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.
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Tomi Engdahl says:
Screen grab by Google, Amazon could delay Retina iPad mini – report
Apple short on supply and cutting costs
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/10/02/screen_grab_by_google_amazon_could_delay_retina_ipad_mini_report/
Multiple sources have told Reuters that the widely-expected iPad mini with a Retina display, something fans of Apple’s teeny fondleslab have been raising their voices for, is facing a shortage of screens. This could delay the full rollout of the device until early next year, after the lucrative holiday season.
Part of the problem for Apple is that it came late to the seven-inch fondleslab party and other manufacturers like Google and Amazon have tied up production facilities for their own hardware.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Filipino phablet squawks ‘I’M STOLEN’
Calling out ‘Magnanakaws’ before they scarper
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/10/03/im_being_stolen_squawks_filipino_smartmobe/
Smartphone feature fatigue is upon us, with even the Galaxy S4′s eyeball tracker and the iPhone 5S’ fingerprint reader capable only of inducing yawns of grudging appreciation.
Enter Filipino smartmobe-maker my|phone, its new Iceberg model and a new feature called Tara, aka the “Theft Apprehension and Asset Recovery Application”
The Iceberg takes things a step further by also emitting what its manufacturer calls “a loud alarm” that repeats the word “Magnanakaw” endlessly. Magnanakaw is Tagalog for “thief” or “burglar”.
Tomi Engdahl says:
They’re (Almost) All Dirty: The State of Cheating in Android Benchmarks
by Anand Lal Shimpi & Brian Klug on October 2, 2013 12:30 PM EST
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7384/state-of-cheating-in-android-benchmarks
Looking at the table above you’ll also notice weird inconsistencies about the devices/OEMs that choose to implement the cheat/hack/festivities.
Final Words
As we mentioned back in July, all of this is wrong and really isn’t worth the minimal effort the OEMs put into even playing these games. If I ran the software group at any of these companies running the cost/benefit analysis on chasing these optimizations vs. negativity in the press it’d be an easy decision (not to mention the whole morality argument). It’s also worth pointing out that nearly almost all Android OEMs are complicit in creating this mess. We singled out Samsung for the initial investigation as they were doing something unique on the GPU front that didn’t apply to everyone else, but the CPU story (as we mentioned back in July) is a widespread problem.
The majority of our tests aren’t impacted by the optimization. Virtually all Android vendors appear to keep their own lists of applications that matter and need optimizing. The lists grow/change over time, and they don’t all overlap. With these types of situations it’s almost impossible to get any one vendor to be the first to stop. The only hope resides in those who don’t partake today, and of course with the rest of the ecosystem.
The unfortunate reality is this is all going to get a lot worse before it gets better.
The hilarious part of all of this is we’re still talking about small gains in performance. The impact on our CPU tests is 0 – 5%, and somewhere south of 10% on our GPU benchmarks as far as we can tell. I can’t stress enough that it would be far less painful for the OEMs to just stop this nonsense and instead demand better performance/power efficiency from their silicon vendors. Whether the OEMs choose to change or not however, we’ve seen how this story ends. We’re very much in the mid-1990s PC era in terms of mobile benchmarks. What follows next are application based tests and suites. Then comes the fun part of course. Intel, Qualcomm and Samsung are all involved in their own benchmarking efforts, many of which will come to light over the coming years. The problem will then quickly shift from gaming simple micro benchmarks to which “real world” tests are unfairly optimized which architectures. This should all sound very familiar. To borrow from Brian’s Galaxy Gear review (and BSG): “all this has happened before, and all of it will happen again.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
‘Instant translation’ glasses to come online for 2020 Olympics
Japan’s NTT Docomo plans 5G network 100 times faster than LTE at Tokyo’s games
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/10/03/ntt_docomo_5g_google_glass_translation/
NTT Docomo has wasted no time ramping up the excitement ahead of the Tokyo Olympic Games, in announcing a 5G network 100 times faster than LTE and augmented reality “instant translation” glasses – both of which should be ready by 2020.
Both innovations were unveiled at IT and electronics show CEATEC 2013 in Tokyo this week.
NTT Docomo is hoping to create a super-speedy network 100 times faster and 1,000 times the capacity of LTE.
There’s not much else in the way of detail, apart from the fact the firm is hoping to tap higher frequencies, given that the sub-3GHz space is getting crowded, with small cells used to boost coverage in certain areas.
Although NTT conducted a 10Gbps test back in March, it isn’t the first to announce 5G plans. Huawei already showed its hand back in August, speaking of a similarly uber-fast network, and Samsung has demonstrated 1Gbps wireless technology.
On the other front, NTT Docomo showed off its answer to Google Glass – Intelligent Glasses which can translate text on-the-fly.
A demo seen by the Beeb put translation time for the prototype at a lengthy five seconds, although improved speeds will certainly come as the technology is honed.
They could certainly be popular among tourists to Japan in 2020, although having struggled with hilariously mis-translated menus many times before abroad, those algorithms will have to be spot on for the glasses to be useful.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Samsung’s Galaxy Gear Smartwatch Shows How It Shouldn’t Be Done
Reviewers aren’t loving Samsung’s Next Big Thing.
Read more: http://techland.time.com/2013/10/01/samsung-galaxy-gear-shows-how-it-shouldnt-be-done/#ixzz2geEyus1O
Reviews of Samsung‘s Galaxy Gear smartwatch are hitting the web today, and almost all of them are negative.
This isn’t a surprise. As soon as Samsung announced its first modern smartwatch last month, the flaws in the product were clear: Battery life is weak, the charging process is inconvenient, the watch only works in tandem with a handful of Samsung devices and the $300 price tag is rather steep.
Today’s reviews pile on even more criticism, calling out the Gear’s sluggish interface, unreliable touch gestures and limitations in its small-screen apps. More importantly, it’s hard to find anyone who thinks the Galaxy Gear represents the future of smartwatches.
Tomi Engdahl says:
FAA Panel Endorses Wi-Fi as Safe
Report Suggests Lifting Restrictions on Hand-Held Devices Under 10,000 Feet
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303643304579109881458388274.html
An FAA advisory committee has concluded passengers can safely use hand-held electronic devices, including those connected to onboard Wi-Fi systems, during all portions of flights on nearly all U.S. airliners, according to one of the group’s leaders.
The committee’s report and its more than two dozen recommendations, which haven’t yet been released by the Federal Aviation Administration, go further than industry officials previously suggested in recommending lifting current restrictions on such devices under 10,000 feet.
The panel determined that no matter what applications the devices are running or what wireless-transmission mode they are in, “the vast majority” of aircraft “are going to be just fine” from a safety standpoint, according to a senior Amazon.com Inc. official who headed the group’s technical subcommittee.
Nearly all airline fleets “already have been so dramatically improved and aircraft are so resilient” to electronic interference
Only normal, ground-based cellular connections—whether used for voice or data—should remain off-limits, according to the committee’s recommendations. That isn’t due to safety concerns, but because of long-standing Federal Communications Commission rules prohibiting airborne cellular service. Those rules, in turn, stem from concerns about interfering with communications systems on the ground. Mr. Misener said the committee urged the FAA to work with the FCC to reassess those restrictions.
If the FAA follows the committee’s recommendations, fliers could potentially access email and the Internet during all phases of flight—but only through an airline’s onboard Wi-Fi system, which usually requires a fee to use, and not through their own cellular data service.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Slideshow: Wearables Warm Up San Francisco
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1319665&
A couple dozen entrepreneurs trying to leap ahead of today’s smartphone juggernaut invaded San Francisco’s Old Mint building to show their smart watches, smart glasses, and other digital accoutrements at the inaugural Glazed Conference
Tomi Engdahl says:
Auto Market Challenges Chipmakers’ Stamina
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1319666&
I don’t think I’m alone in wondering why any chip company these days would stay in the automotive electronics market.
