The platform wars is over: Apple and Google both won. Microsoft wanted to be the third mobile ecosystem, and it has got clear solid third position, but quite small market share of overall smart phone market. Apple now sells around 10% of all the 1.8bn (and growing) phones sold on Earth each year and Android the next 50%, split roughly between say 2/3 Google Android outside China and 1/3 non-Google Android inside China. So Apple and Google have both won, and both got what they wanted, more or less, and that’s not going to change imminently.
Wearables and phablets will be the big device stories of 2015. I think that the wearables will be the more interesting story of them, because I expect more innovation to happen there. The smart phone side seemed to already be a little bit boring during 2014 – lack of innovation from big players – and I can’t see how somewhat bigger screen size and higher resolution would change that considerably during 2015. CES 2015 debuts the future of smartphones coming from all places – maybe not very much new and exciting.
Say good-buy to to astronomical growth in smart phone sales in developed countries, as smartphone market is nearly saturated in certain regions. There will be still growth in east (China, India etc..), but most of this growth will be taken by the cheap Android phones made by companies that you might have not heard before because many of them don’t sell their products in western countries. The sales of “dumb phones” will decrease as cheap smart phone will take over. Over time this will expand such that smartphones take almost all phone sales (perhaps 400m or 500m units a quarter), with Apple taking the high-end and Android the rest.
The current biggest smart phone players (Samsung and Apple) will face challenges. Samsung’s steep Q3 profit decline shows ongoing struggles in mobile – Customers sought out lower priced older models and bought a higher percentage of mid-range smartphones, or bought from some other company making decent quality cheap phones. Samsung has long counted on its marketing and hardware prowess to attract customers seeking an alternative to Apple’s iPhone. But the company is now facing new competition from low-cost phone vendors such as China’s Xiaomi and India’s Micromax, which offer cheap devices with high-end specs in their local markets.
Apple has a very strong end of 2014 sales in USA: 51% of new devices activated during Christmas week were Apple, 18% were Samsung, 6% Nokia — Apple and Apps Dominated Christmas 2014 — Millions of people woke up and unwrapped a shiny new device under the Christmas tree. It is expected that Apple also will see slowing sales in 2015: Tech analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has predicted Apple will face a grim start to 2015 with iPhone sales plummeting by up to a third.
In few years there’ll be close to 4bn smartphones on earth. Ericsson’s annual mobility report forecasts increasing mobile subscriptions and connections through 2020.(9.5B Smartphone Subs by 2020 and eight-fold traffic increase). Ericsson’s annual mobility report expects that by 2020 90% of the world’s population over six years old will have a phone. It really talks about the connected world where everyone will have a connection one way or another.
What about the phone systems in use. Now majority of the world operates on GSM and HPSA (3G). Some countries are starting to have good 4G (LTE) coverage, but on average only 20% is covered by LTE. Ericsson expects that 85% of mobile subscriptions in the Asia Pacific, the Middle East, and Africa will be 3G or 4G by 2020. 75%-80% of North America and Western Europe are expected to be using LTE by 2020. China is by far the biggest smartphone market by current users in the world, and it is rapidly moving into high-speed 4G technology.
It seems that we change our behavior when networks become better: In South Korea, one third of all people are doing this ‘place shifting’ over 4G networks. When faster networks are taken into use, the people will start to use applications that need more bandwidth, for example watch more streamed video on their smart phones.
We’re all spending more time with smartphones and tablets. So much so that the “second screen” may now be the “first screen,” depending on the data you read. Many of us use both TV and mobile simultaneously: quickly responding to email, texting with friends, or browsing Twitter and the news if I lose interest with the bigger screen. Whatever it is I’m watching, my smartphone is always close at hand. There is rapid increase of mobile device usage—especially when it comes to apps.
The use of digital ads on mobile devices is increasing. Digital ad spend is forecast to increase 15% in 2015, with research saying it will equal ad spending on television by 2019. Mobile and social media will drive 2015 spending on digital to $163 billion, with mobile ad spending expected to jump 45%. “Almost all the growth is from mobile”
Mobile virtual reality will be talked about. 3D goggles like Sony Morpheus and Facebook’s Optimus Rift will get some attention. We’ll see them refined for augmented reality apps. hopefully we see DIY virtual reality kits that use current handsets and don’t cost thousands.
Google glass consumer market interest was fading in the end of 2014, and I expect that fading to continue in 2015. It seems that developers already may be losing interest in the smart eyewear platform. Google glass is expected to be consumer sales sometime in 2015, some fear consumer demand for Glass isn’t there right now and may never materialize. “All of the consumer glass startups are either completely dead or have pivoted” Although Google continues to say it’s 100% committed to Glass and the development of the product, the market may not be.
The other big headliner of the wearables segment was Apple’s basic $350 Watch. Apple invest its time when it released the Apple Watch last quarter, going up against the likes of Google’s Android Wear and others in the burgeoning wearables area of design. Once Apple’s bitten into a market, it’s somewhat a given that there’s good growth ahead and that the market is, indeed, stable enough.
As we turn to 2015 and beyond wearables becomes an explosive hardware design opportunity — one that is closely tied to both consumer and healthcare markets. It could pick up steam in the way software did during the smartphone app explosion. It seems that the hardware becomes hot again as Wearables make hardware the new software. It’s an opportunity that is still anyone’s game. Wearables will be important end-points both for cloud and for messaging. The wearable computing market is one of the biggest growth areas in tech. BI Intelligence estimates that 148 million wearable devices like smartwatches and fitness trackers will ship in 2019.
I see that wearables will be big in 2015 mainly in the form of smart watch. According to a survey by UBS, 10% of consumers said they were very likely to buy a smartwatch in 2015, even though so far, no smartwatches have resonated with consumers. I expect the Sales of fitness wearables to plunge in 2015 owing to smartwatch takeover. In the future you need to look at exercise and fashion products as being in the same space. Samsung, Motorola, LG, and Apple debuted or announced smartwatches in 2014, so it’s no surprise that smartwatches are expected to be huge in Las Vegas at CES January’s show.
The third mobile ecosystem Windows phone has some new thing coming as Microsoft ready to show off Windows 10 mobile SKU on January 21. But it does not well motivating to me. After all, the vision of a unified Microsoft world extending across all screens is great, and it’s what Microsoft has needed all along to make Windows Phone a winner. The problem that hits me: if you fail enough times at the same thing, people stop believing you. It’s not just that Microsoft keeps failing to integrate its mobile, desktop, and console products. But Microsoft keeps claiming it will, which starts to loose credibility.
Mobile will change on-line sales in 2015: Phones have already radically altered both the way Americans shop and how retail goods move about the economy, but the transformation is just beginning — and it is far from guaranteed that Amazon will emerge victorious from the transition (this will also apply to other “traditional” players in that space).
Mobile payment technology reaching maybe finally reaching critical mass this year. Long predicted but always seeming to be “just around the corner,” mobile payments may finally have arrived. While Apple’s recent Apple Pay announcement may in retrospect be seen as launching the coming mobile payment revolution, the underlying technologies – and alternative solutions – have been emerging for some time. Maybe it isn’t going to replace the credit card but it’s going to replace the wallet — the actual physical thing crammed with cards, cash, photos and receipts. When you are out shopping, it’s the wallet, not the credit card, that is the annoyance.
Mobile money is hot also in developing countries: ordinary people in Africa using an SMS text-based currency called M-Pesa. M-Pesa was invented as a virtual currency by mobile network provider Vodafone after it was discovered that its airtime minutes were being used and traded in by people in Africa in lieu of actual money. In Kenya, a critical mass was quickly reached, and today, over 70% of the 40 million Kenyans use M-Pesa.
