app
http://venturebeat.com/2013/12/10/evernote-for-the-enterprise-huddle-rolls-out-notes-feature-alongside-redesigned-ios-app/
Over the last few years, cloud-based services like Google Drive and Evernote have changed the way people create and collaborate on documents. But it’s doubtful a major government agency, health care vendor, or financial institution would endorse those products as secure.
Huddle wants those organizations to use Huddle Note.
“It’s kind of like a mini-WordPress [that's] purely enterprise focused,” Huddle CEO Alastair Mitchell told VentureBeat.
“It’s easy to roll out Gmail and Google Drive with it, but when you start to get into government documents or other sensitive information, you just can’t use Google Drive — but you still want to create this lightweight content.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
ARM acquires lighting specialist Geomerics
A shot in the ARM for mobile gamers
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2319103/arm-acquires-lighting-specialist-geomerics
CHIP DESIGNER ARM Holdings has announced the acquisition of games lighting technology company Geomerics.
ARM bought Geomerics, which specialises in lighting for the games development industry, for an undisclosed sum with a view to adding further to its mobile development capabilities.
“The innovative technologies being developed by Geomerics are already revolutionizing the console gaming experience and are set to rapidly accelerate the transition to photo realistic graphics in mobile,” said ARM EVP and GM of its Media Processing Division Pete Hutton.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Digital GIANTS in BLOODY battle to put your EYEBALLS in a JAR
Who will capture the screen?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/12/04/capturing_the_digital_edge/
As consumers become ever-more attached to their gadgets – variously glued to PCs and tablets, and, after-hours, laptops, game consoles and mobiles – the gigantic digital businesses are competing with each other to capture and monopolise users’ screen time on internet-connected devices. And all of the contenders are using many monumentally large data centres and data vaults.
For the first time in human history, businesses can hope to have access to consumer eyeballs for several hours a day and become electronic comfort blankets for digital entertainment, mail, mapping, photo albums, e-tailing, search and social media – either through endpoint device capture or internet activity dominance, or both.
The influence of the “FAGAMe” group of businesses is becoming pervasive, global in scope, and capturing a hitherto unattainable amount of individual consumer spending through the colossally concentrative effects of internet access to favoured destinations.
Just six businesses are becoming the dominant internet destinations for consumer eyeballs. Here they are with their dominant consumer-facing activities:
Facebook for social media;
Apple for phones, tablets, digital entertainment and mapping;
Google for search, phones, mapping and mail;
Amazon for e-tailing and book readers and digital books;
Microsoft for desktops/notebooks, search and mail; and
eBay for e-tailing and payment
These businesses are sticky; they have such scale and such a deep interaction with their users that their potential for growth is simply awesome.
If the device a consumer uses to connect to the internet is “owned” by one of the big six, then they have an initial and enduring advantage. So far, four of the six have this aspect covered:
Apple – desktops, notebooks, tablets and smartphones
Google – Chrome and Android-running notebook, tablets and smartphones and smartphone hardware
Amazon – Kindle Fire and tablet and Kindle ebook reader range
Microsoft – desktop, notebook, and nascent tablet and smartphones, search and mail
Facebook and eBay don’t have their own devices and rely on being the dominant internet destination for social media (Facebook) and alternate e-tail site (Amazon). Both are vulnerable in the medium and long term because of this.
The market capitalisations of the big consumer internet six reflect this thinking:
Facebook – $114bn
Apple – $505.1bn
Google – $354.4bn
Amazon – $176.5bn
Microsoft – $319.9bn
eBay – $67.3bn
These six consumer internet giants have a reach into consumers’ lives that’s simply unprecedented and their collective effect on analogue-based businesses is deeply destructive
Apple and pals are helping to kill physical entertainment media supply (bye bye Blockbuster, farewell music CD and film DVD). Whole swathes of digital media retail jobs have been swallowed since iTunes and electronic music media became popular. The same is the case with the brocks-and-mortar sector since Amazon and its cohorts arrived with their digital product etailing and its online retail with physical fulfilment from enormous and cleverly automated warehouses. Thousands of people work in these centres but tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, lose retail jobs out in bricks-and-mortar-shop land.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Qualcomm Insider: Apple 64-Bit Chip `Hit Us in the Gut’
http://blog.hubspot.com/uattr/qualcomm-apple-64-bit-chip-hit-us-in-gut
In public, Apple’s rivals in the smartphone market have tried to downplay the technological advances Apple introduced in the iPhone 5s. But it turns out that one breakthrough — Apple’s speedy, 64-bit A7 microprocessor — has set off a panic inside its competitors. At chipmaker Qualcomm, which provides microprocessors for many of the Android phones that compete against the iPhone, executives have been trying to put on a brave face to the world, but internally people are freaking out, according to an insider at the company.
“The 64-bit Apple chip hit us in the gut,” says the Qualcomm employee. “Not just us, but everyone, really. We were slack-jawed, and stunned, and unprepared. It’s not that big a performance difference right now, since most current software won’t benefit. But in Spinal Tap terms it’s like, 32 more, and now everyone wants it.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Pedestrian Dead Reckoning Enables Indoor Navigation Without WiFi
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1320391&
Just as in-vehicle navigation systems have already revolutionized finding street addresses, pedestrian navigation systems aim to revolutionize finding in-door locations.
To actualize a whole range of pedestrian navigation applications, Sensor Platforms in San Jose, Calif. — the software specialists licensing motion algorithms — has added Pedestrian Dead Reckoning (PDR) to its FreeMotion Library of algorithms.
Sensor Platforms’ PDR system uses 10-axis sensor fusion on the data from micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) sensors — accelerometers, gyroscopes, magnetometers and barometric pressure sensors (for altitude) — to calculate the distance traveled by a user as well as the user’s direction (bearing), working from the last known waypoint as read off a global position systems (GPS) chip. By calibrating to the user’s context, Sensor Platforms claims its PDR solution provides accuracy within a few percent of the distance traveled from the last known waypoint.
Other indoor navigation systems require RF receivers that triangulate their location from WiFi router signals or RF beacons, but dead-reckoning systems calculate location by keeping track of the distance and direction they have traveled since the last known waypoint — usually the GPS location at the entrance to an indoor facility.
Context awareness also assesses how a device like a smartphone is being carried — such as handheld in front of the user, held at their side, or bouncing around in their pocket. Without carry-context detection, according to Sensor Platforms, switching from portrait to landscape orientation could erroneously be interpreted as a 90 degree change in direction, but adding carry-context awareness to sensor fusion results in a constant bearing despite device rotation.
Designed for any mobile device — from smartphones and tablets to smartglasses and smartwatches
Tomi Engdahl says:
Calls on flights have been theoretically possible – the airline , ” we are not going to enforce”
The United States has recently looked at mobile phone calls allow the flights. Imaginative travelers may already have flights to catch to phone calls – albeit only on -line connection.
