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:
New Smartphone Tech To Alert Pedestrians: ‘You Are About To Be Hit By a Car’
http://mobile.slashdot.org/story/13/09/04/2116213/new-smartphone-tech-to-alert-pedestrians-you-are-about-to-be-hit-by-a-car
“Usually, smartphones are a problem for humans transporting themselves — a massive distraction. But Honda is working on a way to use smartphones to protect pedestrians from bad drivers. The ‘V2P’ (Vehicle-to-Pedestrian) tech uses a smartphone’s GPS and dedicated short range communications (DSRC) to warn drivers when a pedestrian say, steps out from behind a parked car. So the driver sees a dashboard message warning of an approaching pedestrian”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mobile Management Spurs Power Shift in the Enterprise
http://www.cio.com/article/738935/Mobile_Management_Spurs_Power_Shift_in_the_Enterprise
Who owns mobility in the enterprise? It’s not the CIO. The business side is seizing power for mobile application development and management, and software vendors are quickly adjusting to service this nontechnical target market.
Everyone from chief marketing officers to business managers to citizen developers is seizing mobile app and content controls away from the CIO in the enterprise. Mobile software vendors, too, are lining up to deliver simple-to-use tools in the cloud that cater to this new less-technical customer.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nokia to set up a veteran Android manufacturer – asks people to Nokia kinds of work
Former Nokia Executive Director Thomas Zilliacus reveals that his investment company, Mobile Future Works tried a year ago to raise funds for Nokia invasion.
“The plan was not successful, but the Tuesday evening announcement opens another interesting opportunity,” Zilliacus says, referring to the decision to sell Nokia mobile phones to Microsoft.
Zilliacus investment company, Mobile Future Works was founded on Tuesday, a new company called Newkia Singapore.
According to him, Newkia plans to offer “the best specialists in the industry,” the opportunity to build a new global mobile industry company. Newkia focus, however, completely dominating the market, but mobile Android.
Newkian plan is to keep the number of operations in Finland, which also has a significant amount of know-how. At the same time the company intends to invest in those parts of the world where business is growing: in particular in Asia.
Thomas Zilliacus will now begin to collect funds for the company. He wants to start a business Newkian end of the year.
“Nokia’s people have incredible skills and know-how. The decision to select the Windows operating system is the only chained them, “Zilliacus sees.
Source: http://www.tietoviikko.fi/kaikki_uutiset/nokiaveteraani+perustaa+androidvalmistajan++kosii+nokialaisia+toihin/a927726
Tomi says:
Moment for smart watch?
Will smart watch become as a revolutionary device like a smart phone at the time? Two manufacturers unveiled its own device at the same time in different parts of the world.
The Korean technology company Samsung has introduced the Galaxy Gear: huge wrist watch like device to make calls, send messages, surf the web or take photos.
At the same time, the U.S. chip maker Qualcomm has announced its smart watch Toq. It is based on Qualcomm’s own operating system and boasts of the screen, which should be clearly visible even in bright daylight.
Sony Japan has announced the release of a new version of it’s Smart Watch.
In addition, Apple and Google are told to think about smart watches.
An entirely different matter is that users get excited about smart watch.
IT research company Gartner director Angela McIntyre says that the key in smart watch is appearance. Another challenge is to get youth to wear watch again (now they check time from smart phone).
Samsung’s unit price exclusive of moving at about 230 euros.
Qualcomm’s device is more expensive than Samsung’s.
Sony smart watch costs around 150 euros.
Source: http://yle.fi/uutiset/joko_alykellon_hetki_lyo/6817014
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sorry, the Future of Computing Is Not on Your Wrist
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/09/computings-future-is-not-on-your-wrist.html?mid=twitter_nymag
I wanted to defend Samsung’s new smartwatch, the Galaxy Gear. When I saw it announced yesterday, my initial instinct was to start trumpeting: Yes! Brilliant! Innovation!
Maybe I reacted that way because there is no category of technological devices more universally mocked by professional gadget reviewers than the computerized watch, and their universal derision attracted my inner contrarian.
Still, I couldn’t rationalize a defense of the Samsung smartwatch for one giant, insurmountable reason. Namely: The wrist is a terrible place for a computer.
Some of the problem with wrist-based computing is related to the small size of the canvas.
But screen size isn’t the ultimate limiting factor for smartwatches. A bigger hurdle is that the concept of an interactive wristwatch is fundamentally unappealing.
As Matt Buchanan notes, wristwatches have always been passive display devices — you glance at them to see what time it is, but (unless you’re setting an alarm or using a stopwatch function) you rarely have to do anything to it to make a watch work. Passivity is also how fitness bands like the Jawbone Up and the Nike Fuelband work.
Smartwatches like Samsung’s, on the other hand, are both displays and input devices, and require active participation during use — button-pressing, swiping, pinching, expanding. They’re used just like phones or tablets. And it’s not clear that the payoff is worth giving up the screen size and fuller function sets of larger devices.
The wristwatch was an artifact from a time when clocks were more scarce, and having one on your wrist could mean the difference between making your train to work and missing it.
Now, of course, the date and time are everywhere. They’re on our computer monitors, our smartphone lock screens, the crawling tickers on TV. If you’re reading this right now, you have one clock within a foot of you, and probably more.
Yes, you can disrupt the wristwatch — putting a new spin on a 100-year-old technology. You could also disrupt the quill pen. But why?
Tomi Engdahl says:
Broadcom Buys Renesas’ LTE Assets – IP, SoC & Engineers
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1319399&
Broadcom Corp. surprised many in the mobile industry Wednesday (Sept. 4) by announcing a definitive agreement to acquire LTE-related assets from Renesas Mobile.
With the new acquisition deal, Broadcom, which has shipped no LTE products to date, will suddenly own a dual-core LTE SoC, developed by Renesas Mobile, ready for volume production and certified by leading global operators in North America, Japan, and Europe.
Along with Renesas Mobile’s high-quality multimode, multiband, LTE-A/HSPA+/EDGE modem IP, the Irvine, Calif.-based company also inherits 1,200 employees — mostly engineers — from Renesas Mobile Europe and Renesas Mobile India.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Qualcomm Leads Smartphone Apps Processor Ranking – Again
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1319408&
According to market research firm Strategy Analytics, Qualcomm was the top multicore smartphone application processor vendor in the first half of 2013, with 43 percent market share. This is the same market share percentage the company had in the smartphone application processor market for the whole of 2012, when it was also ranked top.
In the ranking of multicore application processor vendors for smartphones in the first half of 2013, Qualcomm is followed by Apple, Samsung, MediaTek, and ST-Ericsson in order of reducing market share. The top five vendors of smartphone application processors in 2012 were Qualcomm, Apple, Samsung, MediaTek, and Broadcom.
Multi-core chip penetration in smartphones increased to 66 percent in the first half of 2013, up from almost zero in 2010 and about 50 percent in 2012. The penetration of multicore processors in smartphones continues to rise, and by the end of 2013, is likely to be 75 percent, the firm said.
Broadcom, Intel, Marvell, and Spreadtrum started shipping multicore application processors for smartphones in 2013′s first quarter, and Strategy Analytics expects to see them all ramp volumes. HiSilicon, Huawei’s in-house chip company, with its quad-core K3V2, will also be seeking design wins, the company said.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Qualcomm Toq Is Engineer-CEO’s Tick
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1319401&
Engineer-turned-chief-executive Paul Jacobs gave a frank assessment of Toq, Qualcomm’s new smart watch.
“It was my pet project for a while,” Jacobs said in a press Q&A. “When you’re the CEO it’s not like you can get into the guts of a lot of things, so it was fun for me to get into this with the engineers,” he said.
Jacobs worked on two iterations of Toq before releasing it at the Uplinq conference here as a “limited edition” product with a single planned production run of less than 100,000 units. The Bluetooth-only device is optimized to work with Android smartphones as a secondary display
Qualcomm won’t become a consumer electronics company selling to mass markets like Microsoft with its Surface tablet or XBox consoles. Nevertheless, Toq has a few serious goals.
The smart watch is meant to showcase three Qualcomm technologies: its AllJoyn messaging protocol for the Internet of Things, its WiPower LE wireless charging and its Mirasol reflective displays.
“I invested in Mirasol because I wanted a low-power display,”
Tomi says:
Amazon to offer FREE smartphone?