Let’s face it. Carmakers are notorious for beating up semiconductor suppliers over pennies. They demand high-standard, “automotive quality” for every IC they procure. These chips need to last longer than cars, which means a very long product life cycle is required for every automotive chip.
Carmakers say they need innovation, and yet the typical automotive product development cycle is about five years. In most other industries, the whole world — of technology, market trends, consumer preferences, and pricing — changes within three years.
Comparing the car biz to the mobile industry, Riches pointed out that it takes more than five years to develop a new model, while the development cycle for a mobile handset is two years. A car’s lifetime is about eight years, while a smartphone lasts only 1.5 years. Perhaps, the only positive for automotive chip suppliers is that the semiconductor content in a car is higher in value. He estimates some $1,000 worth of electronics content inside a car, compared to about $130 per smartphone. But of course, the volume of global car sales totally pales when compared to mobile phones.
Cherry-picking by non-traditional players
Not included in the discussion of automotive semiconductor demand is the car infotainment market, such as the automotive wireless segment. “Wireless technologies like Bluetooth and embedded cellular are accelerating in the car business with market revenue set to rise by 41 percent from 2012 through 2018,” according to an Automotive Infotainment Market Tracker Report from information and analytics provider IHS.
This trend provides an opening to non-traditional automotive chip companies such as Broadcom, Qualcomm, and Nvidia. Speaking of the power of those “new entrants with consumer-market scale,” Riches observed, “they are potentially cherry-picking some high-growth areas.”
Qualcomm also sees its role growing in automotive chips, as embedded cellular connectivity is also finding its way into the automotive market. IHS notes that 25 percent of US cars in 2012 were sold with the feature, for the most part included as standard equipment. “OEMs will increasingly want to use embedded cellular for both safety and diagnostic purposes, because built-in wireless connectivity in cars will prove more robust and reliable than using a tethered or mobile device like a smartphone,” explained Luca De Ambroggi, senior analyst for automotive infotainment at IHS.
Strategy Analytics’ Riches counts Nvidia as one of the stronger players among the non-traditional automotive chip companies. Tesla’s ambitious goal to create an in-vehicle computing platform that rivals top-of-the-line laptop PCs is well known. Nvidia is openly courting Tesla to partner on a Tegra 3-based chipset
Tomi Engdahl says:
Elliptic Labs Launches Android SDK For Its Ultrasound-Powered Mid-Air Gesture Tech — Phones With ‘Touchless’ UI Landing In 2H 2014
http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/02/elliptic-labs-launches-android-sdk-for-its-ultrasound-powered-mid-air-gesture-tech/
Elliptic Labs, a startup founded back in 2006 which uses ultrasound technology to enable touchless, gesture-based interfaces, has finally pushed its tech into smartphones. It’s been demoing this at the CEATEC conference in Japan this week
Elliptic’s technology is able to work with any ARM-based smartphone
Gesture-based user interfaces which turn mid-air hand movements into UI commands have pushed their way into console-based gaming, thanks to Microsoft’s Kinect peripheral, and also mainstream computing via the likes of the Leap Motion device and webcam-based alternatives. Mobiles haven’t been entirely untouched by ‘touchless’ interfaces — Samsung added limited mid-air gesture support to the Galaxy S4 earlier this year, for instance (and back in 2009 the now defunct Sony Ericsson tried its hand at motion-sensitive mobile gaming) — but most current-gen smartphones don’t have the ability to respond to mid-air swiping.
That’s set to change in 2014, as Elliptic Labs is currently working with several Android OEMs that are building devices that will include support for a gesture-based interface.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Will We Accept Eye-Tracking Gadgets?
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2013/09/30/will-we-accept-eye-tracking-gadgets/?WT_mc_id=SA_DD_201310016000
It seems like biometric-enabled gadgets should be a hard sell in the post-Snowden marketplace. When Apple announced the Touch ID fingerprint sensor on the iPhone 5s, Twitter lit up with a blaze of NSA jokes. And yet Apple sold some 4 million 5s’s in the first weekend.
This is no surprise, of course. History suggests we’ll learn to accept any new and cool technology the industry throws at us, no matter how initially creepy. In all likelihood, our devices will soon read our prints and recognize our voices and irises. “The integration of biometrics in consumer electronics is really a forgone conclusion,” says Steve Koenig, director of industry analysis for the Consumer Electronics Association.
But I have a theory: If—if—consumers ever draw a line, they will do so when their gadgets start tracking their eyes.
Psychologists and other scientists have long used eye-tracking cameras for research, but the technology is just beginning to move into consumer products.
MindFlash is beta-testing FocusAssist, an eye-tracking feature that, paired with corporate-training software, can let Human Resources know whether you really paid attention to that orientation video.
Tobii Technology, a Swedish firm, is developing eye-tracking technology for use in laptops.
The new Samsung GS4 smartphone pauses videos when you look away (although this isn’t true eye-tracking technology; the phone does this by tracking your face and eyes).
Google has patented gaze-tracking technology that could allow it to charge advertisers literally by the eyeball.
But how important is it that your phone pause videos when you look away? Does the benefit outweigh the potential loss of privacy?
There is something intrinsically creepy about a device—manufactured by a multinational corporation that stands to profit by gathering intimate information about you—that continuously monitors the movements of your eyeballs.
Here’s how eye-tracking works: A diode shines near-infrared light on your eyeball, while a camera continuously takes photos of your eye. “It’s looking for two pieces of information: the shape and the orientation of the pupil, and reflectance from the cornea,” says Michael Hout, a visual cognition researcher at New Mexico State University. A processor then builds a 3D representation of your eye. “If it can figure out how much your eye is rotated, it can figure out where your eye is pointed.” Thus, it can figure out what you are paying attention to.
An eye-tracking gadget knows where you’re looking before you know yourself. It seems to have the ability to spy on the interior of your consciousness.
Tomi says:
Choose carefully – ecosystems are the digital era Iron Curtain
Smartphones and tablets become more common, the digital world is divided into the 2010s to the Cold War. In today’s iron curtain users to share different camps – moving the user between is often painfully difficult.
In today’s world of the ecosystem typically make up your smartphone or tablet that has emerged around software and services, as well as the services offered by the manufacturers mentioned above for easy sharing. Operating within the ecosystem is easy, for example, settings, and contacts are updated easily one device to another. Typically, the new device is easy to purchase, the settings and the software is updated to the new phone directly from the cloud.
The Iron Curtain to show their strength at the point when the user gets tired of the manufacturer.
If the Used by Apple’s iPhone, the interface begins to annoy, may exchange such as the Windows Phone device to be more difficult than defection from East Germany to the West three decades ago. The difficulty increases if the user has enabled the ecosystem synergies for trusting Apple on desktop and tablet.
Strict ecosystem is intended to offer the user the best possible user experience and bring to the company a competitive advantage. User of the ecosystems are in any case a double-edged sword: one from relying upon the life is easy, but on the other hand for example, the holder of the ecosystem to circumvent the restrictions imposed by the artificial software availability example, it may be difficult or even impossible.
Ecosystems limit the user’s freedom on the other angles. Aside from the time, the ecosystem also requires a money, for example, the smartphone software has to be reproduced. There is nothing to do to prevent users from taking advantage of an operating system such as Microsoft, Apple and Google’s smartphone tablets, but mixed by miss any ecosystem on full synergies.
Microsoft, Apple and Google dominate the ecosystems in a firm grip.
Manufacturers strict management failure seems unlikely. The only loom on the horizon challengers are familiar: an open ecosystem of thinking represent, for example Firefox and Ubuntu Foundation. Both manufacturers dreams of a comprehensive ecosystem of its own, however, are still quite distant.
Ecosystems reign is still a recent phenomenon. It is very interesting to see how manufacturers will develop and refine ecosystem thinking.