Call the proliferation of flights is still by no means clear , even if the media authority to grant the permit. U.S. airline JetBlue is considering a ban on internet phone calls , the news service Idgns says. And other airlines line is the more permissive .
However, JetBlue says that the company does not intend to control, but each case will be taken into account customers’ complaints .
” We have heard from many customers and most of them do not want to voice or video calls, flights ,” the company informed .
“So far, we do not accept customers a VoIP phone calls during a flight . ”
Technically, make VoIP calls Gogo ‘s service in an airplane through the LAN would be possible , but JetBlue has set its network blocking VoIP calls.
Airline networks it is possible to watch videos, so in theory the voice or video calls to other phones through it is possible.
Source: http://www.tietoviikko.fi/kaikki_uutiset/puhelut+lennoilla+ovat+jo+teoriassa+mahdollisia++lentoyhtio+quotemme+aio+valvoaquot/a954592
Tomi Engdahl says:
Android anti-virus apps CAN’T kill nasties on sight like normal AV – and that’s Google’s fault
Bad news if you’re not a tech-savvy fandroid
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/12/17/android_anti_malware/
Android users expecting Windows levels of performance from Android-specific anti-virus packages are likely to be disappointed because only Google can automatically delete dodgy apps on Android devices, say malware experts.
Anti-malware bods agree that anti-virus programs on Android can’t remove viruses automatically, meaning that the process needs to be carried out manually by the user in each and every case.
“Android anti-malware applications can block URLs, scan downloads and identify malware that the user may have installed, but they cannot remove malicious applications that are installed by the user,”
“They have to alert the user and hope that the user is able to uninstall them manually, using the usual Android uninstall routine.”
Andreas Marx, chief exec of AV-Test, confirmed Edwards’ prognosis that Android security applications could only warn about maliciously installed apps, rather than shunting them into quarantine (the norm for equivalent Windows security software).
“The mobile security apps are all running in a sandbox, just like any other app,” Marx told El Reg. “Therefore, they are not able to remove malicious apps at their own.”
Edwards told El Reg: “There actually is a way to remove malware from infected devices automatically. Google has a kill switch that can do it. But only Google has that power currently.”
“If you have a rooted device, some anti-malware apps offer additional features, but rooted devices usually have other kind of security issues, therefore we wouldn’t recommend this step,” he explained.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Bluetooth Smart dev board hits US, UK for sub-$100
Forget the doomed PC market, it’s all about wearable gadgetry now
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2013/12/17/calling_all_makers_csr_preps_sub100_dev_kit_for_bluetooth_smart_chippery/
Bluetooth chip maker CSR has what it hopes will be an attractive Christmas gift option for hardware hackers and makers: a low-cost development board for Bluetooth Smart applications based on µEnergy silicon.
CSR is launching the product, the CSR10X0 Starter Development Kit today. The board comes with a full SDK for developing iOS and Android apps, though the SDK is currently intended to be hosted on Windows PCs only – or on a Mac with a suitably configured virtual machine.
It will also set you back just $99 (£61).
The CSR1012 has 64KB of memory for program code and data. The Bluetooth stack, which includes full support for the GATT (General ATTribute) profile, sits in 64KB of Rom. The board is designed to run off a tiny lithium-polymer battery. It also has 12 digital IO ports for wiring up sensors and display devices.
GATT is essentially a generic profile for shifting structured data back and forth between Bluetooth devices.
Tomi Engdahl says:
From Oppo to OnePlus: a new company wants to build the next great smartphone
http://www.theverge.com/2013/12/16/5217794/oppo-ex-vice-president-pete-lau-launches-oneplus
When Oppo vice president Pete Lau resigned last month, the timing was almost puzzling. Lau had just helped to bring CyanogenMod onto the company’s new handset, the N1, finally pairing Oppo’s high-end specs and sleek design with software that could create what enthusiasts might see as the perfect package. But even then, Lau wasn’t satisfied. “Everyone should have access to the best and latest technology,” Lau tells The Verge in an email.
Lau is now launching a new company that aims to make that a reality. He’s calling it OnePlus, and its goal is to create Lau’s dream smartphone — one that marries fast, high-end hardware with equally high-end design.
For years, building a smartphone was only a possibility for the biggest of tech companies, but more and more small manufacturers have begun throwing their hats in the ring — from Jolla, to Blu Products, to Yota Devices. OnePlus is the latest in that ilk of small manufacturers, and it has a similar outlook: it doesn’t aim to use cheap components, just to cut down on cost by carefully choosing where it spends money.
Google+ posts by Lau and CyanogenMod founder Steve Kondik suggest that CyanogenMod could come bundled, but Lau isn’t saying much for now.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Low-Power eCompass Modules Used in Xiaomi Handsets
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1320409&
STMicroelectronics recently introduced its LSM303D accelerometer and magnetometer combo module to Chinese smartphone leader Xiaomi (Mi1S), known as the country’s answer to Apple.
“Our MEMS technology continues to raise the bar in every quarter: power consumption, performance, price, and physical size,”
STM developed its family of eCompasses around the principal of magneto resistance (MR)
The LSM303 accurately measures the direction and magnitude of external magnetic fields, while the module’s accelerometer compensates for tilt to ensure an accurate compass heading when portable devices are inclined. LSM303 combines a 3-axis magnetic-field sensor and a 3-axis accelerometer in a single tiny 2x2x1 mm module.
“This is a peripheral piece that… could be useful in location-based services, if you were walking around in a mall or were driving and wanted to know where you were,” an ST spokesman told EE Times.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Qualcomm Kicks Off Midrange 4G Fight
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1320404&
Qualcomm kicked off the next round of competition in smartphones with its announcement of high-end and midrange LTE chips last week. Broadcom, Mediatek, and others are expected to join the 4G handset battle in 2014.
Qualcomm’s 28 nm Snapdragon 410, announced Dec. 9, will pack a multimode LTE baseband along with a 64-bit core, an upgraded Adreno 306 GPU, and support for 1080-progressive video playback and a 13 megapixel camera.
Perhaps even more significantly, the company said it intends to make LTE available across all of the Snapdragon products, gunning for midrange handsets around the globe, including China, which approved plans for its 4G networks last week.
“We are excited to bring 4G LTE to highly affordable smartphones at a sub $150 price point with the introduction of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 processor,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Samsung launches a gamepad for Android that’s optimized for its Galaxy phones
http://thenextweb.com/gadgets/2013/12/17/samsung-launches-a-gamepad-for-android-thats-optimized-for-its-galaxy-phones/#!p94no
Apple began allowing third-party gamepads on the iPhone with iOS 7, and Samsung is also upping its presence in the space after announcing its own gamepad (the not-so-creatively named ‘Smartphone GamePad’) for Android 4.1 phones.
Unlike the iPhone gamepads which attach themselves to the device, Samsung’s is standalone and uses a Bluetooth connection to link up with a smartphone — although Android 4.3-powered Galaxy phones enjoy more features, including NFC connect support.