Bezos may become Henry Ford 2.0
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/09/06/amazon_free_smartphone/
Analysis Amazon may offer a free smartphone, as it contemplates another market to get into and sterilize. Though the strategy is a bold one, it is hardly new, and its basic idea goes back to Henry Ford.
Bezos & Co are planning to launch a free smartphone, ex-Wall Street Journal reporter Amir Efrati reported on Friday, and hope to offer it directly to consumers.
The Android-based phone’s pricing [Or lack of same—Ed.]
it has crushed the competition: price far enough below your competitors to bring in punters, own as much of the device and distribution chain as possible, sit back and wait while other companies whither away, and all the time make as little profit as possible to fund your relentless expansion.
As long as the shareholders keep buying your stock, the strategy is as potent as a nuclear bomb – and just as dangerous to market incumbents.
But because Bezos also owns a content distribution platform far, far larger than Google’s “Play” store, the zero-dollar phone has a better prospect of earning back the $200-odd dollars its bill of materials is likely to add up to.
It’s a strategy that goes all the way back to Henry Ford, who used a combination of good wages for employees and careful pricing of the first automobiles to make cars available to as many people as possible.
Tomi says:
Want the latest Android version? Good luck with that
With 4.4 on the way, 4.3 is practically a no-show
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/09/06/september_android_stats/
The latest stats from Google show that Android “Jelly Bean” continues to gain ground as the most popular version of the platform, but the very latest releases of Google’s smartphone OS continue to face slow adoption.
Jelly Bean is a bit unusual as Android codenames go, because Android versions 4.1, 4.2, and 4.3 all bear that moniker. Other point-releases have all been given separate codenames.
Based on figures compiled during a seven-day period ending September 4, 2013, 36.6 per cent of all Android devices in active use are now running some patch level of version 4.1. But only 8.5 per cent of devices are running the more recent version of Jelly Bean, Android 4.2, which started shipping in November 2012.
Android 4.3 has been released since then, but only for a very limited number of devices.
less than 0.1 per cent of customers have it.
That doesn’t bode well for customers hoping to upgrade to Android 4.4 “KitKat”, which hasn’t been released yet but was announced on Tuesday.
As has always been the case, slow adoption of the latest Android version is largely the fault of carriers and device makers.
That sluggish uptake of new Android releases has resulted in a persistent fragmentation problem for the platform. While 45.1 per cent of Android devices are running Jelly Bean, 21.7 per cent are running Android 4.0 “Ice Cream Sandwich”, and a disappointing 30.7 per cent are still on Android 2.3 “Gingerbread”, a version that was last updated in 2011.
Tomi says:
Exclusive: Amazon Wants To Offer Its Smartphone for Free. Who Will Follow?
http://jessicalessin.com/2013/09/06/exclusive-amazon-wants-to-offer-its-smartphone-for-free-who-will-follow/
Which technology giant will be the first to offer a free smartphone? Amazon.com Inc. is making a play.
In a previously unreported move, the online retailer and Kindle maker is considering introducing its long-planned smartphone for free to consumers, according to people familiar with Amazon’s effort.
There are many unanswered questions about the plan and what strings will be attached for customers.
One person familiar with the effort said the company has talked to wireless carriers about offering its phones, though it is expected to offer them directly to consumers through its website. A launch date also is unclear.
The pricing strategy is a big departure from the strategies of incumbents like Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co., whose new flagship phones retail at around $200 with wireless contracts in the U.S. Those companies also offer some older high-end models for free or for just $1, with contracts.
The free strategy isn’t set in stone and depends on several factors, including Amazon’s ability to work out financial arrangements with hardware partners
It is also shows that Apple’s worst nightmare may be coming true: prices could fall not just for cheap phones in developing markets but higher-end ones too.
Indeed, for years, Apple and Samsung have been packing their flagship phones with more bells and whistles in order to justify premium prices. And they have been pretty successful. In the past five years, the average price a consumer paid for smartphone that is not subsidized by a wireless carrier dropped just 20% to $343 from $430, according to IDC.
But the game is changing. New smartphone entrants Amazon and Google generate revenue primarily through e-commerce sales and online advertising, respectively. As such, they are more willing than their competitors to sacrifice profit for market share.
Amazon has been working on a smartphone for at least two years, according to media reports dating back that far.
Don’t expect Apple to start offering free phones anytime soon. The company generates 51% of its revenue from iPhone sales.
Google also is trying to cut smartphone prices and is considering a number of ways to do so.
With its plans to acquire Nokia’s handset business, Microsoft’s mobile strategy is getting a reboot. But what Microsoft has done with its existing partnership with Nokia to date might provide some hints of the strategy ahead.
After Microsoft closes the Nokia acquisition, it will put significant marketing resources behind Nokia to boost sales
Samsung
The global leader in smartphone sales has never ignored the lower end of the market, hence its strong position. It has numerous Android smartphones that are priced below $150 without a contract
China-based hardware makers have been undercutting Samsung and gaining some market share with phones that cost $130 or less. But some of these companies, including Huawei and ZTE, are trying to expand into higher-priced devices.
Tomi says:
Why cards are the future of the web
http://insideintercom.io/why-cards-are-the-future-of-the-web/
Cards are fast becoming the best design pattern for mobile devices.
We are currently witnessing a re-architecture of the web, away from pages and destinations, towards completely personalised experiences built on an aggregation of many individual pieces of content. Content being broken down into individual components and re-aggregated is the result of the rise of mobile technologies, billions of screens of all shapes and sizes, and unprecedented access to data from all kinds of sources through APIs and SDKs. This is driving the web away from many pages of content linked together, towards individual pieces of content aggregated together into one experience.
Twitter is moving to cards
Google is moving to cards
Everyone is moving to cards
Cards give bursts of information
Cards can be manipulated.
Cards are the new creative canvas
It’s already clear that product and interaction designers will heavily use cards. I think the same is true for marketers and creatives in advertising. As social media continues to rise, and continues to fragment into many services, taking up more and more of our time, marketing dollars will inevitably follow. The consistent thread through these services, the predominant canvas for creativity, will be card based. Content consumption on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, Line, you name it, is all built on the card design metaphor.
I think there is no getting away from it. Cards are the next big thing in design and the creative arts. To me that’s incredibly exciting.
Tomi says:
The REAL winner of Microsoft’s Nokia buy: GOOGLE
Beancounters at IDC: Windows Phone is an excellent platform for… YouTube
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/09/06/microsoft_nokia_google_money_machine/
Nokia might well boost Microsoft’s smartphone market share, but it won’t derail Android on mobile or thwart Google’s search and ads money machine.
Separate surveys say Nokia will consolidate Microsoft’s third-place status in smartphones while Google, helped by YouTube, will continue to dominate the cash haul from net searches and ads that are served up to mobes running, among other things, Windows Phone.
Beancounters at IDC expect Windows Phone to have 10.2 per cent of the market by 2017, up from 3.9 per cent in Q2. That’ll place its mobile platform behind Android and Apple’s iOS.
One avenue for the sales and marketing people in Redmond will be to consider more low-cost smartphones for use in emerging markets, IDC said.
Nokia is responsible for more than 80 per cent of Windows Phones sold, with Samsung, LG and Huawei a long way behind.
Around half of ads money will go to Google in 2013 and in the near future, according to a separate report by eMarketer.
The analyst predicted 48.2 per cent of all US mobile ad dollars would flow Mountain View’s way this year going to 50 per cent by 2015. The closest rival to Google is Facebook, on 15.3 per cent now but dropping to 13.1 per cent in two years’ time.
Mobile is growing in importance as a percentage of Google’s revenue stream. Nearly a fifth, 19.1 per cent, of Google’s ads revenue will come from mobile search in 2013 – up from 12.3 per cent last year – but rising to 31 per cent by 2015, says eMarketer.
Display ads on YouTube are proving lucrative, too. Money from mobile display ads will hit 3.8 per cent of Google’s net US ad revenue this year compared to 13.8 per cent for desktop display ads. This will change to 9.4 per cent and 16.6 per cent respectively in two years’ time.