In the worst scenarios, migration and cross-use is projected to be adversely affected in the future, which would cause serious problems for many users. User tying is easy to understand ekoysteeminhaltijan point of view, but too tight a digital iron curtain would eventually be the overall development of the extremely detrimental.
Source: http://www.tietokone.fi/artikkeli/blogit/tekninen_analyysi/valitse_tarkasti_ekosysteemit_ovat_digiajan_rautaesirippu
Tomi Engdahl says:
Microsoft Said to Ask HTC for Windows on Android Phones
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-10-04/microsoft-said-to-ask-htc-to-put-windows-on-more-phones.html
Microsoft Corp. is talking to HTC Corp. (2498) about adding its Windows operating system to HTC’s Android-based smartphones at little or no cost, people with knowledge of the matter said, evidence of the software maker’s struggle to gain ground in the mobile market.
Terry Myerson, head of Microsoft’s operating systems unit, asked HTC last month to load Windows Phone as a second option on handsets with Google Inc. (GOOG)’s rival software, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the talks are private. Myerson discussed cutting or eliminating the license fee to make the idea more attractive, the people said. The talks are preliminary and no decision has been made, two people said.
Pushing Windows
Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft is trying to line up other new partners. Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer and other executives met with handset makers last week during a trip to Beijing, said a person with knowledge of their trip. They stressed that Microsoft wants to keep working with partners other than Nokia, and expects to be able to sign accords with some phone makers who previously have focused on Android, the person said.
The technical details have yet to be ironed out. It wasn’t clear whether an HTC phone would run Windows and Android at the same time, or let users choose a default.
Market Share
Windows held a 3.7 percent share of the smartphone operating system market in the second quarter, according to research-firm IDC. Android dominated with 79 percent, while Apple Inc. (AAPL)’s iOS was No. 2 with a 13 percent share.
HTC, once the top-selling smartphone maker in the U.S., has posted declining global sales and market share as product and marketing missteps led to gains by Samsung Electronics Co., LG Electronics Inc. and ZTE Corp.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Circa wants to be a mobile wire service for breaking news — one that learns what you know
http://gigaom.com/2013/10/03/circa-wants-to-be-a-mobile-wire-service-for-breaking-news-one-that-learns-what-you-know/
Circa, a mobile news provider co-founded by Cheezburger Network CEO Ben Huh, is launching real-time breaking news alerts — and is also working on customized news updates that could be sent to specific users based on their interests.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Apple pulls VPN app, helps censors’ job in China
US developer bemused by sudden iTunes takedown
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/10/04/apple_china_itunes_vpn_app_delete/
Apple has come under fire in China for kowtowing to Beijing, after withdrawing an app which allowed users to circumvent the Great Firewall.
OpenDoor, which markets itself as a browser and helps users circumvent local internet restrictions like a VPN, was pulled from the Chinese version of iTunes without warning in July, according to Radio Netherlands.
The app, which recently celebrated its first birthday and 800,000 downloads, apparently derived around a third of its users from the Middle Kingdom before the shutdown.
Apple’s explanation was that the app “includes content that is illegal in China”,
“Using the same definition, wouldn’t all browser apps, including Apple’s own Safari and Google’s Chrome, include illegal contents?”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Windows domination is the end – the consequences unpredictable
The so-called “Wintel axis” (Windows and Intel) was dominated by information technology for more than twenty years. Each party dominance is now eroded, and the Windows share will decline this year to a record low. This can have a profound impact on even the PC computers.
Wintel duo triumph was even a few years ago convincing. Microsoft Windows computer operating systems accounted for over 90 per cent. Apple Mac or Linux machines, devices are not just able to challenge Windows.
Intel’s dominance in the processors were similar. The company’s market share of PC CPUs moved from 80 to 90 percent of readings. AMD’s face competitors were weak.
The situation has come to a radical change in the mobile devices. Current tablets and smartphones can be calculated using a computer. They are used in exactly the same tasks as traditional machines, and even the performance difference is not dramatic.
These mobile computers sold in huge numbers, but in the Windows and Intel have not been successful. The research firm IDC, the share of Windows tablets was a paltry 4.5 percent in the spring. Market shared their Android and Apple’s iPad. Smartphones, the situation is similar. Windows market share was only 3.7 percent.
In addition, Intel has not been successful on mobile devices, especially smartphones. Market shares are calculated as a percentage, although the situation, particularly tablets are getting better and better. Mobile devices are mainly used in the ARM processors used by many different manufacturers.
Windows share “computer like devices’ operating systems dropped to a record low this year. Research firm Gartner estimates that Windows devices full-year sales of around 340 million copies. Included are pc machines in addition to Windows tablets and Windows Phone smartphones.
At the same time, the world is sold around 300 million Apple Mac, iPad, iPhone, tablets and phones. Android tablets, PCs and smart phones sales would be about 870 million units. Windows market share would fall in this way for about 22 per cent.
If we include the traditional mobile phones (more than 800 million devices), Windows share will fall to just over 14 per cent. It is in any case quite a collapse of the windows a few years ago to 90 per cent of control.
Until now, a turning point has been mainly about the rise of mobile devices. In traditional PC machines “Wintel” duo has dominated the same way as before. It seems, however, that the revolution is creeping into the PC machines.
This change is reflected first of all operating systems. Android’s massive popularity has led to the fact that the PC manufacturers to bring Android to laptop computers. In addition, Google’s Chrome OS platform using the Chromebook machines are growing in popularity.
At the same time, Apple Macs market share will increase. These trends are likely to chip away a substantial share of the Windows PC machines in the coming years.
Processors have seen a similar trend. ARM processor power is growing all the time. They may gradually gain ground in the light pc-engine processor.
Microsoft and Intel understand the situation very well. Both invest in therefore, strongly mobile products.
If companies do not succeed in changing the trend of PC makers in the coming years may be very different than it is today.
Source: http://www.tietokone.fi/artikkeli/uutiset/windowsin_ylivalta_on_loppu_seuraukset_arvaamattomia
Tomi says:
Apple Now Holds 10% of All Corporate Cash: Moody’s
http://blogs.wsj.com/cfo/2013/10/01/apple-now-holds-10-of-all-corporate-cash-moodys/
Apple Inc.’s $147 billion cash hoard now counts for nearly 10% of all corporate cash held by nonfinancial companies, according to an analysis by Moody’s.
U.S. nonfinancial companies held $1.48 trillion in cash as of June 30
Corporate cash is still concentrated in just a few hands, with the top 50 holders accounting for 62% of the total. The companies with the five largest cash holdings – Apple, Microsoft Corp., Google Inc. , Cisco Systems Inc. and Pfizer Inc. – held more than one quarter of the cash.
The technology sector had the largest amounts of cash in its coffers, holding some $515 billion, followed by the health care and pharmaceuticals industries which held $146 billion in cash.
Tomi says:
Withdrawn from use mobile devices to reveal data that the user thinks it removed. They are of interest as abusive skeptical of companies as criminals.
The use of exiting the tablet and smartphone devices involved may be leaking personal information or corporate secrets. Even the factory settings may not delete data permanently. Data recovery is used by both investigate by the police and for abuse.
“Mobile phones similar to the PC machines, so the investigation are the same”, and forensic data recovery firm Kroll Ontrack Ibas Country Manager Finland Jyri base notes.
“Our analysis shows that 90 percent of companies allow business data storage, smart phones”, such as encryption software manufacturer of Check Point Software Technologies, Country Manager Jukka Saaremaa says.
“The equipment is lost and stolen the time, and, therefore, the presumption should be that the secret information can be fitted to mobile devices.”
Of old phones has been possible to dig out information over long period, but the new equipment for the factory settings may prevent this, Jyri base notes.
“Phones and software, there are new versions, so no general can not say.”
File device-level encryption has become increasingly common, which can also prevent data from digging.