The pad is accompanied by an app (‘the Mobile Console app’) through which users can browse and buy supported games.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Meta Unveils Meta Pro, Its $3,000 AR Glasses Now Available For Pre-Order
http://techcrunch.com/2013/12/17/meta-pro/
Augmented reality startup Meta has spent the past few years making prototypes of wearable devices featuring see-through optics and a wide variety of sensor arrays. Now it’s starting production on its first generation of units for developers and taking pre-orders for a consumer-facing version of its product.
Meta had previously pre-sold an earlier iteration of its wearable device, called the META.01, which was designed to appeal to early adopters and developers who wish to design for the platform. The META.01 was priced at $667, as part of its effort to get developers on board with the technology.
Tomi Engdahl says:
MTV and DNA in close co-operation: HD broadcasting antenna and TV channels to mobile
The media company MTV and operator DNA have signed a partnership agreement that allows the MTV broadcast will be available to mobile devices in Finland. In the future, customers residing in the homes of the antenna are also able to follow MTV’s channels in HD quality.
Information on the companies that primarily arise from advances have changed people’s spending patterns. MTV and DNA will endeavor to respond to consumer demand by importing the contents for easy viewing in all distribution channels and devices.
MTV’s basic channels have been around the end of November followed on mobile devices DNA Welho MatkaTV service. In the spring of service will also be introduced on MTV’s pay sports channels.
MatkaTV service is available for iOS and Android smartphones and tablets as well as computers.
Source: http://www.tietoviikko.fi/kaikki_uutiset/mtv+ja+dna+tiiviiseen+yhteistyohon+hdlahetykset+antenniin+ja+tvkanavat+mobiiliin/a954970
Tomi Engdahl says:
DIY “smart” watch idea:
Stylish OLED Watch Uses Accelerometer Instead of Buttons
http://hackaday.com/2013/12/17/stylish-oled-watch-uses-accelerometer-instead-of-buttons/
The watch is based on the low-power MSP430F microcontroller from Texas Instruments
[Andrew] chose an 0.96″ OLED display that only consumes up to 7mA. He also included an accelerometer that allows him to interact with the watch through its single and double tap detecting feature. He modeled his PCB using EagleCAD and the whole assembly using Sketchup. Most of the components were soldered in his reflow (toaster) oven.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Windows Phone 8.1 includes notification center and Siri-like personal assistant
http://www.theverge.com/2013/12/16/5215484/windows-phone-8-1-features-notification-center-cortana
Microsoft is preparing to ship its Windows Phone 8.1 update with two significant changes: a notification center and a Siri-like personal assistant. Sources familiar with Microsoft’s plans have revealed to The Verge that the company is currently beta testing copies of Windows Phone 8.1 internally, with plans to fully detail its features at the Build Developer Conference in April, 2014.
A highly requested notification-center feature will be added to the software, and we’re told it’s enabled by swiping down from the top of the screen in a similar way to iOS and Android. New quick settings are exposed by a short swipe from the top, and a longer swipe will display a full notification history in current beta versions of Windows Phone 8.1.
Separate volume controls are finally being added to Windows Phone 8.1, allowing users to control ringtone volume independently of media playback. Microsoft is also adding Bing Smart Search results that are similar to Windows 8.1, and VPN support for enterprise users.
While Microsoft is busy preparing software features for Windows Phone 8.1, Nokia is readying two handsets for the OS update. One particular device, codenamed “Goldfinger,” will include a “3D Touch” system that detects off-the-glass interactions.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Corporate-Owned Smartphones Back in Vogue in Q3
http://www.cio.com/article/744513/Corporate_Owned_Smartphones_Back_in_Vogue_in_Q3
A larger share of smartphones used for business purposes were coA steady increase in corporate purchasing through the first three quarters of the year hints that enterprises are already rethinking how far BYOD (bring-your-own-device) programs will be allowed to expand, according to Strategy Analytics.rporate-owned
IDG News Service (London Bureau) — A steady increase in corporate purchasing through the first three quarters of the year hints that enterprises are already rethinking how far BYOD (bring-your-own-device) programs will be allowed to expand, according to Strategy Analytics.
Seventy-three million smartphones were purchased in the third quarter by business users directly, or by companies for their business users, representing a 34 percent increase over total business smartphone volumes a year ago, Strategy Analytics said.
That means more than 35 percent of smartphones used for business purposes were corporate-owned, compared to 32 percent in the same quarter a year ago, and 31 percent in the first quarter.
BYOD may very well be an unstoppable trend in many regions in the world, but it’s not too surprising that some momentum would swing back to corporate-owned devices,
Leif-Olof Wallin, research vice president at Gartner, agreed: “There is still a gap between CIOs and employees,” he said.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Healthcare IT’s Achilles’ Heel: Sensors
http://slashdot.org/topic/bi/healthcare-its-achilles-heel-sensors/
Fitbit, FuelBand, and ingestible sensors aren’t quite enough to support researchers’ grandiose dreams for healthcare IT.
For several quarters, tech publications and pundits alike have crowed about the benefits we’re soon to collectively reap from healthcare analytics. In theory, sensors attached to our bodies (and appliances such as the fridge) will send a stream of health-related data—everything from calorie and footstep counts to blood pressure and sleep activity—to the cloud, which will analyze it for insight; doctors and other healthcare professionals will use that data to tailor treatments or advise changes in behavior and diet. If nothing else, it could translate into significant revenues for everyone from data-analytics firms to hardware builders.
That healthcare data could also come from a variety of sources, not just a set of devices or sensors
“if it’s talking into our iPhone, where we do our grocery shopping, our exercise habits, there are many behavioral outputs that others like Amazon, like Google, are measuring about us that our caregivers don’t have access to and we as patients can’t use.”
Health apps for mobile devices aren’t much better when it comes to accurately recording physiological information; the need to manually input data makes them somewhat cumbersome to use, and people often give up after a few days or weeks.
Once more sensitive hardware arrives on the market—whether in the form of wristbands, digital pills, or something else entirely—it could give doctors, researchers, and patients better access to “good” data that can actually make a difference in research and treatment.
Tomi Engdahl says:
2013 Was a Huge Year for Android Gaming
http://allthingsd.com/20131217/2013-was-a-huge-year-for-android-gaming/
For years, Apple has been the presumptive leader in mobile gaming, and it’s still in pole position. But if global trends in 2013 were any indication, its nearest rival, Google Play, is putting the heat on.
That’s one of the conclusions of a “2013 Year in Review” report released today by app-analytics platform Distimo. Although the vast majority of app revenue in the West is still coming from gamers on iPhones and iPads, Google Play as a source of revenue leads in South Korea and Japan, two of the three fastest-growing markets worldwide.
Apple’s App Store is still doing just fine, thank you very much: The report estimates that daily revenue for the Top 200 iOS apps grew from $15 million in November 2012 to $18 million in November 2013. But Google is growing its share of the pie at a far faster clip, with the Top 200 apps grossing $12 million per day, up from only $3.5 million the year before. That’s huge.