Mobile security will be talked about. Asian mobiles the DDOS threat of 2015, security mob says article tells that Vietnam, India and Indonesia will be the distributed denial of service volcanoes of next year due to the profieration of pwned mobiles.
Intel is heavily pushing to mobile and wearable markets. Intel is expected to expand its smartphone partnership with Lenovo: Intel will provide both its 64-bit Atom processor and LTE-Advanced modem chips for the Lenovo phones. The 4G phones follow Intel’s announcement in October of its first 4G smartphone in the US, the Asus PadFone X Mini. Now Intel remains well behind Qualcomm — which controls two-thirds of the global mobile modem market — and MediaTek as a supplier of chips for smartphones and tablets. Intel faces tough competition trying to fight its way into mobile — a market it ignored for years. Intel in early 2015 will introduce its first 4G system-on-a-chip under the new SoFIA name. Such chips include both a processor and modem together and are sought after by handset makers because they’re smaller in size than separate processor and radio chips, and use less power (matching Qualcomm’s Snapdragon).
Mobile chip leader Qualcomm will be going strong in 2015. Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 810 is not only a killer part, it has raised the bar on what a mobile SoC has to be in 2015. It can power devices that drive 4K (3840 x 2160) TV, take 4K videos, run AAA games and connect to 5-inch HD display. There are finished, branded products just waiting to be released. I am convinced Qualcomm is on track to deliver commercial devices with Snapdragon 810 in mid-2015. I expect Qualcomm to be strong leader throughout 2015.
More material worth to check out:
New questions in mobile
http://ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2014/11/20/time-for-new-questions-in-mobile
What’s Next in Wireless: My 2015 Predictions
http://newsroom.t-mobile.com/issues-insights-blog/2015-predictions.htm
1,230 Comments
Tomi Engdahl says:
Janko Roettgers / Variety:
Sources: Samsung’s media unit, responsible for Milk Music, Milk Video, and Milk VR, lays off up to 15% of staff
Samsung’s Content Unit Hit by Layoffs, Exec Departure (Exclusive)
http://variety.com/2015/digital/news/samsungs-content-unit-hit-by-layoffs-exec-departure-exclusive-1201502609/
Samsung’s Media Solutions Center America, which is responsible for the company’s Milk Music and Milk Video services, has been hit by layoffs and a key exec departure over the last couple of weeks, Variety has learned. These events have occurred as Samsung executives take a closer look at many of its business units, which could spell trouble for the company’s content plans going forward.
Media Solutions Center America saw dozens of staffers laid off earlier this month, according to multiple sources. Exact numbers are hard to come by, but one source estimated that as much as 15% of the staff may have been affected. I’ve been told that MSCA employed around 250 people total before the cuts went into effect.
These layoffs come just a few weeks after Kevin Swint, Samsung’s VP of content and services, left the unit, according to sources.
Milk Video has been part of a new approach toward mobile media within Samsung that began with the launch of Milk Music in March 2014. Previously, Samsung was trying to directly compete with download stores like iTunes and Google Play to generate additional revenue through media sales. But its own Media Hub apps never caught on with consumers. Samsung eventually decided to get out of the content store business altogether, shuttering digital storefronts for music, video and ebooks last summer.
Instead, the company aimed to build free and ad-supported services that wouldn’t necessarily make a lot of money on their own, but help Samsung products stand out in an increasingly crowded market — something that the company desperately needed as sales of its flagship phones fell well below expectations.
Tomi Engdahl says:
More new Microsoft productivity apps: OneClip, Revolve
http://www.zdnet.com/article/more-new-microsoft-productivity-apps-oneclip-revolve/
Summary:Microsoft looks to be readying two more new productivity apps: A cloud clipboard called OneClip, and a Windows Phone version of its Revolve calendar-contact manager mash-up.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Brad Sams / Neowin:
Leaked app shows Microsoft testing Office Now personal assistant, expected to come to iOS, Windows, and Android
http://www.neowin.net/news/office-now-microsofts-office-personal-assistant-coming-to-ios-android-and-windows
Tomi Engdahl says:
How the Apple Watch Can Collect Patient Data
http://www.qmed.com/news/how-apple-watch-can-collect-patient-data
A project in southern New Jersey is using Apple Watches to better understand the factors influencing treatment outcomes among women with breast cancer.
Polaris Health Directions and MD Anderson Cancer Center at Cooper will use Apple Watch to collect data on breast cancer patients—but the latest example of an Apple wonder gizmo being put to medical device uses.
Apple Watches will collect data actively and passively from about 30 patients at the southern New Jersey cancer hospital through a Polaris Health (Wayne, PA) behavioral health technology platform called Polestar.
Data will include treatment side effects, sleep information, physical activity levels, and patient mood and could affect patients’ treatment and outcomes, according to a Polaris statement.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Playboy submits to Apple with nudity-free ‘Pornography 2.0′ app
Now you can prove you really do read it just for the articles
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/04/02/playboy_app_ios_apple_censorship/
Playboy has finally produced an iOS app that gets around Apple’s rather prudish attitude to things even mildly pornographic: an online edition that excludes the long-standing grumble mag’s main selling point.
“We’re taking everything that has made Playboy great and re-imagining it for the iPhone, while reinventing our aesthetic with exclusive pictorials and a beautiful, image-heavy navigation. It truly is Playboy 2.0,”
Jobs was adamant that Apple and the iTunes Store would not be a hangout for smut-merchants and their ilk.
“We do believe we have a moral responsibility to keep porn off the iPhone,” he reportedly told a customer in an email. “Folks who want porn can buy and Android phone.”
Apple’s also spent time and money shutting down domains that could be used to associate its brand with thing salacious – such as iphonesex4s.com, iphoneporn4s.com, and porn4iphones.com – and has been granted a patent on technology to filter out “forbidden content” from messages.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Forget freemium: ex-Rovio chief says “view-to-play” is the future for games
Are you willing to sit through a pre-roll ad before playing a game?
http://arstechnica.co.uk/gaming/2015/05/forget-freemium-ex-rovio-chief-says-view-to-play-is-the-future-for-games/
First there was shareware, and it was good.
Then came free-to-play, and after a few rocky years, it too was mostly good.
But then came the dreaded freemium game, and things took a nasty turn. The games were still free, but rather than give away all the content, or ensure that games were balanced, fun pieces of software, someone somewhere decided that by charging a premium fee for special features, powers, or content, they could make a substantial amount of money from a small subset of players, known in the business as “whales.”
This isn’t to say every freemium game out there is like this (see Hearthstone), but there are many out there that intentionally prey on those with addictive personalities in order to make a buck. The other way to do freemium—which some, but not all prefer—is to load them with advertising. By selling advertising to willing companies, developers can release their product for free, while also offering a paid product for those willing to fork over some cash. Trouble is, flat display ads don’t bring in the cash that they used to.
View-to-play
Whether or not that’ll convince people to watch a pre-roll ad before being able play a game remains to be seen. While pre-roll ads are common on video streaming sites like YouTube, as well as free services like Wi-Fi in airports, the nature of mobile games—which often involve quick bursts of play while on the move—don’t lend themselves well to having to sit through a 30-second pre-roll ad. Then again, we don’t yet know how long those ads will be. And how often will you have to watch them?