“While search drives much of Google’s mobile monetisation, on the display side YouTube is a major reason more mobile dollars are going to Google,”
Tomi says:
Fire in China Memory Chip Plant Could Slow PC and Phone Shipments
http://allthingsd.com/20130906/fire-in-china-memory-chip-plant-could-slow-pc-and-phone-shipments/
If you were planning on maybe upgrading the memory on your desktop or notebook PC, or servers, you might want to get it done quickly or wait for a while.
A fire at a plant in China owned by Korea’s SK Hynix is likely to cause a disruption in the world’s supply of memory chips. The plant in Wuxi, China, is said to be responsible for as much as 10 percent of the world’s supply of DRAM chips, and about half of SK Hynix’s production capability.
DRAMexchange, a research firm that tracks the ebb and flow of the memory chip market, estimated that SK Hynix accounted for about 30 percent of the world’s share in the second quarter of the year. The other two major suppliers are South Korea’s Samsung and Micron in the U.S.
SK Hynix is a big supplier to Apple, and its chips have been seen in the iPhone.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Privacy Scandal: NSA Can Spy on Smart Phone Data
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/privacy-scandal-nsa-can-spy-on-smart-phone-data-a-920971.html
SPIEGEL has learned from internal NSA documents that the US intelligence agency has the capability of tapping user data from the iPhone, devices using Android as well as BlackBerry, a system previously believed to be highly secure.
The documents state that it is possible for the NSA to tap most sensitive data held on these smart phones, including contact lists, SMS traffic, notes and location information about where a user has been.
The documents also indicate that the NSA has set up specific working groups to deal with each operating system, with the goal of gaining secret access to the data held on the phones.
In the internal documents, experts boast about successful access to iPhone data in instances where the NSA is able to infiltrate the computer a person uses to sync their iPhone. Mini-programs, so-called “scripts,” then enable additional access to at least 38 iPhone features.
The documents suggest the intelligence specialists have also had similar success in hacking into BlackBerrys.
The documents also state that the NSA has succeeded in accessing the BlackBerry mail system, which is known to be very secure. This could mark a huge setback for the company, which has always claimed that its mail system is uncrackable.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Amazon says it won’t launch a phone this year, and it won’t be free
http://www.theverge.com/2013/9/8/4708754/amazon-says-it-wont-launch-a-phone-this-year-and-it-wont-be-free
Responding to an earlier post on reporter Jessica Lessin’s website, Amazon is now telling Lessin’s team that it won’t be selling its own smartphone in 2013 — and if it does decide to eventually launch one, it won’t be free.
Tomi Engdahl says:
A fire at a factory in China could make all your gadgets more expensive this year
http://qz.com/121893/a-fire-at-a-factory-in-china-could-make-all-your-gadgets-more-expensive-this-year/
Everything from smartphones to laptops to tablets could get a little more costly due to a fire this week at a Korean firm’s factory in Wuxi, China, where a substantial portion of the world’s memory chips are made. The Sept. 4 inferno at SK Hynix’s fabrication facility sent the price of benchmark 2-gigabyte Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM) up 19% to a three-year high.
High demand from Chinese tablet and smartphone manufacturers has already caused a spike in DRAM prices this year, with prices nearly doubling from November to May. The cost of the industry standard 2-gigabit DRAM jumped 30 cents to $1.90 the day after the fire, and rose another $.10 to $2.00 on Friday.
Market research firm TrendForce said it would take half a year for SK Hynix to rebuild, leading to higher prices throughout the fourth quarter. The firm’s customers include Apple, Lenovo, Dell and Sony
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hynix says fire did not cripple China chip-making plant
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/04/us-hynix-suspension-idUSBRE9830SP20130904
the South Korean chipmaker said on Wednesday, adding that a fire at the facility caused one minor injury but did not cripple critical equipment.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Opera Launches Coast, A Slick New WebKit-Based iPad Browser
http://techcrunch.com/2013/09/09/opera-launches-coast-its-new-webkit-based-ipad-browser/
About a year and a half ago, a small team at Opera started working on a new browser for tablets and today, it is launching the result of this project: Opera Coast, a new, almost chrome-less browser for the iPad.
As Huib Kleinhout, the head of the Coast project at Opera told me last week, the new web-browsing app was born out of the frustration that browsers really haven’t changed all that much since the days of Mosaic, even though the devices we browse the web with have changed quite a bit.
Kleinhout believes, browsers also need to change and Coast is Opera’s first attempt at building a new tablet-optimized browser.
“People don’t use the browser as a power tool,” Kleinhout said about how people use browsers on their tablets. The idea behind Coast is to remove most of the complexities – and often unnecessary user interface elements – of today’s browsers. “On a tablet, browsers felt outdated, and that bothered me,”
Coast features almost no user interface elements except for a “home” button at the bottom of the screen and a smaller button in the bottom right corner to show you the sites you recently visited. Virtually all of the interaction with the browser happens through gestures.
Instead of regular bookmarks, Coast uses its own iOS-like homescreen with large icons for your most-visited sites.
Talking about the philosophy behind this very sparse design, Kleinhout noted that it shouldn’t be the browser’s job to show share buttons, for example (a thinly veiled swipe at some of Mozilla’s latest projects). Instead, the sites themselves should determine how users interact with them.
Unlike Opera Mini and the company’s earliest attempts at launching iOS browsers, Coast does not use Opera’s server-side rendering service and relies on Apple’s own built-in rendering engine instead.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Apple’s Latest iPhone Puts Focus Back on Fingerprint Security
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323864604579065440953246958.html
Apple Inc.’s latest product launch could breathe new life into a technology that failed to take hold the first time: fingerprint scanners.
Placing a finger on a computer or smartphone has long been proposed as a way to avoid the need for passwords to authenticate users of computers and other devices. People familiar with the matter said last week that Apple will include a fingerprint scanner on the more expensive of two iPhones it is expected to unveil Tuesday at an event at its Cupertino, Calif., headquarters.
Because of Apple’s influence, other companies are likely to follow
Tomi Engdahl says:
iPhone 5S, iPhone 5C, and wildcards for tomorrow’s Apple event
http://9to5mac.com/2013/09/09/roundup-the-iphone-5s-iphone-5c-and-wildcards-for-tomorrows-apple-event/
Tomi Engdahl says:
iSpy: How the NSA Accesses Smartphone Data
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/how-the-nsa-spies-on-smartphones-including-the-blackberry-a-921161.html
The US intelligence agency NSA has been taking advantage of the smartphone boom. It has developed the ability to hack into iPhones, android devices and even the BlackBerry, previously believed to be particularly secure.
A salesman approached and raved about the iPhone, saying that there were already “400,000 apps” for the device. Hayden, amused, turned to his wife and quietly asked: “This kid doesn’t know who I am, does he? Four-hundred-thousand apps means 400,000 possibilities for attacks.”
US intelligence service doesn’t just bug embassies and access data from undersea cables to gain information. The NSA is also extremely interested in that new form of communication which has experienced such breathtaking success in recent years: smartphones.
In Germany, more than 50 percent of all mobile phone users now possess a smartphone; in the UK, the share is two-thirds. About 130 million people in the US have such a device. The mini-computers have become personal communication centers, digital assistants and life coaches, and they often know more about their users than most users suspect.
For an agency like the NSA, the data storage units are a goldmine, combining in a single device almost all the information that would interest an intelligence agency: social contacts, details about the user’s behavior and location, interests (through search terms, for example), photos and sometimes credit card numbers and passwords.
Smartphones, in short, are a wonderful technical innovation, but also a terrific opportunity to spy on people, opening doors that even such a powerful organization as the NSA couldn’t look behind until now.
The NSA tackled the issue at the same speed with which the devices changed user behavior. According to the documents, it set up task forces for the leading smartphone manufacturers and operating systems. Specialized teams began intensively studying Apple’s iPhone and its iOS operating system, as well as Google’s Android mobile operating system. Another team worked on ways to attack BlackBerry
The material contains no indications of large-scale spying on smartphone users, and yet the documents leave no doubt that if the intelligence service defines a smartphone as a target, it will find a way to gain access to its information.
In exploiting the smartphone, the intelligence agency takes advantage of the carefree approach many users take to the device. According to one NSA presentation, smartphone users demonstrate “nomophobia,” or “no mobile phobia.” The only thing many users worry about is losing reception. A detailed NSA presentation titled, “Does your target have a smartphone?” shows how extensive the surveillance methods against users of Apple’s popular iPhone already are.