Also worth noting from the new report: In case you had any doubt, freemium is still eating the world. Paid apps’ share of the iOS App Store’s revenue shrank from 23 percent to eight percent between January and November of this year. On Google Play, it’s even worse, with freemium apps now accounting for 98 percent of all revenue, up from the already high 89 percent.
That general trend holds in particular for games and social applications — no surprise there — but what is surprising is how revenue shakes out for other categories of apps.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Why are you still building consumer apps? Enterprise pays 4x more!
http://www.developereconomics.com/still-building-consumer-apps-enterprise-pays-4x/
Consumer apps are the focus for all the excitement and media attention in the industry. Enterprise software is dull and boring, right? Not if you care about making money! Our data shows enterprise developers generate 4 times as much revenue as those targeting consumers. Besides, what’s so dreary about reinventing the way people work in a mobile and connected world?
“Wait”, I hear you cry, “what about BYOD and the consumerization of IT? Surely the future is all about selling computing tools directly to professionals?” Well the data from our April-May 2013 Developer Economics survey says that future isn’t here yet. In any case, if you’re going to collaborate with colleagues then you all need to be using the same tools, so most of the time the company still has to choose and buy them.
It’s entirely natural that a new consumer-focussed computing market for smartphones and tablets spawned a large industry of consumer focussed app development organisations. The market is rapidly maturing now, with smartphone penetration above 50% in all developed markets and tablet adoption not far behind, yet still almost 75% of companies involved in app development are focussed on consumer apps.
Traditionally software spending has been much higher in enterprises and although there is a shift towards employees selecting their own technology and tools it is surely not happening as fast as the shift to mobile computing. This leaves a gap in the market for developers focussed on apps for the mobile enterprise to fill.
A little over 12% of the money-making developers in our survey were targeting the enterprise yet they made on average almost 4 times as much revenue (per person involved in development) as those targeting consumers and typically had more than 4 times as many people involved in app development.
At the bottom of the revenue pile it’s no big shock to see that developers who aren’t sure about their target market make by far the least money. How do you build a great product without knowing who it’s for?
You don’t have to build a large company to be extremely profitable in the enterprise mobility market – smaller development teams actually have much higher revenues per developer.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google Glass photos will BAFFLE admirers: Nudge nudge, WINK WINK
Hey there, cutie! Oh, you’re just taking pictures
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/12/18/google_glass_wink_update/
Expect to see Google Glassholes winking at you from across the street in the next few weeks as a new update allows users of the high-tech specs to take photos with nothing more than a blink of one eye.
The Chocolate Factory reckons this innovation will allow Glassholes to “stay in the moment” since all they have to do is wink to snap a pic. But that’s not all. The firm also reckons that this is a feature that could be moved out to other applications as well.
“Imagine a day where you’re riding in the back of a cab and you just wink at the meter to pay,”
Google said that the flutter of one eye would be faster than the camera button or the voice activation for taking photos and would work even when the specs’ display was turned off.
Tomi says:
5g to combine the old and the new
The fifth -generation mobile networks will be used after about 10 years. They move at significantly far more data in entirely new frequencies. – It will be taken to explore new network concepts and uses sanoo5g Nokia Networks Solutions & Research Director Lauri Oksanen.
Yesterday was an important day for 5g – research point of view , the European Commission set up under the leadership of 5GPPP Community to organize future 5g networks research. According to Oksanen, while new development is , as the current 4g is a good system .
In fact, 4G , LTE and its evolution versions ( the first stage of LTE -Advanced ) will be coming 5g networks macrocells basic technology. The new radio is not the way to large cells to be developed. In other respects, 5g many things : it is open.
According to Oksanen, in 2020, mobile networks, data travels a thousand times more than in 2010. This should be done with current 4G technologies. Since then, the need for new solutions and new frequency bands. – The spectrum need to go to the millimeter range. Now, measure and simulate in order to 70 to 90 GHz range usefulness of survival, Oksanen said.
WLAN and cellular networks, sharing will be an integral part of the future 5G networks. WiFi is already being exported to 60 GHz , but NSN’s vision of 70-90 GHz range sounds better .
- In our view, 5g networks should use licensed spectrum. The free frequencies can not always guarantee adequate capacity and data rate , Oksanen explains.
Oksanen believes that the 5g standardization will start the end of 2015 . Prepare to become a 2018-2019 time .
Source: http://www.etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=788:5g-yhdistaa-vanhaa-ja-uutta&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google Glass Face Recognition App Coming This Month, Whether Google Likes It Or Not
http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/12/18/google-glass-face-recognition-app-coming-this-month-whether-google-likes-it-or-not/
Since Google Glass first appeared, its potential for facial recognition has been seen either as a privacy nightmare or as one of the headset’s first truly intriguing uses. Google has declared itself in the first camp. Stephen Balaban is in the second, and he’s about to share his vision with Glassheads everywhere, whether Google likes it or not.
At the Chaos Communications Congress hacker conference in Hamburg later this month, 24-year-old Balaban and his startup Lambda Labs plan to release an unauthorized app for Glass that allows users to collect and catalog images of faces seen through its lens, along with other recognizable objects ranging from computer screens to license plates. The app, which Balaban is calling FaceRec, will give Glass-wearers the ability to integrate that data with location coordinates to create a map of who or what the user saw when and where. And on Friday Monday, Lambda Labs will also begin taking pre-orders for an Android-based, Glass-like device it’s calling the Lambda Hat, a $255 camera-enabled cap designed to be even better suited for that always-on computer vision.
Tomi Engdahl says:
British Airways now allows electronics use during takeoff and landing
http://www.engadget.com/2013/12/19/british-airways-allow-electronics-use/
Following the wave of US airlines that changed policy after the FAA reassessed the rules, British Airways is letting passengers keep their electronic devices switched on for the entirety of their flight.
According to the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority, there’s still no text and no calls allowed, and Brits will still be ordered to put wireless devices into flight mode, although the changes (which start today) apparently don’t include laptops. “The easing of restrictions will provide an average of 30 minutes additional personal screen time,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Windows Phone Turned the Corner in 2013
We’re number three. And no, that doesn’t suck
http://winsupersite.com/windows-phone/windows-phone-turned-corner-2013
2013 was nothing less than a blockbuster success for Windows Phone, which went from industry also-ran to the undisputed third mobile ecosystem, and is poised to challenge iPhone for the number two spot. You didn’t think it could get this good? That’s OK, neither did I.
Here are some of the factors that contributed to this stunning turnaround.
Market share improvements
Windows Phone ended 2012 with worldwide market share of 2.8 percent,
2013 was, alas, the year that Android became the Windows of the mobile world. Android surpassed 80 percent market share in Q3, which was a big story. But an equally big story, perhaps, was Apple’s fall. While Apple sold more devices overall in 2013 than before, its growth was by far the slowest of the three biggest platforms. And where iPhone commanded a bit under 21 percent market share in 2012, it was down to 12.5 percent in Q3 2013. The distance between Windows Phone and iPhone has been cut dramatically.
