In year 2016 it will be sold over 1.4 billion smart phones. Mobile is the new central ecosystem of tech. The smartphone is the single most important product, which will determine the development of the semiconductor market. Smart phone centre of innovation and investment in hardware, software and company creation. The smart phone market is huge. Today, there are well over 2bn smartphones in use, and there are between 3.5 and 4.5bn people with a mobile phone of some kind, out of only a little over 5bn adults on earth. With billions of people buying a device every two years, on average, the phone business dwarfs the PC business, which has an install base of 1.5-1.6bn devices replaced every 4-5 years
Smart phone market is no longer fast gowing market. Expect single-digit worldwide smartphone growth in 2016. According to a new forecast from the International Data Corporation (IDC ) Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker , 2015 will be the first full year of single-digit worldwide smartphone growth. IDC predicts worldwide smartphone shipments will grow 9.8% in 2015 to a total of 1.43 billion units. The main driver has been and will continue to be the success of low-cost smartphones in emerging markets. China has been the focal point of the smartphone market – now China has largely become a replacement market and there is economic slowdown in China.
Apple & Google both won, but it’s complicated – both Apple and Google won, in different ways. Android won the handset market outside of Apple, but it’s not quite clear what that means. Microsoft missed the shift to the new platform so Windows Mobile is on life support.
We will continue to see a globalization of the mobile landscape in 2016, as new China brands shake up the smartphone markets with new designs and business models. Expect continuing growth from China brands like Xiaomi, Lenovo and Huawei. Huawei says it sent in 2015 to more than 100 million smartphones and its now firmly among the world’s three largest suppliers. Samsung is the world’s largest smartphone manufacturer, but it looks that it’s production volumes are shrinking because of cheaper Android phones coming from China.
Last year’s CES had a conspicuous lack of killer smartphones, and O’Donnell expects this year to be very challenging for handset vendors – Apple included. It is getting really hard to differentiate from a phone perspective. In the smartphone market changes happen slowly, and for the challengers it is difficult to penetrate the market.
Apple’s position in smart phones is not currently a threat really none. The volumes of the iPhone does not come close to the Android camp in the unit sales figures, but it is clearly not Apple’s target at all – it targets to high-end phones. Apple made record sales in 2015 holiday season, but it is possible that Apple is going to have a tough year in 2016. Some Wall Street analysts predict an end of iPhone sales growth, shrinking iPad sales, and a tough year ahead for Apple. The high cost and the markets getting full are met weigh the Apple iPhone phone sales.Wall Street expects iPhone sales for the fiscal year ending in September will barely budge — and might even decline — from last year. That would be the worst year for iPhone sales since the device was introduced in 2007. If realized, the forecast significantly affect Apple’s value. Despite recent reports of cuts by iPhone suppliers, Apple remains most profitable company in S&P 500. Fortunately for Apple, most of its smartphone competitors are struggling.
Microsoft got the third mobile ecosystem market position, but it’s market share is pretty low: Microsoft’s market share was only 1.7 per cent in the third quarter of 2015. It is very possible that Microsoft will cut Lumia production significantly in 2016. Microsoft’s long-rumored Surface Phone is coming in the second half of next year, reports Windows Central. Windows 10 phones are not dead yet even from other manufacturers as Acer, Alcatel OneTouch just made some new ones. The key feature in the Jade Primo is support for Microsoft’s Continuum feature, allowing you to use the phone like a PC when connected to a larger display – though limited to apps that run on the device’s ARM processor. The idea, claims Acer, is that you can leave your laptop at home, but what’s the demand for PC phones? It is hard to get winning much traction in a market dominated by Android.
Microsoft says the Windows 10 Mobile upgrade will begin early 2016 to select existing Windows 8 and 8.1 phones. Microsoft could not update the smart phones in 2015 despite the fact that the operating system had originally been set to launch alongside the desktop version of the software in July. Microsoft has had a longstanding “chicken and egg” problem: Too few people have Windows phones for developers to care about making apps for the platform, and customers don’t want to buy Windows phones because they don’t have enough apps. Microsoft tries to help his problem With Windows 10, apps that developers write for the PC will also work on Microsoft’s phones. It could have some positive effect, but is no silver bullet. Microsoft’s biggest problem: The 10 most-used apps of the year in the U.S. were all made by three companies — Facebook, Google, and Apple.