In three consecutive transparencies, the authors of the presentation draw a comparison with “1984,” George Orwell’s classic novel about a surveillance state, revealing the agency’s current view of smartphones and their users. “Who knew in 1984 that this would be Big Brother …” the authors ask, in reference to a photo of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs
The NSA analysts are especially enthusiastic about the geolocation data stored in smartphones and many of their apps, data that enables them to determine a user’s whereabouts at a given time.
The internal documents indicate that this was not the only success against Blackberry, a company that markets its devices as being surveillance-proof — and one that has recently lost substantial market share due to strategic mistakes, as the NSA also notes with interest.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Japanese car manufacturer Nissan has announced its smart watch. It guards the truck and the driver’s activities.
Nissan Nismo smart watch measures the driver’s pulse, temperature and other biometric data. It also shows the status of the car telling him, among other things, the average speed and fuel consumption. Nissan can also send text messages to individual Nismo users, reported on the BBC .
Frankfurt Motor Show published smart watch is connected to your car computer.
Source: http://www.tietokone.fi/artikkeli/uutiset/yhteinen_alykello_autolle_ja_kuskille
Tomi Engdahl says:
Is Twitter revealing your location without your permission?
http://www.electronicproducts.com/Computer_Peripherals/Communication_Peripherals/Is_Twitter_revealing_your_location_without_your_permission.aspx
Social media has become a part of everyday life. If you have a Facebook or Twitter account, you’re probably even familiar with posts that show a friend’s exact location.
As you may suspect, this can be very dangerous since it allows others to know exactly where you are at all times. So you can opt to turn off your geotagging settings, but what happens when your social media sites can access your location, even if you don’t offer it up.
To deal with this issue, a University of Southern California (USC) researcher has created an application that lets you test your own location footprint.
In his one week sampling period, he found that about 20% of the tweets actually showed a user’s location so accurately that you could locate their exact street or even better.
A lot of users gave their location willingly by using their GPS function.
“The downside is that mining this kind of information can also provide opportunities for criminal misuse of data,” said Weidemann.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Intel CEO announces 14-nanometer processors, predicts sub-$100 tablets
http://venturebeat.com/2013/09/10/intel-ceo-announces-14-nanometer-processors-predicts-sub-100-tablets/
Intel chief executive Brian Krzanich showed off a laptop running on a 14-nanometer Intel system-on-a-chip processor today. During his keynote at the Intel Developer Forum, Krzanich also predicted that there will be tablets with Intel chips in them that will ell for less than $100 this holiday season.
Krzanich and James are promoting Intel’s newest chips for mobile devices and addressing how Intel will break into the business in a bigger way as more of the market transitions from PCs to newer devices such as tablets and smartphones. One of the new chips is code-named Quark, Intel’s tiniest chip yet. Intel’s targeting the “Internet of things” and wearable computing with it.
The transition to mobile remains Intel’s biggest challenge and its greatest opportunity, as competitors who use ARM-based technology dominate that space.
The 14-nanometer chip is codenamed Broadwell and it will be launched for mobile devices and PCs in 2014. Intel will also offer a next-generation Atom chip, based on a code-named Airmont chip architecture, next year. That chip will be five times smaller than today’s Atom chips and have 10 times lower power.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Samsung’s Exynos 5 Octa CPUs will be able to use all eight cores at once in Q4
http://www.engadget.com/2013/09/09/samsungs-exynos-5-octa-hmp/
We’ll have to change our terminology for Samsung’s Exynos 5 Octa mobile chips now. We’ve been calling them “not-quite” eight core CPUs since they can’t actually use all eight at once, but the company’s new Heterogeneous Multi-Processing solution is going to change that. Once it’s available in Q4 it will let devices access both sides of the big.LITTLE ARM configuration simultaneously, which it claims will increase both performance and efficiency. While software threads with high priority use the “big” A15 core, lower priority tasks can run on the “small” A7 without needing to switch back and forth. Samsung isn’t the only one running this setup however, as MediaTek announced an implementation for its MT8135 back in July.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Apple introduces the iPhone 5s, launching September 20th starting at $199
http://www.engadget.com/2013/09/10/iphone-5s-announced/
Ladies and gentleman, the moment you’ve all been waiting for. As expected, this afternoon’s day-brightening news (or part of it, at least) arrived in Cupertino in the form of a brand-new handset. CEO Tim Cook took to the stage at Apple HQ to introduce the world to the iPhone 5s (lowercase “s,” mind), the second of two handsets announced today.
What the the “s” stand for? Well, inside, you’ll find a 64-bit A7 processor that features twice the number of transistors as its predecessor, clocking in at more than 1 billion, according to Schiller — the CPU and GPU, meanwhile, promise speeds twice as fast. There’s OpenGL ES 3.0 on board, but the next-gen handset still promises, thankfully, to remain compatible with the 32-bit apps of yesteryear. The 5s also rocks the new M7, which monitors motion data in real-time, with help from the accelerometer, gyroscope and compass — a feature that’ll work nicely with fitness apps like the new Nike+ Move.
And what of that ever-present issue of battery life? Apple’s promising a full 10 hours of 3G talk time and LTE browsing. The phone should also stay alive for 40 hours of music playback for all of your live Grateful Dead material and 250 hours on standby.
We know what you’re thinking: but what if somebody wants to steal my fancy new feature-filled phone? Good news, that left-field fingerprint reader folks were predicting ahead of launch is on board here. The phone features a 170-micron-thick sensor with a 500 ppi resolution built into the Home button that’ll biometrically let you into the phone. Apple calls it Touch ID, building the feature directly into the operating system.
So, when can we mere mortals actually get one? The handset is available for pre-order in three days.
Apple Announces iPhone 5s—The Most Forward-Thinking Smartphone in the World
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2013/09/10Apple-Announces-iPhone-5s-The-Most-Forward-Thinking-Smartphone-in-the-World.html
iPhone 5s Features 64-bit A7 chip, All-New 8 Megapixel iSight Camera with True Tone Flash & Introduces Touch ID Fingerprint Sensor
“iPhone 5s is the most forward-thinking smartphone in the world, delivering desktop class architecture in the palm of your hand,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “iPhone 5s sets a new standard for smartphones, packed into its beautiful and refined design are breakthrough features that really matter to people, like Touch ID, a simple and secure way to unlock your phone with just a touch of your finger.”
The all-new A7 chip in iPhone 5s brings 64-bit desktop-class architecture to a smartphone for the first time. With up to twice the CPU and graphics performance, almost everything you do on iPhone 5s is faster and better than ever, from launching apps and editing photos to playing graphic-intensive games—all while delivering great battery life.
Every iPhone 5s includes the new M7 motion coprocessor that gathers data from the accelerometer, gyroscope and compass to offload work from the A7 for improved power efficiency.
iPhone 5s comes with iOS 7, the most significant iOS update since the original iPhone, engineered to support the A7 chip’s 64-bit architecture, the new iSight camera and Touch ID fingerprint sensor. iOS 7 features a stunning new user interface
Designed specifically for iOS, iPhoto®, iMovie®, Pages®, Numbers® and Keynote® are among the most popular apps in the App Store and are now available as free downloads with the purchase of iPhone 5s.
Apple’s Touch ID Is A 500ppi Fingerprint Sensor Built Into The iPhone 5S Home Button
http://techcrunch.com/2013/09/10/apples-touch-id-a-500ppi-fingerprint-sensor-built-into-iphone-5s-home-button/
Remember those persistent rumors of a fingerprint sensor that would be baked into the iPhone 5S? Well, it’s not a rumor any longer — Apple has just confirmed that the iPhone 5S will feature a 500ppi fingerprint sensor right in the 5S’ home button.
It seemed like a puzzling addition at first, but the company just shed some light on what the sensor actually brings to the table. Users will be able to simply touch their home buttons (rather than swipe the screen) to unlock their iDevice, but more importantly, Touch ID can be used to authenticate your iTunes purchases.
Granted, the prospect of giving your fingerprint to Apple seems like a conspiracy theorist’s dream come true (though the events of the past few months make such concerns much more understandable), but Apple says that user fingerprints will be encrypted and will not be available to third parties.