Data recovery tool is Sam Serenius a business secret.
“It is a PC-like device, with connections from different manufacturers phones. The device has been authorized. Mobile device manufacturers are not helping us in obtaining these. ”
Source: http://www.3t.fi/artikkeli/uutiset/teknologia/salaisuutesi_voivat_karata_vanhan_alypuhelimen_mukana
Tomi Engdahl says:
Teardown: Fitbit Flex
http://www.designnews.com/document.asp?doc_id=268332&cid=nl.dn14&dfpPParams=ind_184,industry_consumer,aid_268332&dfpLayout=article
The folks at iFixit
recently ripped into Fitbit’s newest pedometer/heart-rate monitor/sleep-tracker wristband. What kind of a diet helped this thing fit into its tiny jacket?
Tomi Engdahl says:
Samsung video ads pitch the Galaxy Gear smartwatch as a fictional gadget come to life
http://thenextweb.com/gadgets/2013/10/06/samsung-video-ads-pitch-the-galaxy-gear-smartwatch-as-a-fictional-gadget-come-to-life/
Samsung unveiled its Galaxy Gear smartwatch last month, which connects to its Galaxy smartphone via Bluetooth and provides much of the functionality of an Android device without needing to actually touch your phone.
Instead of hyping up the practical functions of the smartwatch though, Samsung has chosen to market its smartwatch as a gadget imagined by fiction writers years ago that it has brought to life. The first Samsung Galaxy Gear ads are up on YouTube — and they’re pretty cool.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Samsung Galaxy Gear review: A $299 smartwatch that can’t send an email…but I hated taking it off
http://thenextweb.com/gadgets/2013/10/01/samsung-galaxy-gear-review-a-299-smartwatch-that-cant-send-an-emailbut-i-hated-taking-it-off/
Samsung’s Galaxy Gear smartwatch isn’t the first to hit the market by any means and there are certainly plenty more coming up via the crowdfunding route, but the Gear is one of the first smartwatches we’ve seen from a big name in the mobile market.
As such, expectations for the companion device are pretty high and it will need to impress if Samsung intends to sell large numbers of the Gear at its $299/£299 price tag.
Worth the cash?
Whether or not the Galaxy Gear is worth the $300 asking price is a tough one to answer. For the things it is billed as, it comes up short in several areas.
What it does provide is convenience and the option of being able to receive text messages, emails and calls on your wrist – and that’s not to be sniffed at if you’ve left your phone charging in the next room. There’s also a ‘find my phone’ option if you forget exactly which room you’ve left it charging in. While S Voice is hit and miss for sending text messages or instigating calls (particularly in noisy environments), it came in handy on a number of occasion when I needed to quickly add a quick reminder to my calendar or set a countdown timer.
It’s this convenience, combined with things like having a camera always at the ready, that will dictate whether or not the Gear is a worthwhile purchase for you.
However, omitting the ability to send emails and restricting the Gear’s usefulness by having a relatively short battery life will likely limit the adoption of the Gear. Perhaps when more devices are supported and the price falls a little it could find a wider audience, but right now, it feels like a product for early adopters only.
Whether or not the Gear will ultimately be a success remains to be seen, but I’m thoroughly convinced that wearable technology is here to stay. For all its failings, I was disappointed every time I had to take the Galaxy Gear off, so having that level of convenience is clearly something you can get used to.
Tomi Engdahl says:
BlackBerry hit by shareholder lawsuit claiming company misled investors
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/oct/05/blackberry-shareholder-lawsuit-investors
Class action lawsuit seeks to represent thousands of shareholders who purchased Blackberry stock in the past year
Tomi Engdahl says:
Leaked Manual Reveals Details On Google’s Nexus 5
http://mobile.slashdot.org/story/13/10/07/0453248/leaked-manual-reveals-details-on-googles-nexus-5
“Features of Google’s next Nexus phone have finally been outed, along with confirmation that the phone will be built by LG, as a result of a leaked service manual draft”
“The new Nexus will likely be available in 16 or 32GB variants, and will feature an LTE radio and an 8-megapixel rear camera with optical image stabilization”
“Just as that device was built from the foundation laid by the LG Optimus G, the Nexus 5 (or whatever it’s going to be called) seems like a mildly revamped version of LG’s G2.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mobile Malware, High-Risk Apps Hit 1M Mark
http://blog.trendmicro.com/trendlabs-security-intelligence/mobile-malware-high-risk-apps-hit-1m-mark/
With three months to spare before the year ends, our prediction that mobile threats, specifically malware and high-risk apps reaching the 1 million mark has finally come true.
In our 2Q Security Roundup for the year, we noted that more than 700 thousand malicious and risky apps were found in the wild. This impressive number plus the continuous popularity of the platform among users lead us to predict that 2013 would be the year when Android malware reaches 1 million.
Our Mobile App Reputation data indicates that there are now 1 million mobile malware (such as premium service abusers) and high-risk apps (apps that aggressively serve ads that lead to dubious sites). Among the 1 million questionable apps we found, 75% perform outright malicious routines, while 25% exhibits dubious routines, which include adware.
The threat to mobile devices, however, is not limited rogue versions of popular apps and adware. Threat actors are also pouncing on mobile users’ banking transactions, with the likes of FAKEBANK and FAKETOKEN malware threatening users
Tomi Engdahl says:
And Then Steve Said, ‘Let There Be an iPhone’
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/06/magazine/and-then-steve-said-let-there-be-an-iphone.html?hp&_r=1&pagewanted=all&
Grignon had been part of the iPhone rehearsal team at Apple and later at the presentation site in San Francisco’s Moscone Center. He had rarely seen Jobs make it all the way through his 90-minute show without a glitch. Jobs had been practicing for five days, yet even on the last day of rehearsals the iPhone was still randomly dropping calls, losing its Internet connection, freezing or simply shutting down.
‘You are [expletive] up my company,’ or, ‘If we fail, it will be because of you.’
The preparations were top-secret. From Thursday through the end of the following week, Apple completely took over Moscone. Backstage, it built an eight-by-eight-foot electronics lab to house and test the iPhones. Next to that it built a greenroom with a sofa for Jobs. Then it posted more than a dozen security guards 24 hours a day in front of those rooms and at doors throughout the building. No one got in without having his or her ID electronically checked and compared with a master list that Jobs had personally approved. The auditorium where Jobs was rehearsing was off limits to all but a small group of executives. Jobs was so obsessed with leaks that he tried to have all the contractors Apple hired — from people manning booths and doing demos to those responsible for lighting and sound — sleep in the building the night before his presentation. Aides talked him out of it.
Grignon knew the iPhone unveiling was not an ordinary product announcement, but no one could have anticipated what a seminal moment it would become. In the span of seven years, the iPhone and its iPad progeny have become among the most important innovations in Silicon Valley’s history. They transformed the stodgy cellphone industry. They provided a platform for a new and hugely profitable software industry — mobile apps, which have generated more than $10 billion in revenue since they began selling in 2008. And they have upended the multibillion-dollar personal-computer industry. If you include iPad sales with those for desktops and laptops, Apple is now the largest P.C. maker in the world. Around 200 million iPhones and iPads were sold last year, or more than twice the number of cars sold worldwide.
The impact has been not only economic but also cultural.
And yet Apple today is under siege. From the moment in late 2007 that Google unveiled Android — and its own plan to dominate the world of mobile phones and other mobile devices — Google hasn’t just tried to compete with the iPhone; it has succeeded in competing with the iPhone.
It’s hard to overstate the gamble Jobs took when he decided to unveil the iPhone back in January 2007. Not only was he introducing a new kind of phone — something Apple had never made before — he was doing so with a prototype that barely worked. Even though the iPhone wouldn’t go on sale for another six months, he wanted the world to want one right then. In truth, the list of things that still needed to be done was enormous. A production line had yet to be set up. Only about a hundred iPhones even existed, all of them of varying quality.