More exciting for Windows Phone fans is how well the platform is performing against the iPhone in certain key markets. Indeed, depending on where you look, Windows Phone is already beating iPhone.
According to Kantar Worldpanel, Windows Phone in Q3 commanded 8.2 percent market share in the five biggest European markets—UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain—exceeding 10 percent in some of them. It took 11.6 percent share in Mexico.
More and more apps
This month, the Windows Phone Store surpassed 200,000 apps, up from 130,000 apps in late February. So the app store is growing at a rate of about 8,000 apps per month.
The number one player is Google Play Store, which serves Android: Google hit 1 million apps in July, which I believe was the last official update.
In October, Apple announced there were more than 1 million apps in the iOS App Store, which is split between iPhone apps and iPad-specific apps.
Device proliferation
With Nokia commanding over 80 percent usage share (and probably even higher market share by this point), it’s fair to say that this one firm has an outsized responsibility for the health of the overall ecosystem. (Not coincidentally, this is why Microsoft is purchasing the firm’s hardware and services businesses.)
This year alone, it introduced several stunning new designs at the low-end of the market—the Lumia 520, 521 and 525. The devices are almost singlehandedly responsible for Windows Phone’s market share gains in 2013 thanks to a perfect mix of affordable pricing (the 520 is just $60, contract-free, right now in the US) and high-end feature set.
Finally, software updates
But let’s not forget Microsoft, shall we? The firm delivered Windows Phone 8 in late 2012 and the inexplicably moved to an 18-month development cycle at a time at which the rest of Microsoft was moving to a rapid release cycle, with major products like Windows seeing annual updates. So while Windows 8.1 shipped in October 2013, Windows Phone 8.1 isn’t expected until April 2014.
But the Windows Phone team didn’t sit out 2013. After enduring years of criticism for its inability to deliver software updates to users—despite the fact that the situation on Android, a much bigger platform, is in fact much worse—something wonderful happened in this year. They started delivering updates. And two of them were quite major releases.
While I still think that Windows Phone needs double digit market share globally before we can truly declare success, this year has regardless been amazing.
Tomi says:
What does mobile scale mean?
http://ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2013/12/18/what-does-mobile-scale-mean
Some time in the next six months, the number of smartphones on earth will pass the number of PCs.
This shouldn’t really surprise anyone: the mobile business is much bigger than the computer industry, and there have been more mobile phones than PCs since at least the late 1990s. There are now perhaps 3.5bn to 4bn* mobile phones, replaced every two years, versus 1.7-1.8bn PCs replaced every 5 years.
But there was always a wall between the two industries – neither really saw or paid attention to or sold to the other, or if they did (like Microsoft) they didn’t get anywhere. Smartphones broke down that wall – suddenly tech companies could sell to an industry with $1.2 trillion annual revenue, and suddenly mobile operators are faced with people who think about product cycles in weeks rather than years.
Both sides are slightly shell-shocked, and I often feel that neither has quite internalised the scale of the change. Mobile operators still try to make messaging services, and tech people still get surprised that you can sell more phones in a quarter than the PC industry sells in a year.
The driving dynamic is that smartphones are not actually a new industry – rather they are a category change sweeping through a huge industry that was already there, hiding in plain sight. The great majority of those mobile users are converting to mobile phones running Unix, and mobile phones (on average) are replaced every two years, meaning this is a very rapid cycle.
So we will end up with somewhere over 3bn smartphones in use on earth, almost double the number of PCs.
In truth, none of us have really internalised what change this means. The fact that Apple makes more money than Microsoft or that smartphones outsell PCs isn’t really the point. Rather, the entire internet is being changed fundamentally – both the size and the character of the internet are going to look quite different from what we have been used to.
First, scale. There are perhaps 900m consumer PCs on earth, and maybe 800m corporate PCs. The consumer PCs are mostly shared and the corporate PCs locked down, and neither are really mobile
Those 3bn smartphones will all be personal, and all mobile.
Just as importantly, the character of that internet changes too, and not just because of mobility and screen size. On the desktop, ‘internet’ has really meant ‘web’, with a few exceptions such as Spotify or Skype. Everything happened inside that browser window, and that didn’t really change at all for 15 years. On mobile, clearly, that is not the case – we have a much richer array of routes to market and models for interaction, and this complexity and innovation is growing all the time. The web is no longer the only option and Google & Facebook are no longer the only option.
Tomi says:
Proposed California law demands anti-theft ‘kill switch’ in all smartphones
With robberies escalating, SF attorney demands deterrent tech
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/12/19/california_smartphone_kill_switch_law/
California may soon become the first US state to require mobile phone makers to include a feature that can remotely disable their handsets in the event they are stolen.
A new law proposed by California state Senator Mark Leno and San Francisco District Attorney George Gascón would require all smartphones sold in the state to include a remote-controllable “kill switch” as a deterrent against theft.
The issue is not a new one for Gascón, who along with New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, has been crusading for greater smartphone security in light of what has been described as an epidemic of mobile phone theft.
In Gascón’s home city of San Francisco, which falls within Leno’s jurisdiction, more than half of all robberies now involve a smartphone, according to police statistics.
But although some phone vendors offer remote deactivation
most do not, which means smartphone thieves can quickly and easily sell the devices to eager bargain-hunters.
Gascón has accused the mobile phone industry of dragging its feet on the issue, saying that although he had managed to convince smartphone titan Samsung to bundle LoJack security software with its devices, the major wireless carriers rejected the proposal, believing it would eat into their profits: fewer thefts would mean fewer sales.
Tomi Engdahl says:
$350 Google Glass Competitor Covers Both Eyes to Augment Your Reality
http://blog.laptopmag.com/atheer-one-glasses
If you think wearing Google Glass makes you look like a futuristic cyborg, than the Atheer One is sure to make you feel like you’ve just crawled out of a time machine. Atheer Labs has just announced that its augmented reality 3D headset is launching on Indiegogo– meaning you’ll be able to reserve a pair of true AR spectacles for just $350.
The Atheer One is among a newer breed of wearable devices that are designed to bring augmented reality to everyday computing. While Google Glass uses a tiny floating display to bring notifications, messages and news headlines to the corner of your eye, the Atheer One actually puts images and information directly in your line of vision over the real world.
Atheer’s device consists of two XGA resolution displays in front of both eyes, creating a screen that is said to be the equivalent of 26-inch tablet at half an arm’s length in front of your face.
The unit itself weighs about 2.5 ounces, which is much lighter than the 6.3-ounce metaPRO wearable display that promises to deliver similar AR functionality.
Unlike the metaPRO glasses, however, the Atheer One doesn’t function as an independent computer. It tethers to Android smartphones, enabling you to leverage 2D apps from the Google Play store in a 3D environment.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Day Google Had to ‘Start Over’ on Android
Google was building a secret mobile product to fend off chief rival Microsoft. Then Apple announced the iPhone, and everything changed.