Apple is hardly the first to bring a fingerprint sensor to a smartphone — Motorola Mobility baked one such sensor into the back of its 2011 flagship the Motorola Atrix, which allowed users to swipe their fingers across it to unlock the device.
iPhone Developers Won’t Get Fingerprint-Reader Authentication Option — For Now, Anyway
http://allthingsd.com/20130910/iphone-developers-wont-get-fingerprint-reader-authentication-option-for-now-anyway/
Perhaps the most surprising thing about the fingerprint reader on the iPhone 5s is the fact that it can only be used to do two things — unlock the phone and verify iTunes purchases.
Apple Senior Vice President Phil Schiller confirmed to AllThingsD that developers won’t get access to use a fingerprint as a means of authentication. He declined to comment on whether that might come in the future.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Thoughts and Observations on Today’s iPhone 5C and 5S Introduction
http://daringfireball.net/2013/09/iphone_5c_5c_event
Here’s the thing. The iPhone 5C has nothing to do with price. It probably does have something to do with manufacturing costs (which are lower for Apple), but not price. Apple’s years-long strategy hasn’t really changed. They offer three phones:
This year’s, with the latest technology.
Last years’s, starting $100 lower.
The two-year-old model, with meager storage, free on contract, $200 lower unsubsidized.
It’s just that instead of putting the year-old iPhone 5 in slot #2, they’ve created the 5C to debut in that slot. The 5C is, effectively, an iPhone 5. Same A6, same camera, same just about everything — except for the most obvious difference, its array of colorful plastic shells.
In marketing, what looks new is new.
This move is about establishing the iPhone as a two-sibling family, like how the MacBooks have both the Airs and the Pros.
Schiller repeated, almost mantra-like, that the 5S was Apple’s “most forward-thinking iPhone”. In his wrap-up, Tim Cook echoed that line. This isn’t about downplaying the 5S, but rather, I think, about establishing the 5S as the top tier in what is now a two-tier lineup. The Lexus to the 5C’s Toyota; the Banana Republic to the 5C’s Gap. (The 4S is Old Navy.) Soon enough, all iOS devices will have 64-bit CPUs, motion-tracking sub-systems, fingerprint sensors, and point-and-shoot caliber cameras. But you get those things first in the iPhone 5S.
iPhone 5S
Apple’s pitch on the 5S is remarkably simple.
First, it’s faster (seemingly way faster, far faster than the mere “S” tacked onto the end of its name would imply). They’re calling it “desktop caliber” performance, and I don’t think they’re exaggerating. Now that they’ve gone 64-bit, I’ve got to start wondering about ARM-based MacBooks in the near future.
Next, it has an intriguing “motion coprocessor”, which I think pretty much means you can use your 5S as a fitness tracker with almost no effect on your battery life.
The camera is seriously upgraded. The slow-motion video mode is simple and fun, and the burst mode for stills is terrific.
Lastly, there’s the Touch ID sensor. It’s fairly quick to train, and once trained, it is really fast, and in my brief hands-on testing, very accurate.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Apple’s Reputation for Innovation Is Now Its Greatest Liability
http://www.wired.com/business/2013/09/apple-annoucements/
A year ago, Apple seemed unstoppable. Its share price topped $700. Its cash horde eclipsed the GDP of many countries. Pundits mused about a $1 trillion market cap with a straight face.
But nowadays, Wall Street sees Apple very differently — and this morning’s much-hyped iPhone announcements from the tech giant did little to stop its year-long descent into stagnation. Apple’s gold phones, 64-bit processors, and fingerprint sensors barely budged the needle on Wall Street, as shares fell more than 2 percent from the day’s opening price of $506.20.
The great slide began last September.
Worst and most obvious of all, Apple failed to feed the insatiable consumer appetite for the new. As has been widely reported, its new iPhone announcements today mark the end of the longest gap in new hardware releases since at least the launch of the iPad.
As that clock ticked, shares fell or stayed flat.
If the market’s immediate reaction is any indication — and in the era of high-speed trading, it usually is — the iPhone 5C and 5S unveiled today still don’t go far enough. As the new phones were unveiled and tech writers cooed, investors reacted with a collective “meh.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Game over
http://www.asymco.com/2013/09/09/game-over/
In the “Race to a Billion” there is a graph showing Android reported activations and iOS cumulative unit sales alongside cumulative console sales. The contrast between mobile phone platforms and game consoles is striking, with an order of magnitude difference in consumption. The best performing console to date is the Wii with about 100 million units sold so far.
However, that is an incomplete picture of the game platform business primarily because consoles are not the entirety of the business. Mobile (but dedicated) gaming platforms have been sold for some time.
But the Nintendo 3DS, launched two years ago, was meant to kick off the eighth generation, and the PlayStation Vita was Sony’s response. Then the Wii U was also billed as the successor to the Wii. They have so far failed to re-ignite growth. One might reply that they were merely appetizers and that the main course of the next gen are the PS4 and Xbox One.
Will they create growth again? Surely not for Nintendo, but I would argue that not for Sony or Microsoft either. There might be a burst of sales at launch as the hard core gamers upgrade, but they are unlikely to recruit new gamers the way the Wii did. In other words the PS4 and Xbox One are unlikely to win against non-consumption.
That is where mobile is the clear winner. More people will hire mobile devices for their primary gaming activity. And as mobile devices get inexorably better, they will be hired for use in the setting where consoles have been king: the living room.
The implications are that Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft are beyond the point of no return in this industry. Gaming, as a business, cannot be sustained as a platform independent of a general purpose computer.
Tomi Engdahl says:
iPhone up, Windows Phone up, Android down in latest mobile marketshare numbers
http://venturebeat.com/2013/09/04/iphone-up-windows-phone-up-android-down-in-latest-mobile-marketshare-numbers/
First-time buyers are turning away from Android as Apple’s three-year-old iPhone 4 was the top model for feature-phone switchers in the last three months, according to the latest numbers from Kantar Worldpanel.
Proving once again that the U.S. smartphone market is a very, very different animal.
“Android’s decline in sales is due to its decreasing share of first-time smartphone buyers, a key consumer group in the US, as over half of the market still own a featurephone,” Kantar’s Dominic Sunnebo said.
Android, of course, has a massive global market share lead, with 80 percent of smartphone sales worldwide — especially in developing markets such as China, where Apple’s iPhone is seventh. But American buyers showed again that they still love Cupertino’s shiny white and black devices.
“Between July 2011 and July 2012, 52% of customers that bought an Android device previously owned a feature phone. Over this past year, that number has declined to 46 percent,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
The core of Apple’s problem is Tim Cook, Scoble says (interview)
http://venturebeat.com/2013/08/23/the-core-of-apples-problem-is-tim-cook-scoble-says/
Tech evangelist Robert Scoble is a lot of things to a lot of people.
The prolific blogger, tweeter, and speaker has over half a million friends on Facebook, is in a massive 4.1 million circles on Google+, and has another 350,000 followers on Twitter.
And he’s got a pretty good view of what’s happening to Apple, Google, and the entire mobile industry, an industry that’s undergoing massive change.
From slow and ugly beginnings six years ago, Android has risen to surpass Apple’s iPhone and capture 80 percent global market share. Phones have long been won by Android, but Apple’s iPad was recently still the king of the tablets, until iPad’s market share was chopped in half. And while critics argue that the high end of the market — and the only end that matters — is still Apple’s, others are saying that this is just Macs vs. PCs all over again.
All of which has led to Apple’s board finally waking up and telling CEO Tim Cook to speed up.
Scoble was once first in line for the Apple iPhone, but he’s now using Moto X and Samsung Android-based smartphones.
VentureBeat: Global iPhone share is way down. Does iPhone still matter?
Robert Scoble: The iPhone is still dramatically important. If I was doing a startup company for mobile, I would still do iPhone first. But even among San Francisco cool kids, Android is growing.
It used to be the case that Apple was the only brand for the tech passionates. Now, partly because of screen sizes, openness, and choice, Android is growing.
As long as Apple stays “up” enough, I think most people won’t switch off of Apple. But there are lots of people in the world who can’t afford Apple. The new Firefox phone is now $30 in Spain, with a subsidy. I understand why they’re selling.
VentureBeat: Cook has started to take some heat recently. Talk to me about that.
Scoble: I think he has two problems.
First, let’s be honest, Steve Jobs pushed that company hard. Really hard.