The iPhone could play a section of a song or a video, but it couldn’t play an entire clip reliably without crashing. It worked fine if you sent an e-mail and then surfed the Web. If you did those things in reverse, however, it might not. Hours of trial and error had helped the iPhone team develop what engineers called “the golden path,” a specific set of tasks, performed in a specific way and order, that made the phone look as if it worked.
But even when Jobs stayed on the golden path, all manner of last-minute workarounds were required to make the iPhone functional.
Jobs wanted the demo phones he would use onstage to have their screens mirrored on the big screen behind him. To show a gadget on a big screen, most companies just point a video camera at it, but that was unacceptable to Jobs. The audience would see his finger on the iPhone screen, which would mar the look of his presentation. So he had Apple engineers spend weeks fitting extra circuit boards and video cables onto the backs of the iPhones he would have onstage.
The software in the iPhone’s Wi-Fi radio was so unstable that Grignon and his team had to extend the phones’ antennas by connecting them to wires running offstage so the wireless signal wouldn’t have to travel as far.
None of these kludges fixed the iPhone’s biggest problem: it often ran out of memory and had to be restarted if made to do more than a handful of tasks at a time. Jobs had a number of demo units onstage with him to manage this problem. If memory ran low on one, he would switch to another while the first was restarted. But given how many demos Jobs planned, Grignon worried that there were far too many potential points of failure.
Jobs rarely backed himself into corners like this. He was well known as a taskmaster, seeming to know just how hard he could push his staff so that it delivered the impossible. But he always had a backup, a Plan B, that he could go to if his timetable was off.
Tomi says:
Exclusive: Cisco, Google, SAP discussing BlackBerry bids – sources
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/05/us-blackberry-buyers-idUSBRE99400220131005
BlackBerry Ltd, on the block as its smartphone business struggles, is in talks with Cisco Systems, Google Inc and SAP about selling them all or parts of itself, several sources close to the matter said.
Such a deal would be an alternative to the preliminary agreement reached weeks ago with a group, led by BlackBerry’s biggest shareholder, Fairfax Financial Holdings, to take the company private for about $4.7 billion, a bid which has faced some skepticism because of financing questions.
The company, based in Waterloo, Ontario, has asked for preliminary expressions of interest from potential strategic buyers, which also include Intel Corp and Asian companies LG and Samsung, by early next week.
It is unclear which parties will bid, if any.
Tomi says:
Smart Diaper Can Monitor Baby’s Health
http://www.breitbart.com/InstaBlog/2013/07/15/Smart-Diaper-Can-Monitor-Baby-s-Health
A couple with two children has enlisted a team of scientists and engineers to develop a high tech diaper that can monitor a baby’s health by revealing signs of urinary tract infections, dehydration and developing kidney problems. The new startup company, which is called Smart Diapers, utilizes a QR code on a baby’s diaper to collect data which is then sent to the parents’ smart phone, allowing them to send the information directly to their pediatrician for a diagnosis.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Microsoft updates YouTube app for Windows Phone, apparently surrenders to Google as web player returns
http://www.wpcentral.com/microsoft-updates-youtube-app-surrenders-to-google
Windows Phone users have returned to square one with the ‘updated’ YouTube app today
A few months ago, Microsoft and Google had a brouhaha over YouTube and Windows Phone. Microsoft appeared to play by Google’s rules in making an app for their customers, but Google said it wasn’t good enough. Despite the differences, Microsoft famously released the app anyway to see what would happen. As it turns out, Google was none too happy and remotely killed the app through its access key.
if you click a YouTube link in email, MMS messages, etc. it will open YouTube in the browser. In fact, tapping the installed YouTube icon on your phone will simply redirect you to m.youtube.com for that not so premier experience.
No more downloads, no more account management (without logging in), no notifications—just the barebones experience.
From the looks of it, any discussions between Microsoft and Google may have broken down. As a result, we’re getting the most generic YouTube experience you can imagine on a mobile platform: a web player. If Microsoft is working on an official app, it may have to be in that HTML5 form that Google so desperately wants for Windows Phone (but not for iOS or Android).
Tomi Engdahl says:
Playing To Win: Mobile Gamification Done Right
http://www.businessinsider.com/mobile-gamification-done-right-2013-7?utm_source=House&utm_term=RR&utm_campaign=RR
Gamification, or the use of game elements to promote desired behaviors among customers and employees, has been a popular business strategy for decades. Loyalty programs, cereal box prizes, employee-of-the-month schemes, hidden tokens within video games and applications — these are all examples.
But the always-on mobile age has vastly expanded opportunities for gamification. Integration with social networks means these experiences are shared with friends, acquaintances and co-workers. A smartphone-carrying employee or consumer might be drawn into a gamified experience at any time, wherever they are.
In fact, gamification represents the fusion of four trends: the explosion of social media usage, the mobile revolution, the rise of big data, and the emergence of wearable computing. Already, marketers, enterprises, and even governments are using gamification to achieve and expand their goals.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The smartphone brought with it new problems
The proliferation of smartphones brings a new range of ailments, says Institute of Occupational Health, published by OSH Journal.
Repeated use of the touch screen can cause numbness in the fingers, warmth, swelling and pain in the. At worst, a hard-working smartphone toucing can lead to tenosynovitis.
Mobile devices caused problems seem to be a problem, especially for young people. One reason for this is seen as a sign that young people are the most text messages, and thus put a strain especially thumbs.
- Support and musculoskeletal ailments, which in the past suffered from a work, it is now up to each child. Immobility is a problem for many young people, and mobile devices to easily increase that passivity, says research engineer Risto Toivonen
Problems can be avoided by keeping a break and changing the position of the at least every twenty minutes. Stretching the fingers can open joint surfaces and to ease the pain.
Source: http://www.iltalehti.fi/terveys/2013100817579550_tr.shtml
Tomi Engdahl says:
Samsung Plays Catch-Up on Software
South Korean Giant Weighs Software Deals to Better Compete With Apple, Google
http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424052702304906704579115464161019726-lMyQjAxMTAzMDAwNzEwNDcyWj.html
Samsung Electronics Co. is stepping up its hunt for acquisitions and building out its presence in Silicon Valley to try and overcome its key weakness: software.
The South Korea-based company became the world’s largest maker of smartphones by manufacturing attractive devices that hit the market quickly and cheaply.
But to thrive in a mobile-device market increasingly dominated by software specialists like Apple Inc., Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp., which acquired Nokia Corp.’s phone business last month, Samsung is aiming to become a software power in its own right.
Earlier this year, Samsung was among the bidders for Israeli mobile-mapping service Waze Ltd., according to people familiar with the matter. Google eventually bought Waze for about $1.1 billion in July,
Samsung has plenty of other Silicon Valley software startups in its sights, particularly in games, mobile search, social media and mapping-related services, according to employees and an internal document reviewed by the Journal.
“The kind of things that happen in the Valley are really exciting to Samsung,” said David Eun, the head of Samsung’s Open Innovation Center, which operates the software-startup accelerator.
Samsung’s recent acquisitions have been small, and focused on software developers that can help distinguish Samsung’s phones from others built on the Android platform.
Last May, Samsung—seeking to create a credible rival to Apple’s iTunes platform—snapped up mSpot Inc., a Palo Alto, Calif.-based mobile-software developer with hopes of creating a one-stop media platform that would allow users to stream and download music on their Samsung devices.
Tomi Engdahl says:
NFC Ring Opens Many Doors
http://www.designnews.com/author.asp?section_id=1365&doc_id=268479&cid=nl.dn14&dfpPParams=ind_184,industry_consumer,aid_268479&dfpLayout=blog
Near field communication, a.k.a. NFC, is at a turning point. Excitement for wearable technology is at an all-time high with the launch of hotly anticipated products in recent months. Few, however, have proven practical for the everyday use. NFC is the gateway technology to more practical wearable products by providing one simple solution: information exchange. A few weeks ago, I hosted a webinar called The Power of a Ring to demonstrate how wearable technology and NFC are making everything from completing payments to unlocking our doors more convenient.