Tomi Engdahl says:
This was pretty much expected:
BlackBerry to Lay Off Undisclosed Number of Employees in Device Business
Arm focused on development of smartphone software, applications to be affected
http://www.wsj.com/article_email/blackberry-to-lay-off-undisclosed-number-of-employees-in-device-business-1432345580-lMyQjAxMTA1NTI5MjcyMzI0Wj
BlackBerry Ltd. said Friday it is laying off an undisclosed number of employees in its device business including those focused on development of smartphone software and applications.
The move is part of the company’s goal of boosting sales of higher margin mobile-management and security software to reignite growth, it said.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ben Hubbard / New York Times:
Young Saudis increasingly rely on mobile apps and social media to circumvent conservative strictures
— Young Saudis, Bound by Conservative Strictures, Find Freedom on Their Phones — RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Life for many young Saudis is an ecosystem of apps. — Lacking free speech, they debate on Twitter.
Young Saudis, Bound by Conservative Strictures, Find Freedom on Their Phones
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/23/world/middleeast/saudi-arabia-youths-cellphone-apps-freedom.html
Life for many young Saudis is an ecosystem of apps.
Lacking free speech, they debate on Twitter. Since they cannot flirt at the mall, they do it on WhatsApp and Snapchat.
Young women who cannot find jobs sell food or jewelry through Instagram. Since they are banned from driving, they get rides from car services like Uber and Careem.
But the scale of today’s social media boom is staggering, with many of the country’s 18 million citizens wielding multiple smartphones and spending hours online each day. Digital has not replaced face-to-face interaction, but it has opened the door to much more direct and robust communication, especially in a society that sharply segregates men and women who are not related.
The spread of mobile technology is driving nothing short of a social revolution in the lives of young people. In this rich but conservative kingdom that bans movie theaters, YouTube and Internet streaming have provided an escape from the censors and a window to the outside world. A young Shariah judge, for example, confided that he had watched all five seasons of “Breaking Bad.”
Saudi Arabia has ideal conditions for a social media boom: speedy Internet, disposable income and a youthful population with few social options. Unlike China and Iran, Saudi Arabia has not blocked sites like Facebook and Twitter, although it occasionally prosecutes those seen as insulting public figures or Islam. The Saudi monarchy appears to have decided that the benefits of social media as an outlet for young people outweigh the risk that it will be used to mobilize political opposition, which it is quick to punish, harshly.
There are economic benefits, too.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mozilla finds a way to tunnel Firefox into iOS
‘Firefox experience’ will play some low-key gigs in private beta
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/05/25/mozilla_finds_a_hole_it_can_use_to_tunnel_firefox_into_ios/
The Mozilla Foundation reckons it has found a way to sneak its Firefox browser into Apple’s walled garden.
In a brief post the outfit acknowledges “we can’t bring the full Firefox experience and rendering engine to iOS due to the restrictions”.
“The restrictions” probably means Apple’s insistence that only browsers using the WebKit rendering engine baked into iOS are permitted to run on iThings.
Mozilla’s next point, that “we saw an opportunity with the latest improvements and tools in iOS 8 to begin development of a Firefox experience for iOS” is therefore probably a reference to the WKWebView API that gives developers a chance to hook into WebKit.
Tomi Engdahl says:
NSA bulk phone records slurp to end when law lapses next month – report
‘White House DIDN’T ask secret court for 90-day extension’
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/05/23/nsa_to_end_bulk_phone_records_slurp/
Edward Snowden supporters were claiming victory for the privacy of millions of US citizens today, after the Obama administration seemingly decided not to seek a 90-day extension to allow g-men to collect bulk phone records.
That surprise move, reported by the Guardian, came following the defeat of the USA Freedom Act in the Senate this morning.
An official from the Obama administration told the Graun: “We did not file an application for reauthorisation.”
The result: as of 1 June this year, the NSA will no longer have legal cover to gather phone records to try to hunt down suspected terrorists.
Tomi Engdahl says:
BlackBerry targeted for acquisition, say sources
http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20150521PD213.html
BlackBerry is once again being pinpointed as a target for acquisition after it managed to swing back to profitability in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2014 (December 2014-February 2015) following its recent corporate restructure, according to industry sources.
Microsoft and a number of China-based handset vendors, including Xiaomi Technology, Lenovo and Huawei, are being indicated as potential investors, the sources noted.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Samsung is ‘placing the wrong bet’ on its flagship smartphone and now the company is going into total meltdown
http://uk.businessinsider.com/oppenheimer-says-samsung-is-placing-the-wrong-bet-on-galaxy-s6-hardware-2015-5
Samsung is “placing the wrong bet” on the hardware of its latest flagship phone, and now its smartphone business is imploding, according to a new research note from the investment bank Oppenheimer.
Over the past year, the South Korean company has seen a catastrophic collapse, with sales in China dropping by more than 50%.
Now shipments of its latest flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S6, are also down, while the iPhone soars to unprecedented heights.
In a research note on Apple, Oppenheimer thinks Samsung’s strategy is fundamentally misguided:
When we look at Samsung’s flagship in 2015, the Galaxy S6 Edge, almost all of its differentiators fall back to hardware: a cutting-edge CPU, curved display, iPhone-like metal casing, front area fingerprint sensor, and camera with OIS. At the same time, we see little improvement in Samsung’s software user experience, and no value-added to existing Samsung users who are on prior generations of devices.
In short, there’s no standout reason to buy a Samsung device specifically. Previously, it stood apart with a high-end, big-screen device that appealed to wealthy consumers. But now Apple has caught up, offering the iPhone 6 in equivalent sizes. Samsung has lost that edge.
Just a few years ago, Samsung was all but untouchable, providing a (seemingly) desirable high-end Android handset.
Oppenheimer argues that it’s not just Samsung that has this problem: It’s the entire Android ecosystem. “In the past nine months, Android OEMs were unable to offer any competent competing solutions that may help reverse the share loss trend” to the iPhone, it says.
It’s true that Apple is seeing furious gains in smartphone market share, as it increasingly focuses on encouraging “switchers” to make the leap to iOS from Android.
Read more: http://uk.businessinsider.com/oppenheimer-says-samsung-is-placing-the-wrong-bet-on-galaxy-s6-hardware-2015-5#ixzz3b9Tm0BXn
Tomi Engdahl says:
China Wonders: Whither Wearable Wares?
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1326620&
DONGGUAN, China — Surveys indicate that 45.7 percent of consumers stop using their wearable devices within a month. In six months, that number swells to almost 99 percent. The sobering stats that show how quickly wearables pass into oblivion comes from a survey by Tencent, China’s popular Internet service portal. They illustrate the dilemma of the wearable market in China — which designs, produces and consumes a majority of the world’s wearable devices.
Many Chinese system and IC designers are keenly aware that they’ve got to rethink this whole thing if they want a viable future for wearable electronics.
Chinese vendors see the nascent wearable market, despite its uncertainties, as their chance to seize the initiative, compared to their catch-up/copycat status in smartphones.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mozilla overhauls Firefox smartphone plan to focus on quality, not cost
http://www.cnet.com/news/mozilla-overhauls-firefox-smartphone-plan-to-focus-on-quality-not-cost/
After its $25 phones fail to dent the dominance of Google and Apple, the Firefox backer will try to compete using technological superiority — and maybe by adding key Android apps, too.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Daniel Cooper / Engadget:
French supermarket installs Philips LEDs that communicate with in-store navigation app via front-facing camera
Philips turns LEDs into an indoor GPS for supermarkets
http://www.engadget.com/2015/05/22/philips-led-vlc-navigation/
Philips believes that the days of endlessly roaming around a store looking for the right kind of balsamic vinegar may soon be at an end. The company’s lighting division has developed an indoor navigation system that enables your smartphone to direct you straight towards the Oils & Vinegars (Specialist) section. In addition, the technology helps to light everything up nice and bright, and save a bucketload of cash in the process.