My next-door neighbor was on the first iPhone team, and he told me he almost killed himself working for Steve Jobs because he demands so much from you. He did not take substandard performance, and he would keep you up, and he would call you on a Sunday when you’re having family time … and essentially randomize your whole life.
So having the company relax a bit and sort of cruise after that’s gone is sort of understandable. Now you have to get the company back in hardcore mode, but some of the talent has left.
They’re starting up a startup, or left for Flipboard, or working for Facebook. They’ve lost some of their intellectual capital and they have to replace that and go out and recruit the new hottest kids.
But the second issue is Tim.
Tim just doesn’t hit me as a guy who’s excited about the future. Ballmer is the same way, or even worse.
He just doesn’t come across like he’s a product guy who’s trying to cut through the forest in a new way.
Steve had that innate sense of what would make an interesting product, and even when he bashed something … like he would say nobody is going to watch a video on an iPhone, he did it in a way that made you feel like he’s sort of right, the screen sort of does suck, and the battery life sort of does suck, but I do want to watch on my iPhone, and I could see how he could fix that.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Tablet Shipments to Exceed Personal Computers Amid Mobile Shift
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2013-09-11/tablets-shipments-to-exceed-personal-computers-amid-mobile-shift
Tablet-computer shipments will top personal computers for the first time in the fourth quarter, according to a new report by researcher IDC, as consumers continue to favor mobile devices over laptops and desktops.
Tablet shipments will hit 84.1 million units in the fourth quarter, compared with 83.1 million for PCs, according to data published by IDC today. The total market for Internet-connected devices of desktops, laptops, smartphones and tablets will rise 28 percent to $622.4 billion in 2013 and hit $735.1 billion by the end of 2015, the research group said.
The growth of smartphones and tablets is making up for a projected 10 percent decline in PC sales this year. The shift to mobile devices is creating new winners and losers in the technology industry. While Apple Inc. (AAPL:US), Google Inc. (GOOG:US) and Samsung Electronics Co. (005930) have benefited, stalwarts of the PC business such as Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ:US), Microsoft Corp. (MSFT:US) and Intel Corp. (INTC:US) have seen stagnating sales.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The real reasons Apple’s 64-bit A7 chip makes sense
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-57602372-94/the-real-reasons-apples-64-bit-a7-chip-makes-sense/
Don’t swallow Apple’s marketing lines that 64-bit chips magically run software faster than 32-bit relics. What the A7 in the iPhone 5S does do, though, is pave the way for Apple’s long-term future.
Apple injected a lot of marketing hyperbole into its claims about the wonders of 64-bit computing when it showed off the A7 processor at the heart of the new iPhone 5S. But there are real long-term reasons that Apple is smart to move beyond the 32-bit era in mobile computing.
The iPhone maker did indeed beat its smartphone rivals to the 64-bit era with the A7, and the processor may indeed vault over its predecessor’s performance.
There’s a reason the computer industry is shifting to 64-bit computing; the main benefit is memory capacity that can exceed 4GB. But just as we saw with 64-bit personal computers arriving over the last decade, 64-bit designs don’t automatically improve performance for most tasks. In fact, there can be drawbacks: it’s likely that 64-bit versions of programs will be bulkier than their 32-bit equivalents.
But Apple is smart to lay the foundations for 64-bit mobile computing now, for three reasons. First, large memory capacity is an academic issue in the mobile market today, but it won’t always be. Second, the 64-bit transition happens to come along with other chip changes that are useful immediately. And third, it gives Apple more flexibility to build ARM-based PCs if it chooses to embrace an alternative to Intel chips.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Apple: New iPhone Not Storing Fingerprints, Doesn’t Like Sweat
http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2013/09/11/apple-new-iphone-not-storing-fingerprints-doesnt-like-sweat/
Apple’s new iPhone 5S, which comes with a fingerprint scanner, won’t store actual images of users’ fingerprints on the device, a company spokesman confirmed Wednesday, a decision that could ease concerns from privacy hawks.
Rather, Apple’s new Touch ID system only stores “fingerprint data,” which remains encrypted within the iPhone’s processor, a company representative said Wednesday. The phone then uses the digital signature to unlock itself or make purchases in Apple’s iTunes, iBooks or App stores.
In practice, this means that even if someone cracked an iPhone’s encrypted chip, they likely wouldn’t be able to reverse engineer someone’s fingerprint.
The iPhone maker has pitched the addition of a fingerprint sensor to its flagship smartphone as a security boost for consumers. But the company also appears conscious of privacy concerns that could arise from storing biometric data on everyday electronics. Fingerprint technology is not new, but still exotic for most customers. Apple appears to want to nip some concerns in the bud.
To start with, Apple said it is not currently allowing third-party applications to use the scanner
Tomi Engdahl says:
While the Finns still mourning the loss of Nokia to Microsoft, the company’s former operations manager of the Asia-Thomas Zilliacus wants to take nokia forms of know-how Android. This is a new attempt through Newkia company.
Zilliacus idea is to hire a former Nokia of top talent and develop with them devices on the Android platform. That would be the Zilliacus have had to do with Nokia in the first place, rather than the company chose the most devastating consequences for the Windows Phone platform.
Zilliacus goal is hard, it should make the first phone on the market next year. Impossible is not a chore, because Android Exporting to a finished device platform is not a huge time-consuming chore. Instead Zilliacus idea that the market should offer something new to the project may be formed factor in the delays.
Source: http://www.etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=347:newkia-vie-nokian-androidiin&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
Modular smartphones floated by Dutch designer chap
Fixed component sizes would snap together like LEGO
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/09/12/make_the_smartphone_modular_why_not/
There isn’t a product, or even a prototype, but if it could be made to work, why not turn the smartphone into a bunch of replaceable modular components on a standard backplane?
It may or may not be feasible, but the notion gathered enough attention that the proposal page, on crowdfunding site Thunderclap.it, was hosed by visitor traffic.
The idea is attractive enough.
So Hakkens is proposing to design a componentised phone: create a backplane as the interconnect, and make everything – screen, memory, processor, camera, the lot – a pluggable and removable block on the interconnect.
Yes, you would lose the slimness that is a selling point of the modern smartphone, but he clearly hopes the upgradeability and probable longevity of Hakkens’ “Phonebloks” would make up for it.
Tomi Engdahl says:
According to Forward Concepts about fifteen companies currently produce 4g or LTE modems. Growing a 4g phone market of interest to many, but Qualcomm’s position in the market is a strikingly strong.
For example, it is frequency-ie LTE modems FFD variant of sales last year. All in all modems were sold 47 million. This was Qualcomm’s share of 86 per cent.
Only Samsung has been in the region made significant inroads and that too only in our own Galaxy smartphones, thanks. Samsung’s share of the market last year was 9 per cent. For example, last week, Broadcom, Renesas Mobile ownership has ended up listed on the market by one per cent a slice.
Broadcom has said that it would launch Renesas acquired from LTE modem available as a commercial product for early next year.
Ericsson still wants a 4g mobile phones, and expects ST-Ericsson modem could increase the market’s third soon after Qualcomm, and Samsung (but that could be unrealistic).
Source: http://www.etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=350:modeemikisa-yha-qualcommin-hallussa&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
Tablet Shipments Forecast to Top Total PC Shipments in the Fourth Quarter of 2013 and Annually by 2015, According to IDC
http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS24314413
The worldwide smart connected device market, comprised of PCs, tablets, and smartphones, is forecast to grow 27.8% year over year in 2013, slightly lower than the 30.3% growth in 2012. The growth will be driven by tablet and smartphone shipments, while the PC outlook has been lowered by 10% in 2013.
As a result, the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Smart Connected Device Tracker expects tablet shipments to surpass total PC shipments (desktop plus portable PCs) in the fourth quarter of 2013 (4Q13). PCs shipments are still expected to be greater than tablet shipments for the full year, but IDC forecasts tablet shipments will surpass total PC shipments on an annual basis by the end of 2015.
Smartphones will continue to ship in high volumes, surpassing 1.4 billion units in 2015 and accounting for 69% of all smart connected device shipments worldwide.