Functional NFC technology is only possible if more engineers and hackers are comfortable implementing it in their designs. An understanding of today’s NFC trends and international design standards, as well as of the resources available for all experience levels, are a must to eliminating barriers to entry. The design possibilities for NFC are limited only by the ideas of the engineer working with it.
When designing NFC-based devices, certain design standards need to be met to ensure that all forms of NFC can interact with existing and future devices. ISO/IEC 18000-3 is the type of RFID communication used by NFC devices. It’s an international standard for wireless communication at frequencies of 13.56 MHz on Type A and B cards. ISO/IEC 14443 allows the ID cards used to store information in NFC tags.
Technical specifics aside, the NFC devices must be within 4 cm of each other to transmit information. The interrogating device, functioning at full duplex, sends a signal to and powers the NFC tag, which operates at half duplex. This is how the device is powered without a battery,
Tomi says:
Farewell to Symbian – Nokia to accelerate the death
Nokia’s traditional Symbian platform is dying. Nokia has announced the change, which is the nail in the coffin of Symbian. The same applies to the MeeGo platform.
Nokia announced the Symbian platform for the submission of two and a half years ago. Although the company was transferred to the Windows Phone software, Symbian, support has been extended.
Symbian phones in the last success was the Nokia 808 PureView, which included a special camera developed by Nokia. Early this year, however, the company announced that the new Symbian devices are no longer presented.
Nokia announce now a significant change in Symbian support. Symbian application development support is discontinued in the coming months, and Nokia to transfer all of its resources on Windows Phone, and Asha phones behind.
The current Symbian software distribution can continue the Nokia Store, and developers are paid income purchases in the old way. January since the beginning of the new Symbian software is not, however, be accepted. In addition, existing applications can no longer release updates.
These changes effectively drive users away from the Symbian platform.
Source: http://www.tietokone.fi/artikkeli/uutiset/hyvasti_symbian_nokia_vauhdittaa_kuolemaa
Tomi says:
Android malware problem approaching the pc’s ten-year return levels. Microsoft took the problem under control. Does Google do the same?
Android problem with the malware is not really a secret. Trend Micro says that have found a million malware programs for the world’s most popular mobile operating system. F-Secure says that even Google’s own Play-download store is no longer reliable.
The reader’s first reaction: Does not apply to me or any other well-informed users.
Wrong.
Because Android is the world’s most popular operating system, it can also be found grannies phones and children’s phones. When they have access to the application store up the phone to hinge can be just about anything.
If Google wants to maintain its position, it must do something about it. And quickly, because the problem is getting out of hand.
The good news is that it can be done.
Indeed, Microsoft has once again favored by security experts. When Windows XP virus problem exploded in uncontrollable, the company launched a Trusted computing projects, and cut the other application development for a while. Which resulted in the Windows Security Center, mandatory firewalls and other things that are now taken for granted.
If nothing is done, there will be malware Android to become the end of the story. No later than when driveby downloads start to succeed for Android, Google is in trouble.
Source: http://www.digitoday.fi/tietoturva/2013/10/09/google-uskallatko-tarttua-android-haitakeongelmaan/201314027/66
Tomi says:
Google’s Schmidt: Android more secure than iPhone
http://www.zdnet.com/googles-schmidt-android-more-secure-than-iphone-7000021670/
Delivered with a spice of arrogance, Google’s executive chairman Eric Schmidt on Monday declared the Android platform more secure than Apple’s iPhone.
“If you polled many people in this audience they would say Google Android is not their principal platform [...] When you say Android, people say, wait a minute, Android is not secure.”
Schmidt didn’t miss a beat, replying, “Not secure? It’s more secure than the iPhone.”
The Google chairman danced around a straight answer explaining Android has more than a billion users, is a platform that will be around for a while, and therefore goes through rigorous real-world security testing.
Schmidt then offered up another complaint he often hears — that the platform is fragmented — and then he shot that down. “With Android we have an agreement for vendors that you keep the Android stores compatible and that is a great breakthrough for Android,” he said.
Schmidt compared it to his Unix days in the 1980s, saying, “The key thing was that we did not have an app store to keep the Unix people together.”
Schmidt said in the distant future there would be an assumption that nothing is secure and that security will be devised on a per app basis for each user.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google brings Mobile Backend Starter, its one-click deployable cloud backend for Android, to iOS
http://thenextweb.com/google/2013/10/09/google-brings-mobile-backend-starter-its-one-click-deployable-cloud-backend-for-android-to-ios/
Google today launched Mobile Backend Starter for iOS, simplifying server-side development for app developers on Apple’s mobile platform. Mobile Backend Starter is a Google App Engine application, meaning it lets developers support hundreds of concurrent users at no charge.
The point of mobile backends is to let mobile developers build connected mobile apps without writing server-side code. When Google launched Mobile Backend Starter back in June, the service was limited to just Android. One platform has now expanded to two.
Google explains its Mobile Backend and Objective-C client libraries let developers:
Store data in the cloud and share between users.
Send device-to-device push notifications.
Use continuous queries to notify devices of data changes.
Authenticate users using Google Accounts.
The source code for the Mobile Backend Starter app, both the backend as well as the Android and iOS clients, is available on Github.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Disney invents touchscreen that lets you feel textures
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/10/08/disney-invents-touchscreen-that-lets-you-feel-textures/
The company that brought you the first animated feature film and the multiplane camera may be at work on its most game-changing invention yet: Flat touchscreens that let you feel the shape and texture of pictured objects, almost like they were actually there.
The technology is called “tactile rendering of 3D features,” and an early version of a rendering algorithm has already been developed by engineers at Disney Research in Pittsburgh. The process behind it is, predictably, both technical and confusing, but the basic premise is that small, electronic pulses can trick your fingers into perceiving bumps and texture, even if the surface is actually flat.
That’s not a new discovery — scientists have known since 2001 that friction is the predominant force that lets you perceive textures. But Disney’s findings, which the company will present at a user interface symposium in Scotland this week, suggests sweeping applications in devices we already use, like smartphones and tablets.
“Touch interaction has become the standard for smartphones, tablets and even desktop computers, so designing algorithms that can convert the visual content into believable tactile sensations has immense potential for enriching the user experience,” Ivan Poupyrev, the director of Disney’s Interaction Group, said in a release.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mozilla’s Firefox OS Gets First Update As It Heads For 2nd Phase Of Market Launches
http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/09/ffos-2/
Mozilla’s HTML5-based open mobile platform Firefox OS, which bagged support from a raft of carriers at the start of this year as a low cost alternative to Android-based smartphones, is gearing up to launch in more markets.
New device hardware running FFOS is also incoming, Mozilla said today in a blog – although it’s not naming the forthcoming markets and devices at this point, noting only that new phones will run the latest version of the OS, FFOS (1.1), also announced today.
“Individual partners will announce specifics about upcoming launches in each market,” it added.
“This Firefox OS update will be available for current users and on developer phones soon,” said Mozilla.
Tomi Engdahl says:
IAB: Mobile Revenues $3 Billion In 1H, 15 Percent Of Total
http://marketingland.com/first-half-online-revenues-20-billion-search-biggest-mobile-fastest-growing-61073
The IAB has just released its Q2 and first half 2013 revenue report. Total digital ad revenue in the US was roughly $20 billion. Search was the largest single category and mobile captured 15 percent of the overall total in the first six months of this year.
Almost all ad formats/categories were up in real-dollar terms. However percentages were down because of the rise of mobile.