Rather than using Bluetooth beacons, which others believe will being reliable indoor navigation for retail outlets, the company has swapped out the traditional lighting for banks of white LEDs above each aisle. Each bulb is equipped with visible light communication (VLC), enabling it to beam out a code that’s imperceptible to the human eye. When a user opens the corresponding smartphone app and holds it horizontally, the forward-facing camera reads the VLC. Once the software knows where you’re located, it’ll follow this overhead breadcrumb trail to get you where you need to go.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google Will Announce Fingerprint Authentication For Android Next Week
http://www.buzzfeed.com/josephbernstein/google-adding-fingerprint-authentication-to-next-version-of#.ju4RGWY2D8
Scheduled to be announced next week, Android M will will include one-touch log-in for supported apps.
Tomi Engdahl says:
George Anders / MIT Technology Review:
How Firefox OS for mobile devices got started, developed carrier and vendor partnerships, and then was blindsided by cheap Android phones
Firefox Maker Battles to Save the Internet—and Itself
http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/537661/firefox-maker-battles-to-save-the-internet-and-itself/
Mozilla helped an open Web flourish in the 2000s. Now it’s struggling to play a meaningful role on mobile devices.
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Why It Matters
Mozilla and its open-source projects have been crucial to Web security and other key aspects of the Internet.
In Silicon Valley, most pioneers pursue big ideas and giant personal fortunes with equal zeal. Then there’s Mozilla, an innovation dynamo that refuses to get rich.
More than 500 million people worldwide use Mozilla products. The company’s Firefox Internet browser is the top choice in countries ranging from Germany to Indonesia. But the company has no venture capital backing, no stock options, no publicly traded shares. It hardly ever patents its breakthroughs. Instead, Mozilla has a business model that’s as open and sprawling as the World Wide Web itself, where everything is free and in the public domain.
Suddenly, though, the Internet looks nightmarish to Mozilla. Most of the world now gets online on mobile devices, and about 96 percent of smartphones run on either the Apple iOS or Google Android operating systems. Both of these are tightly controlled worlds. Buy an iPhone, and you’ll almost certainly end up using Apple’s Web browser, Apple’s maps, and Apple’s speech recognition software. You will select your applications from an Apple-curated app store. Buy an Android phone, and you will be steered into a parallel world run by Team Google.
The public-spirited, ad hoc approaches that defined Mozilla’s success in the Internet browser wars have now been marginalized. Developers don’t stay up late working on open-source platforms anymore; instead, they sweat over the details needed to win a spot in Apple’s and Google’s digital stores. Rival operating systems offered by BlackBerry and Microsoft Windows have largely fallen by the wayside as well.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Wearables in the workplace? No thanks
Column The bad will outweigh the good in the uncertain future of wearables
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/opinion/2409874/wearables-in-the-workplace-no-thanks
WEARABLES ARE GETTING OUT OF HAND. Or should I say wrist? (Sorry.) I don’t know about you, but I feel like the tech industry is already saturated with the things and they’ve not even been around that long, well, compared with how long we’ve deemed tablets and smartphones the norm.
Consequently, in this relatively early stage of their ‘explosion’, I think it’s difficult for anyone to put a finger on just what it is wearables are actually doing for us. Beneficial? Of course. Detrimental? That too. Gimmicky? Quite possibly.
Obviously they have their benefits. They have opened up personal data and allowed us to analyse it like never before, especially in fitness, giving dedicated athletes, for instance, the ability to measure all kinds of biometrics with specialist sensors such as heart rate monitors.
But it’s not all roses. Wearables aren’t always accurate.
And while some argue that wearables are great because they can provide enhanced communication, memory, sensing, recognition and logistical data, I worry that the side effect of this isn’t such a good thing.
A wearable can filter your calls, provide a reference, monitor your health, remind you of a name, which, yes, is advantageous, but it leads me to wonder whether perhaps they are taking us to a place where we will rely on them a little too much.
There’s already a huge concern about how smartphones are affecting our concentration spans, making us less engaged with the real world as more and more of the everyday becomes virtual. And I fear that wearables will merely facilitate this, and even make it even worse.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Smartphones move to faster memory
Mobile Devices DRAMs sold in the first quarter of 3.58 billion dollars, or nearly the pace of the previous quarter. DramExchangen by trade fueled by now, especially new LPDDR4 circuits. Smartphones rapid transition to a faster memory.
Among the new models of Samsung Galaxy S6 comes with a 3-gigabyte LPDDR4 memory. The next-generation iPhone models is becoming a two-gigabyte LPDDR4 memory.
This transition to a little more expensive memory means that the memories average prices will be hardly dropped.
Mobile memories of Samsung’s market share is 52.1 per cent. In January-March, Samsung sold its mobile memories more than 1.8 billion dollars.
Another Korean market, ie Hynix was runner-up
Micron is the third big manufacturer of US $ 809 million in sales
Other manufacturers will remain only traces of the market
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2881:alypuhelimet-siirtyvat-nopeampaan-muistiin&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
Samsung to create industry giant via mega merger with itself
Luke, you were right about me
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/05/26/samsung_in_81bn_merger/
Sammy has announced a merger with fashion, leisure and construction biz Cheil Industries, a company in which the tech giant already owns a sizable stake, in a move designed to bolster the South Korean conglomerate as power passes from current leader to probable heir apparent Lee Jae-yong.
The combined company (one of South Korea’s largest, in terms of market capitalisation) is aiming for revenues in 2020 of 60trn won (£40bn). The two companies had combined annual revenue of 34 trillion won in 2014.
“This merger is a strategic decision to help us preemptively secure core competencies and grow as a leading global company that can provide integrated premium lifestyle services,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
This goal was unlikely: Microsoft is the king of unintelligent phones
Microsoft pursuing a significant position in the smartphone world by acquiring Nokia’s phone business. That destination is more further away, the new figures show a market researcher Gartner.
At the forefront of the major smart phone manufacturers a list of Microsoft is not displayed, but the entire mobile phone sales with these statistics it is still priority number three. There, too, has its share shrunk significantly during the year.
Very bad thing for Microsoft is that the sales of the other major manufacturers made up either entirely or almost entirely on smartphones. Microsoft’s sales comes mainly from basic mobile phones.
Mobile Operating statistics to produce additional disappointments company. Windows has decreased from an already modest 2.7 per cent to 2.5 per cent.
“Windows market share remained skinny, weak, mainly because of the ecosystem and the brand. The future of Windows 10 provides the same user experience for a variety of devices, but remains to be seen to inspire even this app developers, “Gartner research director Roberta Cozza said.
Source: http://www.tivi.fi/Kaikki_uutiset/2015-05-27/T%C3%A4t%C3%A4-tuskin-tavoiteltiin-Microsoft-on-%C3%A4lytt%C3%B6mien-puhelinten-kuningas-3321154.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
Android’s factory reset has a security problem. Here’s how to fix it
http://www.theverge.com/2015/5/26/8661461/android-factory-reset-disk-encryption-resale
How do you sell a phone without giving away the data on it? If you’ve used a phone even briefly, it’s filled with all kinds of sensitive data, including passwords and login tokens alongside personal texts and photos, all of which need to be erased before you can safely put the phone up for sale. The standard answer is a factory reset, which wipes the memory and restores the phone’s setting, but there’s a growing body of evidence that, for Android phones at least, the factory reset isn’t enough.