In terms of shipment value, the worldwide smart connected device market will again exhibit double-digit year-over-year growth of 10.6% in 2013, but this growth will gradually slow to just 3.1% in 2017. The tapering revenue forecast reflects the increasing impact of low-cost smartphones and the white box tablet market. Worldwide smart connected device value is expected to be $622.4 billion in 2013, of which $423.1 billion will come from the sub-$350 smartphone and sub-$350 tablet segments collectively.
“At a time when the smartphone and tablet markets are showing early signs of saturation, the emergence of lower-priced devices will be a game-changer,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
MTV3: Ex-nokia forms established by the Android manufacturer promises new – “does not make sense to copy only”
Former Nokia Executive Director Thomas Zilliacus has told MTV3′s 45 Minutes program he founded more Newkia-named Android smartphone the company.
He suggests that Newkialla innovation is in their hands but do not want to further shed light on what is going on.
“The competition is extremely high and, therefore, does not make sense to leave the only copy something existing, but the consumer must offer something new,” says Zilliacus MTV3.
Newkia will use the same contract manufacturers for the manufacture of smart phones already.
Nokia’s Asia director Zilliacus estimates that the company needs to tens or hundreds of millions of euros in funding to launch their activities.
He believes that a new manufacturer of financing are interested in, those same people who were willing to leave his leadership to buy Nokia a year ago.
A number of the plan was to change the Nokia smartphone operating system Android Windows Phone instead. Sufficient funding was never secured.
Last week, the set consists of a core set of Newkian Zilliacus the former kind of nokia.
“I do not have at this time the possibility of bringing their names public, but they represent the absolute top of what Nokia was found when it was the world’s leading brand,” he says MTV3.
Newkia going to get the phone ready within a year. Zilliacus assessed in the light of present knowledge of the timetable realistic.
The company plans to invest in operations in Finland, but the core team is working, probably in Asia. There’s also a market for the Zilliacus. There are currently Newkian is headquartered in Singapore.
Source: http://www.tietoviikko.fi/kaikki_uutiset/mtv3+exnokialaisen+perustama+androidvalmistaja+lupaa+uutta++quotei+ole+jarkea+pelkastaan+kopioidaquot/a929596
Tomi Engdahl says:
Made in America: a look inside Motorola’s Moto X factory
http://www.theverge.com/2013/9/11/4717796/made-in-america-a-look-inside-motorolas-moto-x-factory
An old Nokia facility has been resurrected to crank out 100,000 new smartphones per week
The Moto X is a return to form for Motorola, and it represents the first device it has produced from start to finish as a Google company. But while the Moto X is a good smartphone in its own right, half of the story is Motorola’s surprising decision to move its final assembly to the US. This, according to the company, is what enables it to offer a quick turnaround time and direct fulfillment for customized, built-to-order devices.
To accomplish this, Motorola partnered with Flextronics to refab a factory in Texas formerly used by Nokia. In a mere six months, the factory was completely updated and transformed to Motorola’s specifications, which included the hiring of 2,500 workers to make it run.
Tomi Engdahl says:
ZTE Open: This dirt-cheap smartphone is a swing and a miss
Hands-on with the $80 Firefox OS mobe
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/09/13/review_zte_open_firefox_os_phone/
Of the various open source Android challengers currently under development, the Mozilla Foundation’s Firefox OS was the first to reach the market with actual, commercially available products. The ZTE Open smartphone is one such product. Unfortunately, that’s about all it’s got going for it.
When ZTE started selling the Open via eBay in August
But the value of a product like a smartphone is in the execution, not the idea. And after fiddling around with the ZTE Open for a couple of weeks, I’m sorry to report that execution is where it strikes out.
There’s no other way to say it: the ZTE Open is a cheaply made phone.
ZTE’s Firefox OS mobe practically revels in cheapness. With an $80 list price in the US, it has to.
Its small screen helps to keep its weight down
The ZTE Open’s internals aren’t much by modern smartphone standards, either. It’s based on a single-core 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM7225A processor with Adreno 200 graphics and has just 512MB of internal storage and 256MB of RAM. Curiously, that’s less than the recommended amount of RAM to run Firefox on Android. The result is that while the UI isn’t exactly dog slow, it isn’t snappy, either.
Other than that, what’s there to say about the ZTE Open’s hardware? It has a fixed-focus, 3.1MP camera. It has a 3.5mm headphone jack. It supports HSDPA, dual-band 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1, GPS, and FM radio. It takes microSD cards up to 32GB. Stop me when you’re overwhelmed.
Not that anyone should expect much more for $80. You know you’re getting a low-end phone when you buy in. But the overall package just feels like a throwback to the early days when vendors hadn’t figured out what customers want from smartphones, and it’s bound to disappoint anyone who isn’t upgrading from an even lower-end feature phone.
Feature phone converts, particularly in the developing world, are exactly who Mozilla has in mind with Firefox OS. But even this is problematic, because the ZTE Open running Firefox OS 1.0 just isn’t going to impress anyone. It does too much to be considered a dumbphone, but for a smartphone, it’s plenty dumb.
Just navigating the UI is a pain. It’s based on a few simple touchscreen gestures, but using them is annoying because they often don’t work.
Now consider that the main ways to get your contacts into this so-called smartphone are to import them from your SIM card or enter them by hand. You can’t sync with Google, Exchange, or desktop email clients. You can supposedly sync with Facebook, but every time I tried it, Facebook gave me an “invalid application” error.
The biggest disappointment about the ZTE Open, however, was the web browser. “Now wait a minute,” you’ll say, “are you really telling me that a smartphone OS named after a web browser and built entirely around web standards is no good for browsing the web?” Sorry, but I am.
You have to hand it to Mozilla for its vision. Why download apps built for a single platform from a proprietary app store when you already have the entire, open web at your fingertips? When developers are building smartphone apps with HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript anyway, why not just skip the apps and go straight to the web?
On Firefox OS, what look like app icons are mostly just links to mobile websites.
It’s a clever approach, but it has its problems. First is that you’re overly dependent on your data connection.
Mozilla offers a Marketplace where you can download apps that store some of their HTML and other assets on your phone, so you don’t need a data connection to launch them once they’re installed. That’s as close as Firefox OS gets to what other platforms call apps. But so far, most of what I want isn’t in the Marketplace. It’s the same chicken-and-egg problem faced by every upstart smartphone platform: why build the apps when no one has the phones?
But the worst problem with browser-based apps on the ZTE Open is that the browser simply isn’t very good. In Firefox OS, everything is rendered in the browser, but the ZTE Open’s screen is just too small and UIs sometimes render strangely. Maybe that’s the fault of web designers rather than the browser or the phone itself, but it’s still annoying.
The mobile web apps that Firefox OS suggests alleviate some of the pain, but they gave the distinct impression of browsing the mobile web of a decade ago. Is it really necessary to use what look like WAP sites on a smartphone in 2013?
Game over for Firefox OS?
And that’s the thing about Mozilla building a smartphone OS based solely on web technologies: we’ve been there already, and we didn’t like it. Remember in 2007 when Steve Jobs told developers that all they needed to build apps for the iPhone was the Safari browser? They all scoffed. Just four months later, Jobs admitted Apple was working on a native app SDK, and the entire industry has been moving that direction ever since.
Smartphone technology has come a long way since those early days
Using the ZTE Open is a novelty for a while, but firing up an old Android phone you found at the back of a drawer would be, too.
As much as I support what Mozilla is trying to do conceptually, the bottom line is that working with Firefox OS was just too painful for me. It slowed me down, and the problem wasn’t a learning curve but that doing things I’m used to doing on a smartphone was just too difficult on the ZTE Open, and sometimes impossible.
Tomi Engdahl says:
SCREW YOU, APPLE: We can do a 64-bit mobe too, says Samsung
Anything you can do, we can also do right after you, Cupertino warned
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/09/13/samsung_apple_64_bit/
Samsung’s next smartphone will feature a 64-bit processor, according to co-chief executive Shin Jong-kyun: he’s keen to prove it’s not only Apple who can stuff more register bits into a chip.
Apple’s latest flagship iThing, the iPhone 5S, features a 64-bit ARMv8 processor labelled the A7. The performance boost may not be apparent, but the new package gives Cupertino bragging rights and that’s not something Samsung is willing to stand for – certainly not after all the legal wrangling between Apple and Sammy.
“Not in the shortest time,” the executive explained to the Korea Times, “but yes, our next smartphone will have 64-bit processing functionality.”