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/12/the-day-google-had-to-start-over-on-android/282479/
In 2005, on Google’s sprawling, college-like campus, the most secret and ambitious of many, many teams was Google’s own smartphone effort—the Android project. Tucked in a first-floor corner of Google’s Building 44, surrounded by Google ad reps, its four dozen engineers thought that they were on track to deliver a revolutionary device that would change the mobile phone industry forever.
By January 2007, they’d all worked sixty-to-eighty-hour weeks for fifteen months—some for more than two years—writing and testing code, negotiating software licenses, and flying all over the world to find the right parts, suppliers, and manufacturers. They had been working with prototypes for six months and had planned a launch by the end of the year . . . until Jobs took the stage to unveil the iPhone.
As a consumer I was blown away. I wanted one immediately. But as a Google engineer, I thought ‘We’re going to have to start over.’
For most of Silicon Valley—including most of Google—the iPhone’s unveiling on January 9, 2007 was something to celebrate. Jobs had once again done the impossible. Four years before he’d talked an intransigent music industry into letting him put their catalog on iTunes for ninety-nine cents a song. Now he had convinced a wireless carrier to let him build a revolutionary smartphone. But for the Google Android team, the iPhone was a kick in the stomach.
“What we had suddenly looked just so . . . nineties,” DeSalvo said. “It’s just one of those things that are obvious when you see it.”
On smartphones, few rules governed how fiercely Microsoft could compete. It didn’t have a monopoly.
“We knew that Apple was going to announce a phone. Everyone knew that. We just didn’t think it would be that good.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mobile Growth Pushes Facebook to Become No. 2 US Digital Ad Seller
http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Mobile-Growth-Pushes-Facebook-Become-No-2-US-Digital-Ad-Seller/1010469
Mobile now accounts for more than 22% of all US digital ad spending, compared with less than 3% in 2010
US mobile ad spending is expected to near $9.6 billion in 2013 and account for a whopping 22.5% of all digital ad investments, according to new figures from eMarketer.
The channel’s incredible growth—considering mobile represented just 11.9% of digital ad spending in 2012 and less than 3% of digital budgets in 2010—comes largely as consumers shift time spent from desktop to mobile devices, which has caused a significant redistribution of revenues for some of the world’s largest ad platforms.
Facebook and Google are both major drivers and recipients of this growing market, domestically and internationally.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hot mod: Cyanogen raises another $23 million to become the next big version of Android
http://www.theverge.com/2013/12/19/5227686/hot-mod-cyanogen-raises-another-23-million-to-become-the-next-big-version-of-android
The effort to turn CyanogenMod into the next big mobile operating system just got a big new vote of confidence. The company announced today that it has raised an additional $23 million, led by Andreessen Horowitz, to add staff and improve its distribution around the world.
“Mobile has really just begun,” says Kirt McMaster, Cyanogen’s CEO. “Apple, Google, and Samsung have not won. Although it seems like they’ve won, it’s still early days.”
There’s some data to back up the big talk: CyanogenMod now has 11 million active users, up from 8 million in September, and that counts only those who have elected to share data with the company. The true number of CyanogenMod users is already in the tens of millions, says Andreessen partner Peter Levine — and that’s despite some significant distribution challenges.
One guide for installing CyanogenMod on your Android smartphone lists 23 steps; the company released a one-click installer this fall, but was forced to remove the companion app from the Google Play store after Google said it violated the store’s terms of service.
Licensing issues also mean that a freshly installed Cyanogen ROM doesn’t come with Google apps or the Play Store — users typically have to search online forums for links to those apps and install them via PC. These are all significant hurdles to mainstream adoption.
So where’s all the growth coming from? Initially, Cyanogen’s custom ROM found favor with hobbyists in the United States and abroad who preferred it to the often bloated versions of Android promulgated by carriers. The ROM strips Android down to a near-stock version while customizing it with a new camera app, secure messaging, and access to thousands of themes. It has also proven a godsend to owners of older devices who are abandoned by their carriers.
But McMaster is likely understating the challenge: replacing a phone’s firmware can be difficult and risky. The reason Google wanted the Cyanogen installer app out of the Play Store is that installing it can void the warranty of many smartphones — something most mainstream users would rather not risk.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Pebble appstore announced, launches 2014
Developers can begin submitting Pebble apps for inclusion today
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/12/pebble-appstore-announced-launches-2014/
Once it built the smartwatch, Pebble put together a software platform so developers could make its eponymous product do stuff. With over 10,000 members in its developer portal and over 2,000 apps released so far, the results have been impressive. Today, Pebble announced that it will launch an app store in early 2014 and that developers can begin submitting their apps today.
App discovery has been a problem for Pebble, and the company and community have thus far tackled it via community sites. With over 200,000 watches shipped, more and more users are exploring the different ways that apps can enhance the experience of using a Pebble. By providing a consolidated app store, Pebble is ensuring that apps are compliant with its Terms and Conditions, that the version provided is the most recent, and that apps are categorized and easily searchable.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Gear & Gadgets / Product News & Reviews
Op-ed: What does a good smartwatch actually look like?
For the concept to have mass appeal, it needs to get a whole lot better.
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/12/op-ed-what-does-a-good-smartwatch-actually-look-like/
Now that smartphones are a part of daily life for many of us, consumer technology companies have begun casting about for the next Big Thing, some new billion-dollar product that will attract buyers in droves. Most of those efforts have concentrated on wearable computing products, things like Google Glass and smartwatches. So far, these gadgets have mostly been accessories you use with your phone, giving you a more convenient way to access the computer in your pocket without actually having to fish it out (at least, that’s how it works in theory).
Tomi Engdahl says:
Embedded SIM Design Means No More Swapping Cards
http://mobile.slashdot.org/story/13/12/19/1938254/embedded-sim-design-means-no-more-swapping-cards
“A new remotely-programmable embedded SIM design from the GSMA operators’ group means that devices can be operated on the Internet of things and won’t have to be opened up to have their SIM card changed if they move to a different operator. The design could speed up embedded applications.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
GSMA Creates Remotely Managed SIM For M2M Applications
http://www.techweekeurope.co.uk/news/remotely-managed-m2m-sim-134429
The new embedded standard lets devices connect to the Internet of Things without having to change their SIM
The GSMA has published the technical description of a SIM card designed specifically for Machine-to-Machine (M2M) communication and the Internet of Things.
The new embedded electronic circuit allows remote provisioning and management of network information, which means customers will never have to open an M2M device to replace a SIM. The design was created to ensure interoperability and security, and has attracted interest far beyond the mobile industry.
“Without a globally recognised, standardised and harmonised connectivity solution the automotive industry will become unnecessarily complex and fragmented. As a car manufacturer an embedded SIM that can be remotely provisioned is absolutely key for us in driving efficiency and simplicity and is to be welcomed. We thank the GSMA and partners for agreeing this specification,” commented Marcus Keith, project manager at Audi Connect.
First deployments of the new embedded SIM are expected in 2014.