A study published last week revealed methods that can dig up incredibly sensitive data from supposedly wiped phones, including the login token used to sign into Google accounts. The core of the problem is flash memory, which limits how often a given block of memory can be overwritten.
Those flash memory issues aren’t new, but combined with the way mobile apps handle logins, they have serious consequences for Android users.
The quick fix for this is simple: encrypt the data on your phone before you get rid of it. (You can find the option at Settings > Security > Encrypt Phone, for any Android version since 3.0.) Adrian Ludwig, the lead engineer for Android security, recommended preemptive disk encryption for anyone giving up their phone. “If you plan to resell or discard your device and you haven’t already, encrypt it and then perform a factory reset,”
Disk encryption is also why, for the most part, iPhones are already protected. iPhones use the same solid-state memory as Android phones, but iOS devices have provided full disk encryption since 2009, when iOS 3.0 was deployed. More importantly, that encryption is supported by Apple’s own hardware.
That’s why, when security companies dive into the problems with factory resets, they generally pick on Android rather than iOS.
It’s a classic security quagmire, playing off the intersection of hardware vendors, application security, and Android at large, with no easy solution from any angle. The good news for users is that harvesting data from factory-reset hard drives is slow work, and most of what’s recovered is low-value data like texts and contact lists. For now, criminals seem to have decided it’s not worth the trouble.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Xiaomi’s Spending Spree: Its Logic and Method
Investment fortune hinges on smartphone magic
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1326680&
Xiaomi, whose growth spurt made it the world’s third largest smartphone vendor in just four years, is the current poster child for the Internet age. Its founders grasp the flexibility and speed the Internet brings to the consumer electronics business, and they’ve mastered these elements to change the game in their favor.
Xiaomi’s online-driven business model is a well told story.
The yet-untold story will emerge from the question of if the Beijing-based five-year old company can move beyond smartphones.
Xiaomi’s CEO Jun Lei is on the record saying: “Xiaomi will duplicate the success of its smartphone business with more than 100 other devices.”
Although the “100” device categories Lei talked about might be a hyperbole, Xiaomi has thus far invested in some 39 companies, according to Lin. Some investments are in one-person start-ups. Others boast a sizeable engineering team of 100 or more.
“When we founded Xiaomi, we had a simple business model,” Lin told us. “Android-based, super-easy-to-use smartphone with very high cost performance was the only thing we were going to do.”
A year and a half later, Xiaomi decided to add smart television to its product line. Xiaomi did this with the wholesale acquisition of Duokan
Non-exclusivity gives Xiaomi the agility and flexibility to hedge its bets.
Further, the purpose of investment for Xiaomi — no VC — isn’t a quick ROI. The mission is to diversify and build Xiaomi’s “ecosystem.” As more companies team with Xiaomi, the number of vendors in Xiaomi’s ecosystem grows.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jolla’s Sailfish trip around the world with the support of Russia to Africa
Russia is said to be interested Jolla Sailfish operating system. Now, sailfish and its ecosystem is being taken in Africa.
Jolla tells the person who undertakes to build the ecosystem-based Sailfish OS, Africa’s needs. Decide opened in South Africa, which created Sailfish Africa business alliances.
The aim is to bring together African investors to create a basis for open Sailfish mobile ecosystem.
tells the person who undertakes to build the ecosystem-based Sailfish OS, Africa’s needs. Decide opened in South Africa, which created Sailfish Africa business alliances.
The aim is to bring together African investors to create a basis for open Sailfish mobile ecosystem.
“This is a logical extension of Russia’s recent announcement Sailfish cooperation. Africa deserves its own mobile ecosystem.”
Source: http://www.tivi.fi/Kaikki_uutiset/2015-05-28/Jollan-Sailfish-matkaa-maailmalla-Ven%C3%A4j%C3%A4n-tuella-Afrikkaan-3321241.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
EB Tough Mobile –
Strong and secure LTE smartphone
http://www.elektrobit.fi/wireless/public_safety__security/eb_tough_mobile#technical_specifications
Tomi Engdahl says:
Europe remained the nearby paying off the train – the cause of premature progressiveness
The Nordic countries and the rest of Europe have been left behind on the contactless or proximity payments. The reason that sounds strange: “Here was updated a few years ago based on the size of the chip and pin code payment infrastructure. It was very expensive, and an investment payback period is long,”
Europe were not met to ponder, why should once again make a big investment in new technology, the benefits of which receivables are limited.
“The chip and pin code are based on the technology works very, very well,”
The United States, which is not in use chip and PIN technology, the situation is quite different.
Not to mention Europe have been inactive. Rasmussen estimates that five years after the contactless payment infrastructure is operational across Europe. According to him, in 2017, each new payment terminal is an antenna system that can be used to make local payments and by the end of 2019, each terminal accepts contactless payment cards in Europe or in the nearby mobile payment.
Source: http://summa.talentum.fi/article/tv/uutiset/eurooppa-jai-lahimaksamisen-junasta-syyna-liian-aikainen-edistyksellisyys/165220
Tomi Engdahl says:
Official Android Blog:
Google announces Android Pay, will allow users to pay in over 1000 apps and at 700K US stores
Pay your way with Android
http://officialandroid.blogspot.fi/2015/05/pay-your-way-with-android.html
Credit cards, debit cards, loyalty cards, cash, coins. Forget fumbling through your wallet next time you’re in a store—what if you could pay with just a tap?
Introducing Android Pay, the simple and secure way to pay with your Android phone.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Farhad Manjoo / New York Times:
Google faces challenges with Android as it fails to keep pace with iOS ad revenues and as vendors look to compete on services in the face of declining profits — A Murky Road Ahead for Android, Despite Market Dominance — In 2005, Google bought a tiny mobile software company named Android …
A Murky Road Ahead for Android, Despite Market Dominance
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/28/technology/personaltech/a-murky-road-ahead-for-android-despite-market-dominance.html?_r=0
In 2005, Google bought a tiny mobile software company named Android, and almost nobody in the technology industry saw its potential — not even Eric Schmidt, Google’s chairman and then chief executive. “One day Larry and Sergey bought Android, and I didn’t even notice,” Mr. Schmidt told reporters in 2009, referring to Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google’s founders.
A company spokesman later assured me that Mr. Schmidt was joking; Android reportedly cost at least $50 million, a big enough sum for the chief to get involved. But the joke suggests how little regard even Google’s executives held for Android a decade ago. Android, software that runs smartphones, tablets and a variety of other machines, was a side bet, and few considered it consequential to the search company’s fortunes.
State of the Art
A column from Farhad Manjoo that examines how technology is changing business and society.
A Tech Boom Aimed at the Few, Instead of the World
MAY 20
For Verizon and AOL, Mobile Is a Magic Word
MAY 12
Two Retail Veterans Take Aim at Amazon’s E-Commerce Reign
MAY 6
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APR 29
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Things have changed. In an era ruled by portable computers, Android has become essential to Google’s future.
Android, in the last five years, has colonized much of the known world. Android is now not just the globe’s most popular smartphone operating system but the most popular operating system of any kind. More than a billion Android devices were sold in 2014
Android faces increasing competition from hungry rivals, including upstart smartphone makers in developing countries that are pushing their own heavily modified take on the software. There are also new threats from Apple, which has said that its recent record number of iPhone sales came, in part, thanks to people switching from Android.