Computer-science students will know it’s not the width of one’s chip registers that matters but what one does with them.
A 32-bit Android will run on a 64-bit ARM processor, but without taking advantage of larger CPU registers and associated instructions, nor the ability to address virtual memory beyond 4GB (and physical memory beyond a ridiculous 1TB), there’d be little point beyond the associated bragging rights.
The real winner in this competition is Brit chip core designer ARM, which came up with the processor blueprints used in Apple’s 64-bit wonder.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nokia’s 41Mp Lumia 1020 ‘launches’ in UK – but hoi polloi must wait
Gazillion-pixel flagship mobe now on pre-order, shlebs party away
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/09/13/lumia_1020_launches_in_uk_but_wait_goes_on/
Nokia’s impressive 41Mp Lumia 1020 flagship may have “launched” worldwide
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mobility Brings Changing Roles for CIOs, Workers and Businesses
http://www.cio.com/article/739490/Mobility_Brings_Changing_Roles_for_CIOs_Workers_and_Businesses
Mobility in the enterprise is on the move. What’s the future look like? BYODers might have to fork out more cash, businesses must turn into mobile tech experts, and CIOs will take on a new role.
Mobility is on the verge of breaking out in the enterprise, a mega-shift wrought with great opportunities and big challenges that will forever change the face of companies, IT departments, employees and customer relationships.
For employees who bring their own devices (BYOD) to work, there’s no question mobility in the enterprise will soon hit their wallets hard. In other words, the bill for the convenience of being able to use your own smartphone for personal and work-related purposes will come due.
By 2015, most companies will adopt mandatory BYOD programs for many workers, says Bryan Taylor, research director at Gartner, speaking to some 1,000 attendees at AirWatch Connect. This means employees will have to fork out hundreds of dollars for a smartphone and maybe a tablet or PC merely as a condition of employment.
Today, many BYODers receive $40 monthly as reimbursement for their smartphones, but this amount will be reduced by 30 percent by 2016. Even worse, most employees won’t receive any reimbursement, Taylor says.
If this sounds outrageous and unprecedented, it’s not. Companies used to reimburse employees for their home Internet connection, but now it’s a rarity for a company to do so. BYOD reimbursement may go down the same path.
However, companies won’t stand to gain huge cost savings from these mandates and reimbursement savings. Gartner predicts that the typical organization will spend more than $300 per employee annually for mobile applications, security, management and support.
CIOs have been outcasts in the enterprise mobility movement.
This has led to an explosion of shadow mobile IT throughout an organization. There’s no question IT is losing control of its own infrastructure.
For CIOs, though, the good news is that companies are starting to realize that their mobility strategy is too important to be left to a grassroots movement with tech-neophyte decision makers often swayed by a slick PowerPoint presentation from a tech vendor.
“The mobile trend is unstoppable,” Borg says. “An organization can’t afford for the CIO’s role to be sidelined.”
Salesforce.com CIO Ross Meyercord has a message for his peers: “You’re in the software business now.”
Let’s say your company makes toothbrushes, Meyercord says, the future toothbrush might have embedded sensors that track how someone brushes his molars. Thanks to your company’s mobile software and cloud services, this information will go back to the research and development team and perhaps even to the customer’s dentist.
This kind of thinking puts practically everyone in the mobile tech game.
“Every touchpoint has a use case for mobility, and that wasn’t true five years ago,” Rodgers says.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Medical Device Manufacturers, Be Prepared to Innovate
http://www.designnews.com/document.asp?doc_id=267640&cid=nl.dn14
The trend toward “bio-connectivity” is gaining momentum, and medical device manufacturers need to be ready to bring that connectivity to next-generation products, a futurist at the Medical Design & Manufacturing Show said this week.
“The number of in-person visits to hospitals is decreasing and the number of bio-connective, virtual visits is increasing,” Jim Carroll, futurist and author, told a gathering of engineers at the show.
Today’s doctors are more likely to do patient consultations over Skype, Carroll said, adding that 40 percent of physicians are now willing to track patients via text messaging, email, and Facebook. He cited examples of such companies as Withings Inc., which makes a blood pressure monitor for use with iPhones and iPads, and MedCottage, which sells one bedroom “granny pods” that can be placed in the backyards of families caring for elderly patients. The cottage incorporates cameras and sensors, enabling patients to be monitored and managed from afar.
Carroll also pointed to a growing number of diabetes management technologies that enable patients to monitor themselves at home and share their data with physicians.
Some high-level healthcare executives have gone as far as to say that the need for dedicated central facilities is changing, Carroll said. “One CEO said that the concept of a hospital as a physical place is disappearing,” he told the audience of engineers. “Eventually, it’s going to go virtual.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Samsung to expand China business
By Kim Yoo-chul
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/tech/2013/09/133_142604.html
A Samsung Electronics executive said Wednesday the firm will expand its smartphone business in China to better compete with Apple in the world’s largest smartphone market.
“Samsung understands that Apple intends to boost its mobile business in China, as well as in Japan, meaning that we should try harder in these countries,” Samsung’s mobile business chief Shin Jong-kyun said.
Apple announced that its new iPhone 5S will be driven by an ARM-based A7 processor that can process data in 64 bits, or twice the number for previous chips. The processor will be able to handle code for more demanding applications, including high-end games.
“Not in the shortest time. But yes, our next smartphones will have 64-bit processing functionality,” Shin said, adding he followed the media coverage of Apple’s new iPhone.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Why is Samsung throwing money at startups?
http://www.theverge.com/2013/9/12/4722750/samsung-accelerator-startups-software-vertical-integration
As Microsoft and Google start building phones, Samsung tries to buy some software skills
The smartphone market is increasingly made up of vertically integrated companies that create both the hardware and software for their devices. Apple was the pioneer of this model in its modern form. Google got in the game when it purchased Motorola. And Microsoft completed the trifecta when it acquired Nokia. Samsung, which has risen to become the world’s biggest smartphone manufacturer, wants to follow suit.
“The market has shifted from one where you make phones to one where you control or piggyback off an ecosystem. Samsung controls the supply chain to a greater degree than anyone else, but it has realized that it lags the leaders in software, integration, and services,” says Avi Greengart, a research director at Current Analysis. “Its thought process is simple: go where the innovation is happening, Silicon Valley and New York, and cozy up to these folks to get a better look at what it takes to build beautifully integrated apps.”
Tomi says:
Ask Hackaday: Can we do better than Phonebloks?
http://hackaday.com/2013/09/13/ask-hackaday-can-we-do-better-than-phonebloks/
the modular cell phone concept named Phonebloks. The phone’s designer states the problem as follows:
A phone only lasts a couple of years before it breaks or becomes obsolete. Although it’s often just one part which killed it we throw everything away since it’s almost impossible to repair or upgrade.
The primary objection (other than design implausibilities) should be obvious: dividing the phone into exchangeable bits does not inherently reduce waste. Those bits have to go somewhere.
Can we do better? Can we make a phone for the future that is less wasteful to produce, more easily recycled, and possibly upgradable?
Tomi says:
Behind Microsoft Deal, the Specter of a Nokia Android Phone
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/13/behind-microsoft-deal-the-specter-of-a-nokia-android-phone/?_r=0
Before Microsoft reached a deal to buy Nokia’s phone business, there was a possibility that Nokia could have switched its smartphones to Google’s Android operating system sometime after late 2014.
And now, it is clear that a Nokia Android phone was more than a possibility. It was real.
A team within Nokia had Android up and running on the company’s Lumia handsets well before Microsoft and Nokia began negotiating Microsoft’s $7.2 billion acquisition of Nokia’s mobile phone and services business, according to two people
Another person said the idea of Nokia using Android wasn’t a part of Microsoft’s discussions with the company about an acquisition, even though that was widely recognized as a possibility.
On one level, Nokia’s Android effort is not shocking. Companies often have “plan Bs” in the works in case they need to change course on strategy or want to help negotiate better terms with partners. Getting Android to run on Nokia’s hardware was not a Herculean engineering effort, according to the people familiar with the project.
Still, a functioning Nokia Android phone could have served as a powerful prop in Nokia’s dealings with Microsoft, a tangible reminder that Nokia could move away from Microsoft’s Windows Phone software and use the Android operating system, which powers more than three out of every four smartphones sold globally.