The IAB doesn’t break out mobile ad formats as it does with PC advertising.
The largest ad networks/companies captured the lion’s share of online ad revenues as has been the case for several years. Ten companies accounted for 70 percent of total revenues in Q2 2013
Tomi Engdahl says:
Windows Phone 8.1 Rumors Emerge
Yes, we’ll get a third Windows Phone 8 update first. Still….
http://winsupersite.com/windows-phone/windows-phone-81-rumors-emerge
While Windows Phone 8 GDR3 is right around the corner—and, yes, I’ll be writing more about this important update soon—I recently received some information about Windows Phone 8.1 that may be of interest. Due in 2014, Windows Phone 8.1, codenamed “Blue,” will address some issues with the current release of the OS and will include some surprising changes, if my source is correct.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Design Quality and Customer Delight as Sustainable Advantages
http://daringfireball.net/2013/10/design_quality_as_a_sustainable_advantage
“The business buyer, famously, does not care about the user experience. They are not the user, and so items that change how a product feels or that eliminate small annoyances simply don’t make it into their rational decision making process.”
“The attribute most valued by consumers, assuming a product is at least in the general vicinity of a need, is ease-of-use. It’s not the only one — again, doing a job-that-needs-done is most important — but all things being equal, consumers prefer a superior user experience.”
In a sense, there are two rational Apple bear arguments. The first is that it doesn’t matter whether Apple can create superior products and experiences — the low-end competitors will eventually reach a “good enough” point that will disrupt Apple’s business.
I think Thompson has made a good argument in this piece that such logic does not pertain to consumer markets, especially ones where fashion, style, and design are important attributes. Cell phones have always been about fashion and design.
How do you quantify delight?
The second Apple bear argument comes from those who think Apple has already lost its design and experience advantage — that devices from Samsung, Amazon, Google and whoever else have already equalled or surpassed Apple’s, and at lower prices to boot.
So, as I see it, the first group of Apple bears is wrong about whether design quality can create a sustainable advantage in the phone and tablet markets. The second group is wrong about whether Apple’s products even are superior in design to those of its competitors. These are very different arguments, and largely at odds with each other.
There is a third school of Apple bears, whose philosophy is perhaps best and almost certainly most-frequently espoused by Henry Blodget. This school holds, more or less, that while design quality may allow for a sustainable advantage in some fields, it does not for software platforms. That once one software platform achieves a large majority market share, developers will inevitably flock to that platform, no matter if it’s technically and/or aesthetically inferior, based on market share alone.
Put another way, this third strain of Apple bear subscribes to the theory that iOS is the new Mac, Android is the new Windows, and Apple is about to see the 1990s all over again.
What I see with the Mac is a platform whose darkest hours were not the result of minority market share, but rather coincided with a loss of design and technological leadership over its competition.
Their hardware was un-sexy, slow, and confusingly marketed. Their OS was technically deficient (remember “cooperative multitasking”?) and just plain looked old next to Windows 95. In short, Apple’s design had faltered across the board.
The recovery of the Mac platform had a reverse correlation to the Mac’s market share. The single decision that came closest to bankrupting Apple was the decision to license Mac OS to hardware cloners — a decision that was all about attempting to increase market share for the sake of increasing market share. What the Mac’s success, throughout its entire history, does correlate to is the degree which its design qualities — hardware and software, engineering and aesthetics — were deemed superior to that of its commodity competition by consumers at the high end of the market.
Lastly, the “network effects” drum that Blodget has been banging for years is certainly a real and important factor. But modern computers — PCs, phones, tablets, all of them — are effectively just clients on one universal platform: the Internet. In the ’90s, as the Mac and Apple waned, compatibility meant connecting to Exchange servers, and reading and writing Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files. Today, compatibility is a rarely uttered word. Twitter, Facebook, email, and at a lower level, HTTP are available to all platforms.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Samsung’s Galaxy Round smartphone has a curved display — and a US$1,000 price tag
http://business.financialpost.com/2013/10/09/galaxy-round-curved-samsung/?__lsa=b053-4886
SEOUL, South Korea — Samsung Electronics said Wednesday it will release the Galaxy Round smartphone with a curved 5.7-inch (14.5 cm) screen using advanced display technology called organic light-emitting diode, or OLED, technology.
The Korean company said such a curved screen smartphone is the first in the world.
“In the next 18 months or so, we could see Samsung launching foldable display devices. That is going to be a game changer”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Microsoft’s $7.2 Billion Nokia Bet Not Luring Apps
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-10-09/microsoft-s-7-2-billion-nokia-bet-not-luring-apps.html
Microsoft Corp. (MSFT)’s $7.2 billion pairing with Nokia Oyj (NOK)’s handset business is failing to win over the software developers who are crucial to its success.
“With or without Nokia, Microsoft needs to demonstrate that they can capture a material segment of the mobile market,” Smith said in an interview. “We will wait and see.”
Yet interviews with more than a dozen developers show that the odds remain stacked against Microsoft — even with the Nokia deal, which is set to close in the first quarter of 2014. Developers said that while Nokia’s handset business gives Microsoft a ready pipeline of Windows Phone devices, it isn’t enough to overcome a lack of users, or the cost and confusion related to the technical specifications of writing for the company’s phone and tablet devices.
Ultimately, it comes down to where developers can make money — and that’s not with Microsoft
“What basket would you put your eggs?”
Microsoft, based in Redmond, Washington, currently has more than 175,000 applications for Windows Phone, compared with more than 900,000 for Apple iOS and more than 1 million for Google Android — and even those apps that it does have typically come to its platform later than for rivals.
The paucity of applications has impeded gains in Microsoft’s smartphone market share. The company had 3.7 percent of the global smartphone market in the second quarter, compared with 79 percent for Android and 13 percent for Apple, according to IDC.
Microsoft executives said they are well aware of the shortcomings and said that adding Nokia will help.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Apple iWatch is actually a home automation play, not a smartphone companion (analyst)
http://venturebeat.com/2013/10/10/apple-iwatch-is-actually-a-home-automation-play-not-a-smartphone-companion-analyst/
Samsung’s Galaxy Gear smartwatch launched a couple of weeks ago as a fat, ugly, and expensive smartphone accessory that our own Devindra Hardawar called “relentlessly inessential.”
That’s not where Apple is going with iWatch.
Rather, Apple is looking to create a device that will allow you to control your music, your temperature, your security, your lighting, your energy use, your entertainment, and potentially much more, says Cantor Fitzgerald’s Brian White, who talked to Taiwanese and mainland China suppliers.
The raison d’etre behind smartwatches has been a little suspect, with most focusing on little more than an adjunct to your smartphone. Which begs the question, of course: Why do you need one? And the real-life use of smartwatches as sort of a wrist-based Google Glass, with constant social updates streaming by, can be problematic. One startup founder I talked to said when he checked updates on his Pebble, people thought he was being rude because he was “always checking his watch” and clearly was bored with their company.
Building a watch-like device that is truly smart and useful for something other than seeing a constant stream of tweets would be a very Apple-like way to go. Personal fitness tracking and monitoring is a no-brainer, and adding home automation to the mix makes it even more interesting.
Clearly, Apple TV could be part of the mix, as well as support for a number of the home automation standards.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Cloud Security: Mobile Startup Lookout Gets $55M Led By Deutsche Telekom To Go Global & Target Enterprise
http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/10/mobile-security-app-lookout-takes-another-55m-led-by-deutsche-telekom-to-expand-in-europe-enterprise/
Mobile security company Lookout is all about protecting user’s mobile devices against malicious threats, a business that today has 45 million customers. Today it’s raising its own profile a little bit more. The startup is announcing another $55 million in funding, led by strategic investor Deutsche Telekom, parent of T-Mobile. This will be used to help the company keep building out its service in Europe and other international markets, as well as towards the growth and launch of its enterprise services, specifically Lookout for Business, later this year.