The fact that Google does not charge for Android, and that few phone manufacturers are extracting much of a profit from Android devices, means that much of the globe now enjoys decent smartphones and online services for low prices.
A brighter spot for Google is the revenue it collects from sales via Android’s app store, called Google Play. For years, Android apps were a backwater, but sales have picked up lately. In 2014, Google Play sold about $10 billion in apps, of which Google kept about $3 billion (the rest was paid out to developers). Apple makes more from its App Store. Sales there exceeded $14 billion in 2014
But how long Google can expect Play to keep paying remains an open question, thanks to the second Android-related headache. Google’s strategy of giving Android to phone makers free has led to a surge of new entrants in the phone business, several of which sell high-quality phones for cut-rate prices. Among those is Xiaomi, a Chinese start-up making phones that have become some of the most popular devices in China.
Because Xiaomi and others don’t make much of a profit by selling phones, they’re all looking for other ways to make money — and for many, the obvious business is in apps offering mail, messaging and other services that compete with Google’s own moneymaking apps.
The final threat for Google’s Android may be the most pernicious: What if a significant number of the people who adopted Android as their first smartphone move on to something else as they become power users?
Tomi Engdahl says:
Office Blogs:
Office Lens Android, Microsoft’s document scanning app, now available in the Google Play Store
http://blogs.office.com/2015/05/27/office-lens-android-now-available-at-google-play-store/
Tomi Engdahl says:
John Gruber / Daring Fireball:
Jony Ive’s new CDO title reflects his role as the overseer and arbiter of taste at Apple, similar to Job’s role when he was CEO
On Jony Ive’s Promotion to Chief Design Officer
http://daringfireball.net/2015/05/jony_ive_promotion_chief_design_officer
In short: is this truly a promotion for Ive, or is it (as Thompson punctuated it) a quote-unquote “promotion”?
A simpler way to look at this would be to see Ive having been promoted to, effectively, the new Steve Jobs: the overseer and arbiter of taste for anything and everything the company touches. One difference: Jobs, famously, was intimately involved with Apple’s advertising campaigns.
I can see Cook-Ive as a sort of titular reversal of the Jobs-Cook C-level leadership duo. Cook oversees operations and “running the company”; Ive oversees everything else. So they created a new title to convey the authority Ive already clearly wielded, and promoted Dye and Howarth, his trusted lieutenants, to free him from administrative drudgery. I could be wrong, and we’ll know after a few years, but that’s my gut feeling today.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ron Amadeo / Ars Technica:
Google’s free, automated “Cloud Test Lab” service will let developers test apps against top 20 Android devices
Google announces the “Cloud Test Lab,” a free, automated testing service
Upload your APK and Google will test it against the top 20 Android devices.
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/05/google-announces-the-cloud-test-lab-a-free-automated-testing-service/
Tomi Engdahl says:
LibreOffice came for Android
Free office software publisher of the Document Foundation announces that LibreOffice files can now be viewed and edited in the Android smartphones. Editing documents is still in the experimental stage.
LibreOffice Viewer can be downloaded from use Google Play Store. In addition, the Document Foundation brings the application to download apk package on their websites.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2897:libreoffice-tuli-androidille&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
Charlie Warzel / BuzzFeed:
Google’s I/O keynote suggests it is poised to surpass Apple when it comes to mobile design
Google’s Quest For Complete Control Of Your Digital Life
Today’s keynote suggests Google is poised to surpass Apple when it comes to mobile design.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/charliewarzel/googles-quest-for-complete-control-of-your-digital-life#.pdb56r70Mm
Google executive booted up Spotify on her Android phone and started playing a Skrillex song from the stage. I rolled my eyes. Then, as the interminable pulsing beat wormed its way to the inevitable drop, the executive tapped the phone’s screen and posed a question to the device’s black mirror: What’s his real name? Without hesitation, the phone redirected to a familiar white Google page proudly displaying the answer — Sonny John Moore
If you’re looking to understand what Google hopes to accomplish with its wildly popular Android operating system in the coming years, Now on Tap is a good place to start. It’s a sleek, impressive, and ambitious demonstration of machine learning that sits always at attention, ready to sift through the pile of data your smartphone is constantly producing in order to make your life easier. Now on Tap is the connective tissue between you and your apps and the internet at large — your very own search butler. And if it works as seamlessly on a street corner as it does from the comfy confines of a keynote stage, it’s also a triumph that suggests Google is poised to surpass Apple when it comes to mobile design.
Tomi Engdahl says:
att Garun / The Next Web:
Everything Google announced at Google I/O 2015 in one handy list — That’s a wrap on all things Google. In case you missed the keynote, here’s a recap of all the highlights you may have missed. — Android M — Kicking off the keynote, Google Senior Vice President Sundar Pichai announced …
Everything Google announced at Google I/O 2015 in one handy list
http://thenextweb.com/google/2015/05/28/everything-google-announced-at-google-io-2015-in-one-handy-list/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Conor Dougherty / New York Times:
Google redesigns Cardboard VR headset to fit larger phones, updates SDK with support for iOS, partners with GoPro to develop 16-camera 360-degree VR recorder
Google Intensifies Focus on Its Cardboard Virtual Reality Device
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/29/technology/google-intensifies-focus-on-its-cardboard-virtual-reality-device.html?_r=0
Google has seen the future, and it is littered with cardboard boxes.
At its Google I/O developer conference here on Thursday, the search giant announced several programs that aim to put its virtual reality viewer, called Cardboard, at the center of a growing online world in which people can use their smartphone and YouTube to watch videos rendered in 3-D.
Google introduced its virtual reality viewer — a cardboard box, with some lenses and a magnet, that looks a lot like a plastic View-Master toy — as a gift at last year’s I/O conference.
Typical of the Google playbook, the company put Cardboard’s specifications online so hobbyists and manufacturers could build them.
In the year since, people have made viewers from foam, aluminum and walnut, and the Cardboard app was downloaded a million or so times.
At this year’s I/O, Google is doubling down on Cardboard with initiatives meant to expand virtual reality to as many phones as possible. First of these is a new software kit that will make it easier for developers to build Cardboard apps for iPhones. The company also redesigned the cardboard hardware so that it is easier to fold and can now accommodate any smartphone, including popular, larger-screen, so-called phablets.
With Cardboard, Google’s virtual reality is decidedly low cost and low frills, but, as in other Google efforts, like the free Android software that is the most widely used operating system in the world, it seems meant more to amass an audience than make money.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Android M To Embrace USB Type-C and MIDI
http://mobile.slashdot.org/story/15/05/28/1838208/android-m-to-embrace-usb-type-c-and-midi
USB Type-C connection is showing up in more and more devices, and Google is rolling support for the interface in its Android M operating system. The most significant additions relate to the USB Power Delivery spec. Charging will now work in both directions.
Android M is also finally introducing a feature that musicmakers have been long asking for: MIDI support.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Android M Arrives In Q3: Native Fingerprint Support, Android Pay, ‘Doze’ Mode
http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/15/05/28/1954247/android-m-arrives-in-q3-native-fingerprint-support-android-pay-doze-mode
Google I/O kicked off this afternoon and the first topic of discussion was of course Google’s next generation mobile operating system. For those that were hoping for a huge UI overhaul or a ton of whiz-bang features, this is not the Android release for you. Instead, Android M is more of a maintenance released focused mainly on squashing bugs and improving stability/performance across the board.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google launches native Android Smart Lock password manager
Look out LastPass: Devs can shunt creds into OS vault
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/05/29/google_launches_native_android_smart_lock_password_manager/
Google I/O Android users will be able to store passwords in Google’s native Smart Lock manager, in a security boon for the masses.