Traditional SIM cards were designed to be interchangeable, with this consideration defining their shape, size and layout. While they are currently successfully used in M2M devices, these pieces of plastic need to be replaced every time a device has to connect to a new network.
To fix this issue, the GSMA has developed a non-removable SIM that can be embedded in a device for the duration of its life, and remotely assigned to a network. This information can be subsequently modified over-the-air, as many times as necessary.
The GSMA says its new SIM can reduce ongoing operational and logistical costs. Replacing one SIM is not going to break the bank, but replacing a few million could make a dent in any budget, it reckons.
The embedded design is backed by leading mobile network operators and device manufacturers, including Orange, Telecom Italia, Telefónica, Vodafone, Deutsche Telekom and China Mobile.
The standard eliminates the need for network operators to develop their own solutions for remote provision of SIMs, and allows customers to easily switch networks at the end of a contract.
Despite the convenience of over-the-air management, the GSMA says the embedded design is not meant to replace conventional SIM cards, even though this exact idea was floated when ETSI was deciding on the future of the nano-SIM in 2012.
Tomi Engdahl says:
World’s cheapest tablet just got CHEAPER
India’s subsidised Aakash 4 will cost just £14/$US23
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/12/20/aakash4_datawind_india_cheapest_tablet/
The world’s cheapest tablet is about to get even cheaper after Indian telecoms minister Kapil Singh announced the subsidised Aakash 4 will eventually ship for just Rs.1,500 (£14).
The Aakash project was originally conceived by New Delhi in 2011 as a way to get computing devices in the hands of millions of students across the sub-continent.
Click here
However, it has been plagued by a series of delays – many of which were laid squarely at the door of UK company Datawind, which was responsible for delivering the devices.
Datawind has apparently lost the exclusive contract for the devices, which will now be manufactured by “several players”.
Singh is quoted as saying 18 manufacturers have tendered for the lucrative contract, although formal bids open on Friday.
The 7-incher will initially cost Rs.2,500 (£24.60) although that price will eventually drop to Rs.1,500, according to Singh.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Why Siri Could Be the Killer App for Smartwatches
http://www.wired.com/design/2013/12/what-can-a-smartwatch-really-do/
As we’ve said in this month’s cover story, the wearable revolution is real and it’s coming fast. For designers, though, putting computers on our bodies means tackling two very tricky questions. First, what should these gadgets look like? And second, what can they actually do for us?
We can make some good guesses about that first question. The current crop of wearables sorts out into two categories: things we wear on our arms and things we wear on our faces. Assuming we’re not quite ready for the good cyborg life that Google Glass prescribes, that leaves us with the wrist.
The idea of the smartwatch has long intrigued us: Just look at the pop culture supercut Samsung put out to promote the Galaxy Gear, its first foray into the field. In reality, reviewers found that the Gear tried to do far too much with its meager real estate (and did it far too clumsily).
The Pebble, an independent smartwatch, raised a staggering $10 million on Kickstarter last year, but it’s hard to imagine its clunky looks and primitive UI getting much traction outside of the eager early adopter set. Companies like Jawbone and Nike have seen a measure of mainstream success with their fitness-centric bracelets, but what these devices have in style they lack in functionality. An activity monitor does not a smartwatch make.
But the continued interest in these devices—and, of course, the perennial intrigue surrounding the elusive iWatch—makes one thing clear: People are ready to wear a computer on their wrist. The question that none of the existing products yet answered, however, is this: What should a smartwatch really do?
The Right Time for Voice
Smartphones brought about a true revolution in human-computer interaction, banishing cursors and mice and letting us touch the digital world directly with our fingertips. Many of the smartwatches we’ve seen thus far have basically tried to shrink that model down, put it on a wristband, and call it a day. That won’t work.
No one’s going to be tapping out text messages on these, for one thing. And it’s hard to imagine that swiping between stripped-down apps on a miniscule touch-sensitive display is really the future either. And yet, if we want our smartwatches to be more than inbox armbands, we’ll need some way of communicating with them. The obvious answer? Our voices.
If you haven’t tried voice search lately—either Google’s or Apple’s Siri-flavored variety—you should. It’s astoundingly good. Google trusts it enough that they made it the central method for operating Glass, and even on smartphone apps it’s fast and accurate to a remarkable degree. But that’s the thing: most people don’t use it on smartphones
Tomi Engdahl says:
CES 2014 to Spark Android vs. iOS In-Car Battle
Google to announce industry consortium connecting phones with cars
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1320430&
The Android vs. iOS apps battle is coming to the automotive industry in 2014.
The fireworks are about to begin between the two software giants, as the automobile platform is becoming the next big thing for app developers traditionally engaged in designing software for mobile phones.
Google will come to Las Vegas next month at the International Consumer Electronics Show, ready to roll out the company’s response to Apple’s iOS in the Car.
In addition to Android in the Car, the announcement will involve the formation of an industry consortium and the adoption of communication standards, EE Times has learned. Google’s goal, presumably, is to make it easier for developers to design apps for cars.
After all, car OEMs aren’t exactly known for their skills in developing apps, while no app developers in their right mind would want to develop so many different versions of an app separately — for Ford, General Motors, BMW, and Toyota.
Details are still sketchy. But there is every reason for stakeholders to come together, as the in-vehicle applications have gone digital.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Vuzix’s Waveguide Smart Glasses
http://www.electronicproducts.com/Optoelectronics/Displays/Vuzix_39_s_Waveguide_Smart_Glasses.aspx
Google Glass has some competition from Vuzix in the field of wearable tech
For many years, Vuzix has been a prominent fixture in the Video Eyewear and Smart Glasses industries. It appears that Google Glass now has a competitor since Vuzix announced its new line of Waveguide optics, which promises to revolutionize the way people interface with glasses-based wearable technology. Waveguide optics has joined forces with Nokia to provide a smart version of eyewear that fits into standard eyeglass frames. The eyewear moves light within the smartglasses, being a lightweight and comfortable option for those who seek prism-based optics eyewear.
Entitled the Vuzix M2000AR HMD, these glasses offer a wide field of view for the wearer. Waveguide optics use a 1.4-mm “window” with a small input pupil that expands using a hologram in front of the eye.
There are various significant features within Vuzix’s glasses, including a 720p display and 1080p camera, an HDMI Interface, an electronic sunglasses “tint,” 30º FOV, integrated head tracking, and an integrated compass. The glasses contain 8,000 Nits of brightness.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Oppo’s CyanogenMod Phone Gets Blessed To Run Google Apps
http://mobile.slashdot.org/story/13/12/21/023202/oppos-cyanogenmod-phone-gets-blessed-to-run-google-apps
“Google has blessed Oppo N1 by passing it in their compatibility test suite. What it means is that this will be the first phone outside Google’s Open Hardware Alliance (OHA) to run Google services and apps legitimately”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Oppo N1 gets Google’s blessing, CyanogenMod phone will run Google services
http://www.muktware.com/2013/12/oppo-n1-gets-googles-blessing-cyanogenmod-phone-will-run-google-services/18059
Google has blessed Oppo N1 by passing it in their compatibility test suite. What it means is that this will be the first phone outside Google’s Open Hardware Alliance (OHA) to run Google services and apps legitimately. The phone will be available on December 24th.