All of this is part of the company’s bigger ambition to become not just the Symantec of the mobile world, but the default security provider for all of your devices. “It’s become more than just a mobile application,” Hering said. “It’s a cloud platform.”
The partnership that Lookout announced with Samsung in September, to partner with the OEM on its Knox enterprise platform, was a natural progression from that. “It’s the opportunity to leverage that consumer footprint to accelerate into the enterprise,” he said today.
Lookout’s security platform is based around a “mobile threat dataset,” that it uses to weed out potentially harmful viruses, worms and so on, which has proven to be a problem particularly on Android devices. It’s also based on a collective, big data approach that improves as more people sign up. “As more people and devices connect to the network, Lookout’s platform becomes more intelligent, providing a safer experience for everyone,” the company notes. Or, as Hering put it to me today, “Our model and vision is leveraging big data to solve the security problem. The majority of that is in the cloud today, with the power of our user base contributing significantly to our threat intelligence. We think of ourselves as a big data company as much as anything.”
“With the huge uptake of smartphone penetration, the ‘security for mobile devices’ topic has become much more important. It’s critical that we offer services that our customers trust,” said Heikki Mäkijärvi, SVP global strategic partnerships Deutsche Telekom
Tomi Engdahl says:
How the Latest Smartphones Could Turn Us All Into Activity Trackers
http://www.wired.com/opinion/2013/10/the-trojan-horse-of-the-latest-iphone-with-the-m7-coprocessor-we-all-become-qs-activity-trackers/
While much has been said of the A7 chip in the new iPhone 5S — arguably the “world’s first consumer ARM-based [system-on-a-chip]” — its associated new M7 coprocessor was surprisingly under-hyped, by both industry media and Apple.
For the first time, motion sensing occurs in a separate processor, which makes constant activity tracking using the gyroscrope, compass, and accelerometer sensors more power-efficient without turning on the rest of the A7 chip. This means we’ll start to see more Quantified Self (QS) tracking apps detecting steps and stair-climbing, bringing Fitbit and Jawbone capabilities to our phones. And the M7 does all this without a noticeable drain on the battery.
But that’s the sticking point: noticeable. The introduction of the M7 means Apple could collect this activity and movement data in the background without affecting our iPhone experience. Apple says that the M7 coprocessor only stores accelerometer data for up to seven days, but the capability remains.
Activity tracking used to be a very conscious, active decision. There was a process of deciding what to track, and perhaps buying a device or turning on an app to track it. We also had to remember to put on our wrist bands or clip our Fitbits to our clothes.
Now, with the M7, activity tracking comes as an automatic feature on the device that most of us carry with us all day, every day (Google and Motorola’s Android-based Moto X features a similar coprocessor). The capability to track activity using the existing sensors in our smartphones was there in previous models. And apps like Moves, Human, and Saga had started to take advantage of accelerometer, gyroscope, and GPS information to turn the phones we already carry into activity trackers. But these early applications were still pretty battery intensive.
It’s not so far-fetched to imagine that companies like Apple and Google would have an interest in gathering such large-scale activity data now that they have sensors in place to capture this information efficiently.
The fact that my Fitbit tracks activity without matching it up with all my other data sources, like GPS location or my calendar, is comforting. These data silos can sometimes be frustrating when I want to query across my QS datasets, but the built-in divisions between data about my body — and data about the rest of my digital life — leave room for my intentional inquiry and interpretation.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google X Display Head: Smartphones, Tablets, Apps are “Mind-Numbing”
http://www.xconomy.com/boston/2013/10/10/google-x-display-head-smartphones-tablets-apps-mind-numbing/
Millions of consumers may be drooling over the latest versions of their favorite smartphones and tablets, amazed by the sharp displays, powerful cameras, and panoply of applications.
But deep inside Google’s experimental hardware unit, where people work on crazy-sounding ideas like driverless cars and balloon-lofted wireless networks, all of that electronics-store stuff is starting to look pretty boring.
“So much of the talent in my industry has gone into, in the last five years, making just yet another cellphone, yet another tablet, or an iPhone app, or an icon,” said Mary Lou Jepsen, who runs the display division at Google X. “And it’s so mind-numbing.”
Google X, the Internet company’s secretive R&D lab, develops so-called “moonshot” ideas under the direction of company co-founder Sergey Brin. Its known projects including the famous robot-driven car, a system of wireless Internet transmitters attached to stratospheric balloons, and wearable computers.
The most ubiquitous poster child is currently Google Glass, the company’s Web-connected, voice-activated computer display that looks like a futuristic pair of sunglasses minus the lenses. And it’s just an early step toward widespread wearables, Jepsen said—comparable to Henry Ford’s first breakthrough car.
“If we use the automobile analogy, we believe this would be the Model T,” Jepsen said. “It’s lightweight, it’s comfortable, it’s cool.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
iPhone 64-bit chip not a gimmick after all, says Qualcomm
http://crave.cnet.co.uk/mobiles/iphone-64-bit-chip-not-a-gimmick-after-all-says-qualcomm-50012449/
Can you say flip-flop? The iPhone’s 64-bit chip is not a “a gimmick” after all, says Qualcomm in an embarrassing U-turn.
“The comments made by Anand Chandrasekher, Qualcomm CMO, about 64-bit computing were inaccurate,” says Qualcomm, hanging the hapless marketing wonk out to dry. “The mobile hardware and software ecosystem is already moving in the direction of 64-bit; and the evolution to 64-bit brings desktop class capabilities and user experiences to mobile, as well as enabling mobile processors and software to run new classes of computing devices.”
The chipmaker has distanced itself from the damning comments about the 64-bit A7 processor in the new iPhone 5S, which Chandrasekher described as “a gimmick” because “you don’t really need it for performance.”
It’s an embarrassing public admonition for the Qualcomm boss as the company prepares its own 64-bit chips
Tomi Engdahl says:
Slideshow: Kindle Fire HD 2013 Teardown
http://www.designnews.com/document.asp?doc_id=268560&cid=nl.dn14&dfpPParams=htid_66,industry_consumer,aid_268560&dfpLayout=article
Tomi Engdahl says:
Smart Video Outpacing Population
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1319749&
Smart video devices — smartphones, smart TVs, tablets, games consoles, and other Internet-connected devices — will exceed the global population by 2017, according to El Segundo, Calif. based IHS Inc. Just three years from now, by 2016, the number of Internet-connected smart video devices will be on par with the total world population, about 7 billion, and four years from now, by 2017, that number will top 8 billion when the world population is predicted to be just 7.4 billion.
Today, there are about 4.3 billion Internet-connected smart video devices, according to IHS, but that will grow by 90 percent in just four years, when an average of 1.1 smart video devices will be connected per capita
Tomi Engdahl says:
Qualcomm Reveals Neural Network Progress
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1319767&
iologically inspired neural processing units (NPUs) were recently described by Qualcomm Inc. in San Diego, Calif., at the MIT Technology Review’s EmTech conference. Qualcomm chief technology officer (CTO) Matt Grob described a new generation of NPUs and design tools that they hope to make available to developers next year.
At the conference, Grob showed videos of what it calls its Zeroth Robot prototype — named after Isaac Asimov’s Zeroth Law of Robotics (that no robots shall harm a human). These robots were not powered by a conventional computer, but instead by biologically inspired NPUs modeled on the human brain and created in cooperation with Brain Corp, which receives funding from Qualcomm Ventures and operates its labs inside Qualcomm’s facility.
Grob promised that after proving out its neural processing units in robotics applications, Qualcomm envisions using these chips in its core business, mobile handsets.
“Mobile is a very challenging design environment, we are under constraints for power, performance, size,” said Grob at EmTech. “And it turns out a brain is an incredibly high-performance system with these same features — very power efficient — with incredible density of performance when you consider what its doing.”