The Choc Factory launched the Smart Lock for Passwords at the I/O conference in San Francisco overnight available in the Android M developer preview.
It says developers including Orbitz, Netflix, and The New York Times have relaunched their apps to make use of the feature.
“By integrating Smart Lock for Passwords into your Android app, you can automatically sign users into your app using the credentials they have saved,” the company says in a developer’s guide.
“Use successfully retrieved credentials to sign the user in, or use the Credential API to rapidly on-board new users by partially completing your app’s sign in or sign up form.
“Prompt users after sign-in or sign-up to store their credentials for future automatic authentication.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Libre Office comes to Android
Read all you want, but editing’s a science project
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/05/29/libre_office_comes_to_android/
The Document Foundation has released a version of Libre Office for Android.
The new app allows users to read and edit documents. The Document Foundation bills the app as a “Viewer” with “experimental … basic editing capabilities, like modifying words in existing paragraphs and changing font styles such as bold and italic.”
Viewing documents will also feel like an experiment for many users: when Vulture South tried the app it dumped us into a listing of our Galaxy S5′s directories and offered no depiction of the phone’s internal storage or secondary SD card. Nor does the app integrate with the cloud storage services to which we subscribe.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google I/O: What’s in it for developers across Chrome, Android, iOS and C++
Old McGoogle had some tools, I/O, I/O, eek!
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2410640/google-i-o-whats-in-it-for-developers-across-chrome-android-ios-and-c
GOOGLE ANNOUNCED a series of new developer tools and initiatives during the Google I/O keynote last night.
Google I/O, at its heart, is a developer conference and, while there was surprisingly little to impress at a prosumer level, it was still Christmas for the developers.
Android Studio gets a 1.3 Preview edition and Polymer 1.0. The latter is Google’s web app toolkit designed to help devs create app-like experiences in modern browsers (cough) like Chrome OS (cough).
The relationship between iOS and Android was brought a step closer with CocoaPods, the SDK library for Google Products on iOS, which was declared as the official channel.
If iOS isn’t your language you’ll also be pleased to hear that Android Studio will now support C and C++, as well as an improved Gradle build speed and a new memory profiler. Or if you want to make it easy, there’s the newly acquired Firebase web app platform.
Universal ad campaigns are “on the way”, allowing you to set up a campaign with just a budget and a target and let Google take care of the rest.
Finally, the rather dazzling demonstration of group hallucinations that is the new updated ‘Unity’ Google Cardboard has an SDK for Android and iOS.
Unity means that a whole group can take a virtual trip to wherever Cardboard is equipped to let them go and view it together with the exact perspective based on their position in the room. We wish they’d had this option for gym class when we were at school.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Home> Consumer Design Center > Teardown
Teardown: Moto 360’s shape forces design compromises
http://www.edn.com/design/consumer/4439491/Moto-360-s-shape-forces-design-compromises?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_review_20150529&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_review_20150529&elq=4a2667f32b5c4b1ca45bd4c4cf093dab&elqCampaignId=23205&elqaid=26138&elqat=1&elqTrackId=f18bbed91bc24d2ca61bc319895d1c53
Then there’s Android Wear, a wearable-tuned variant of Google’s Android operating system, found in multiple manufacturers’ products … including LG’s G Watch series and the non-LTE version of LG’s Watch Urbane, the Samsung Galaxy Gear Live, and Sony’s latest SmartWatch generation. As you can see, some companies are hedging their bets. The Android Wear supplier ecosystem also includes plenty of other familiar company names, among them Motorola, formerly a division of Google and now owned by Lenovo.
Although Motorola was publicized as a launch partner when Google unveiled Android Wear in March 2014, the Moto 360 smart watch didn’t begin shipping until September of that same yea
The Moto 360, as its name implies, is unique among Android Wear-based smart watches for its circular face
My motivation in tackling this particular teardown is to showcase these tradeoffs as well as, more generally, to highlight what’s inside the Moto 360′s sleek case.
First off, I quickly realized that without the necessary specialized tools, there was a near-100% certainty that disassembly attempts would render my smart watch no longer usable. Even with the appropriate gear in hand, the iFixit gang had snapped the rear cover of their product sample in two.
Wiens instead offered to share any and all photos from his company’s Moto 360 project with me, echoing multiple past partnerships between iFixit and EDN Magazine
Rumor also has it that the Moto 360 and other Android Wear smart watches will sooner-or-later be compatible with not only Android-based smartphones and tablets but also Apple iOS-based mobile devices. Time will tell whether or not this particular potential enhancement ends up happening.
The photoplethysmography sensor can be used for more than just pulse rate monitoring purposes; it’s theoretically capable of also acting as a pulse oximeter for assessing your oxygen saturation level. However, as far as I know, these enhanced SpO2 capabilities are not (yet) enabled, either for the Moto 360 and other Android Wear-based watches or, for that matter, the Apple Watch.
The Moto 360 is rated IP67, which translates to complete protection from dust ingress, along with protection against liquid immersion up to a meter deep for 30 minutes.
Motorola went with a conventional four-sided lithium ion polymer battery (3.8V, 300 mAh minimum/320 mAh typical, ~1.1 Wh)
Moto 360 is a wireless-only charged device, specifically via the Qi inductive power transfer standard.
Texas Instruments’ TMS320C5545 fixed-point DSP, which I suspect is present to handle the smart watch’s “Ok Google” speech recognition capabilities. To its left is a mysterious IC labeled “WL18G/31/46C1VRI $N,” which as it turns out is a Texas Instruments-sourced wireless transceiver module, handling Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and Bluetooth Low Energy protocols.
Wolfson Microelectronics’ (now Cirrus Logic’s) WM7132 MEMS microphone
Moto 360′s combo six-axis accelerometer/gyro, an InvenSense MPU-6050 MEMS motion tracking device
The OMAP3630 integrates (among other things) a single ARM Cortex-A8 processor core running at up to 1 GHz, along with a PowerVR SGX 530 graphics core running at up to 200 MHz and a C64X DSP core running at up to 800 MHz.
My Moto 360 requires recharge at least every 1.5 days, if not sooner
Tomi Engdahl says:
Alistair Barr / Wall Street Journal:
Google begins testing Hands Free mobile payments system that lets users pay with spoken commands at a handful of McDonald’s and Papa John’s in the Bay area
Google’s Other Mobile Payments Service: Hands Free at McDonald’s
http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/05/29/googles-other-mobile-payments-service-hands-free-at-mcdonalds/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Roberto Baldwin / Engadget:
Google’s Project Soli brings gesture control to wearables by using radar to recognize motion
Google’s Project Soli to bring gesture control to wearables
http://www.engadget.com/2015/05/29/atap-project-soli%20/
Gesture-based system are usually attached to video game consoles like the Microsoft Kinect or your computer like the Leap Motion. Google’s ATAP team figured that the smaller form factor of the smartwatch segment needed its own finger-waving way to control the devices without having to reply on the smartphone. It’s Project Soli replaces the physical controls of smartwatches with your hands using radar to capture your movements.
The system uses broad beam radar to measure doppler image, IQ and spectrogram. The chip recognizes movement, velocity and distance and can be programmed to change the input based on that distance.
The Soli chip works within the 60Ghz radar spectrum at up to 10,000 frames per seconds. The final chip will contain everything it needs to be plug and play including the antennas. ATAP says the device can be made to scale.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Emil Protalinski / VentureBeat:
Google acquires mobile app performance startup Pulse.io
http://venturebeat.com/2015/05/28/google-acquires-mobile-app-performance-startup-pulse-io/
Pulse.io’s product, which shows developers how they can speed up their apps, will remain available to existing customers (with support included) for an undisclosed amount of time. That said, new features will not be added.