It’s good news for the CyanogenMod team who just bagged another investor with additional $23 million funding.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Want access to mobe users’ location, camera, phone ID? EXPLAIN YOURSELVES – ICO
Watchdog warns app developers about data protection obligations
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/12/24/ico_warns_app_developers_about_data_protection_obligations/
Software developers should consider deploying “just-in-time notifications” to inform users about the imminent processing of personal data in mobile applications (apps), the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has said.
The UK’s data protection watchdog said that the pop-up disclosures were one way companies could explain to users how they plan to use their personal data, and could help them meet the legal standard for obtaining consent to such activity under the Data Protection Act (DPA). It said that businesses should consider whether traditional ways of presenting information about user privacy and obtaining consent are suitable for the mobile environment.
“Consider just-in-time notifications, where the necessary information is provided to the user just before data processing occurs,” the ICO recommended in new guidance it has issued on privacy in mobile applications. “Notifications like this could be particularly useful when collecting more intrusive data such as GPS location, or for prompting users about features of an app that they are using for the first time.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Protect your Android device from malware
http://howto.cnet.com/8301-11310_39-57615162-285/protect-your-android-device-from-malware/
Mobile malware is on the rise and your device could be at risk. These tips could help you stay safe and keep your personal information out of the hands of cybercriminals.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Will You Take the Password Pill?
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1320503&
As smartphone and tablet makers desperately search for points of differentiation they will try to push the limits of performance on several fronts to extremes. The password pill and the display-cover display are two of the stranger extreme features on the way.
Extreme inter-connectivity is one of the more useful features that is appearing in new products. Phones will wirelessly link and sync with screens and sensors in the user’s vicinity.
For example, there is already activity to equip phones with NFC in order to transfer data by tapping the phone to a set-top box or TV. More context-aware automatic wireless linking is coming too. In addition, giant e-commerce, software, and semiconductor companies are said to be creating Wi-Fi networks to compete with cellular services.
You can also expect extreme sensor support.
Biomedical sensors have lots of potential. For example, non-invasive glucose monitoring and vein mapping is being developed by a major cell phone maker now as a way to enhance fitness and health sensing. Vein mapping is already on PCs in Japan for user ID.
Another angle on human-to-machine interaction is the password pill presented by DARPA alums now working at a major cell phone maker. Once swallowed, the pill is powered up by electrolytes in the body to create a signal making one’s entire body into an authentication token. When the user touches the phone, computer, car, or whatever, the user is thus authenticated into that system.
Prototypes of extreme screens are now available.
Several smartphone makers have clear strategies to take photography to extremes. One company already has a 40 megapixel camera on the market. Others are using detachable lenses that connect wirelessly to the phone and tablet.
On the display side, we may be moving into the overkill zone with extreme resolution. Screen makers have already demonstrated displays with twice the performance of 1080-progressive.
It’s reasonable to ask why anyone would want a small screen with higher resolution than one’s eyes can practically discern. However, the point is that this technology is already out and once something exists it is a very short journey to copycat behavior.
Extreme security on mobile platforms — the fingerprint sensor that appeared on the new iPhone 5S
Tomi Engdahl says:
Chinese hackers claim to have jailbroken the Nokia Lumia 920
http://wmpoweruser.com/chinese-hackers-claim-to-have-jailbroken-the-nokia-lumia-920/
Chinese security company Silenstd claims to have been notified of a jailbreak for the Nokia Lumia 920, and have posted the above video as proof.
The hack by POANDSOUL is apparently with the main of creating a Cydia-like app store in WP platform and not to encourage piracy, but if true this is of course an inevitable consequence.
The hack apparently works via the micro-USB port, and does not require any physical modification to the device.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Apple loses sauce, BlackBerry squashed and Microsoft, er, WinsPhones (Nokia’s)
2013… in mobile
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/12/30/mobile_year_in_review_2013/
“Microsoft has gone nowhere since Bill Gates gave up operational responsibility, and is now in long-term decline,” wrote the Telegraph’s business guru Jeremy Warner this month. “Likewise with Apple… the company has never been stronger financially, but is plainly already living on past glories.”
2013 saw no integrated set-top box and TV product – and no Apple (i)Watch, either. Apple could have exploited its design expertise and amazing brand into making a few sexy peripherals – but it didn’t even do that.
Tomi Engdahl says:
HP Makes Another Phone Call
https://www.theinformation.com/hp-makes-another-phone-call
Hewlett-Packard is entering the consumer mobile-handset market, again.
HP’s last two smartphone efforts flopped, first with its “iPaq” devices and more recently with phones made by Palm, the handset maker it acquired in 2010.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Quintic’s Chipset Is Optimized for Wearable Tech
http://www.designnews.com/document.asp?doc_id=270652&cid=nl.dn14
The advent of wearable technology brings new demands for components that can accommodate its small form factor, wireless requirements, and need for longer battery life. To that end, Quintic has launched a new chipset specifically aimed at the wearable tech market to handle power-consumption, intelligence, and other specific needs associated with these devices.
The 9020 is the first product from the company’s wearable-platform roadmap, which aims to provide specific chipsets that have better battery life, increased wireless performance, and other enhancements
“Wearable is a trend with many big customers already in the space, and more are developing new products,”
“9020 is good for any applications that have very small capacity battery (less than 100 mAh) or coin cell,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Preview of Full Year 2013 Smartphone Final Market Shares – We know a lot by now
http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2013/11/preview-of-full-year-2013-smartphone-final-market-shares-we-know-a-lot-by-now.html
So don’t we just love numbers? We are starting to see into what the full-year 2013 final smartphone market shares will look like. In the OS wars, there is no race anymore, Android won.. But for the handset brands, there were real races. We do know now that of the Top 10, there are 3 definite known ‘final’ rankings, and three races for the other seven slots. This is what it looks like:
We know who won 2013. That be Sammy the Samster Samsung. We know who came in second, that is the smartphone of the i-variety, by a fruit-maker company called Apple.
Third place is contested by four, count them four, Asian brands. Huawei, Lenovo, LG and ZTE are in a tight race for that coveted third-largest smartphone maker in the world, title.
As to the loser brackets.. There is a race between the oldest and youngest of this group. Nokia the inventor of the smartphone has tumbled. It was tied for 4th last year, led this industry from its inception and well into 2011. Nokia is now fighting for 8th ranking. It cannot finish out of the Top 10, in fact Nokia cannot finish lower than 9th.
And then there is the fight for who falls out of the Top 10.
Thats the brands. On the operating systems, Android won. iOS came second. Windows Phone is far far down in third in low single digits, and Blackberry OS is fourth. The other OS brands combined do not amount to 1% of all smartphones sold in 2013.