According to the announcement on its website, the team will work on incorporating the startup’s technologies into the Google ecosystem. The company’s employees can “think of no better place” to do so “than at the home of Android.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Google Debuts App Invites, A More Personalized System For Inviting Friends To Try Apps
http://techcrunch.com/2015/05/29/google-debuts-app-invites-a-more-personalized-system-for-inviting-friends-to-try-apps/#.b5imzi:bBv8
Google has debuted a new product called “App Invites” aimed at helping mobile app developers grow their application’s user base. Now in beta for both iOS and Android, App Invites includes a set of standardized tools for sending out app invites over SMS and email, highlighting recommended contacts, creating personalized onboarding experiences for new users, and measuring the success the app invites you’re using via custom reports.
The toolset arrives at a time when a number of mobile application makers, especially in the messaging app space, are tapping into users’ address books saved on their phone in order to help users find friends who already on the service, as well as others they want to invite to join them. With Google’s new App Invites tools, mobile developers would have an easier way of designing their app’s referral and onboarding flows.
“App Invites” goes beyond offering users a simple list of contacts to invite to the app. It’s a smart service that can actually recommend which contacts to invite and the preferred method of delivery for those invites.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Dieter Bohn / The Verge:
Google partners with Qualcomm on Project Tango reference phone, no longer requires preapproval to purchase Project Tango tablet — Slamdance: inside the weird virtual reality of Google’s Project Tango — I’m standing in a strange, spartan space. There’s a floor, but no walls.
Slamdance: inside the weird virtual reality of Google’s Project Tango
http://www.theverge.com/a/sundars-google/project-tango-google-io-2015
Tomi Engdahl says:
Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch:
Google’s Project Vault Is A Secure Computing Environment On A Micro SD Card, For Any Platform
http://techcrunch.com/2015/05/29/googles-project-vault-is-a-secure-computing-environment-on-a-micro-sd-card-for-any-platform/#.b5imzi:5KwQ
Project Vault is a secure computer contained entirely on a micro SD sized device. Google’s ATAP said the micro SD format made sense because there’s already advanced security features on your phone, contained in the SIM card, which protects the things important to carriers. Vault is designed to be an equivalent, but designed to project a user’s important content.
They went with the micro SD form factor so that they could have more data throughput to project video, and they wanted storage (Vault has 4GB of data storage on board) and they wanted modularity, so you could take it wherever you wanted.
Onboard the Vault itself is an ARM processor running ARTOS, a secure operating system focused on privacy and data security. It also has anNFC chip and an antenna (for proving that you are in control and that it’s correctly authorized). Finally, there’s a suite of cryptographic services, including hashing, signing, batch encryption and a hardware random number generator.
Vault provides two-factor auth in a way that’s easy enough for anyone to use, and developers don’t have to do anything to get stuff ready to work with it – the system sees it as generic storage device with a standard file system.
Said file system includes just two files, one for read and one for write, that any app has to go through in order to communicate with Vault. This also means that it works with any operating system, including Android, Windows, OS X and Linux, since essentially it’s just a generic storage device to the host computer or phone.
Tomi Engdahl says:
David Pierce / Wired:
With Project Jacquard, Google aims to bring touch sensors, haptic feedback, and more to fabric used for everything from jeans to car seats, partners with Levi’s
Google Is Hacking Our Clothes to Work Like Touchscreens
http://www.wired.com/2015/05/google-wants-turn-everything-wearable/
If you want to understand a key piece of Google’s vision for the future of the fashion, furniture, and automotive industries, look no further than Lady Gaga. Specifically, at a dress she wore to a 2013 iTunes Festival in London.
Poupyrev is a technical program lead inside Google’s ATAP division, the top-secret lab run by former DARPA director Regina Dugan that is responsible for some of Google’s most insane and ambitious ideas. One of the most ambitious ideas to date: smart pants.
OK, technically Poupyrev’s idea is called Project Jacquard.
It aims to bring conductive yarns to every garment and fabric on earth, and then to integrate touch sensors, haptic feedback, and more right into your jeans, car seats, curtains, everything. “If you can weave the sensor into the textile, as a material,” Poupyrev says, “you’re moving away from the electronics. You’re making the basic materials of the world around us interactive.”
Conductive fabric is nothing new, but conductive fabric at scale is. And the Jacquard team created a way to produce this conductive yarn with the same looms and machinery the textiles industry already uses. They also figured out how to integrate tiny electronics into textiles, which Poupyrev hopes will soon live inside every item of clothing you buy. Google is working on an ecosystem of apps and services that will let you interact with your phone and other gadgets just by grabbing, tapping, swiping, and touching your clothes.
He’s a conqueror, a man who looks at an extremely mature 200-year-old industry and sees huge neon signs that say “RIPE FOR DISRUPTION.” But the fashion industry is huge, massively powerful economically, and extremely diffuse—there is no equivalent to Apple or Google, no single company that can drag the industry into new eras by sheer force of economic and social will. The fate of Project Jacquard will rest on Google’s ability to convince not one partner, but many.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Android Pay’s debut means Google Wallet will live on as a P2P payments app
http://venturebeat.com/2015/05/29/android-pays-debut-means-google-wallet-will-live-on-as-a-p2p-payments-app/
Google yesterday announced Android Pay, a new payment feature coming to Android 4.4 KitKat and above. It’s supposed to be the successor to Google Wallet, but the company also announced yesterday that Google Wallet would be relaunching for both Android and iOS. We talked to Google spokesperson Anaik Weid to explain how these two will coexist.
Here’s the short story. Android Pay will be for users to make online, in-app, and retail purchases using their Android device. Google Wallet will be for friends and family with a U.S. debit card to send money using their Android and iOS device.
Here’s where it gets confusing. All current Google Wallet users will be upgraded to Android Pay. Weid explained that a future update will essentially replace the Google Wallet app with the Android Pay app.
Because mobile payments are still very much a new type of system, at least in the West, this may all end up changing again. Google isn’t the only player in the game
Tomi Engdahl says:
Benjamin Snyder / Fortune:
Shazam partners with HarperCollins, Warner Bros, Time Inc., others to give mobile users interactive multimedia content
Shazam just rolled out this surprising new feature
http://fortune.com/2015/05/28/shazam-visual-recognition/
Way more stuff is about to become “Shazamable”
Shazam, the app known for allowing users to press a button and have their phone detect a song that’s playing, is breaking into a new market. The company announced Thursday a new feature that identifies objects in the real world.
Along with the new update comes a bevy of fresh partnerships. Shazam is working with companies like Disney to offer users new interactive content around physical items. A user can open the Shazam app, click a new camera feature, scan a Shazam icon and open the sometimes-exclusive content related to the visual. There are partnerships with a range of other companies and products, including Target, The Wall Street Journal, Warner Bro., Evian, HarperCollins and Time Inc., parent company of Fortune.
“Visual recognition is what’s next for us, [including] the ability for users to engage with printed packaging, print ads, books, CDs, [and] a whole world of things,”
While the feature potentially unlocks new experiences for the user, the biggest hurdle to clear will be getting users to understand how and when to use it. “Part of this is about user education,”
Shazam, which was founded in 1999, boasts over 100 million active users per month and has diversified its offerings substantially in the last few years. Last year, Shazam added TV recognition.