It’s only been 15 years since the first camera phone came out. Today smartphones are giving consumers enhanced photo and video capabilities with 8-16 megapixel class. Smartphone cameras are great, or at least close enough to great that you don’t notice the difference. We’ve reached the point where you’ve got to work pretty hard to find a phone with a mediocre camera. Compared to a DSLR, smart phone cameras are lousy because they use tiny sensors, but still the camera in your pocket is crazy good considering the limitations manufacturers work under. The vast majority of top-tier smartphones use Sony sensors for their main cameras. The molded plastic lens elements in many cameras have reached the point where they’re essentially perfect.
For new smart phone camera technologies you could see array of lenses to enable Lytro-like refocusing, create 3-D depth maps, and improve image quality in low light. Some manufacturers are also exploring new areas, such as 3D cameras, massive megapixels (80MB), cameras that can take 360 degree panoramic images and video and cameras that can shoot 1,000 frames a second. 4K Ultra HD for mobile is another move to watch in 2016 as it becomes more common feature. Smartphones have decimated the point-and-shoot camera segment.
Smart phones are increasingly used to shoot videos. Smart phones are already deployed in many newsrooms for mobile journalism video shooting as it is easier (and cheaper) to learn how to film and edit on your phone than it is to use a big camera.(check for example step-by-step guide to shooting iPhone video). Live streaming video from smart phone becomes mainstream. Periscope was one of the first apps to really make live streaming events simple and easy enough that people wanted to do it. Many other apps are following the trend. Facebook begins testing live video streaming for all users.
Smart phones have already replaced many separate technical gadgets already, and this trend will continue. Smartphone have increased screen sizes and have finally become mobile TVs: Smartphones have overtaken the tablets as the most popular mobile device for viewing videos. The most watched content were targeted at teenagers videos and animation series for children.
Mobile display will be more accurate than eye in 2016 in high-end smart phones. Few enjoys a 4K-quality image even in his living room, but by the end of 2016, the same accuracy can be your smartphone. ETSI is preparing for development at ETSI CCM working group (Compound Content Management). Scalable 4K signal requires a very high dynamics (HDR, high dynamic range), as well as the WCG wider color space (Coloc Wider gamut). Such HDR / WCG techniques has only slowly been add to TV broadcasting. One can of course ask whether UltraHD- or 4K image are planting a cell phone make any sense, but they are coming (Sharp already announced that it would launch 4K-level mobile phone).
So device manufacturers need to support user expectations for downloading larger files for apps, movies, photos, videos and other materials, more frequently and more quickly. Networking speed is an area where we will see companies start to push the envelope in 2016, such as new creative strategies for caching, spectrum hopping and managing the Internet of Things.
The quality of LTE modem can make or break your smart phone product. Smartphones consist of two main components: Modems and application processors. Application processor performances of several smartphone brands are widely published, but LTE modem performance measures are much more difficult for the average purchaser to assess. Consumers have generally ignored the importance of connectivity in smartphone purchases, but device performance and positive user experiences are driven by best-in-class connectivity. There are 5 LTE smartphone modem chip makers currently shipping in mobile devices and besides U.S.-based Qualcomm, they include: HiSilicon (China), Intel (U.S.), Leadcore (China), MediaTek (Taiwan), Samsung (Korea), and Spreadtrum (China).
5G will be talked a lot enven though standardization is not ready yet. Just five years after the first 4G smartphone hit the market, the wireless industry is already preparing for 5G: cell phone carriers, smartphone chip makers and the major network equipment companies are working on developing 5G network technology for their customers.
Sometimes it’s easy to forget that a smartphone is also a telephone. Nearly half of all phone users today employ their mobile phones as their primary voice connection (a number sure to grow). That the voice features in cell phones also advance. Very early on, the standard for human voice transmission was set as the “voice band” located between 300 Hz and 3.3 kHz (to put this in perspective, the natural frequency span of human voice during speech ranges from about 50 Hz to nearly 10 kHz). These standards were carried over for cellphone audio quality. Now that there are about about as many cellphone subscriptions as there are people on earth, one would think that there really shouldn’t be any more technological excuses for poor voice quality. New standards branded as HD Voice and VoLTE promise the eventual extension of voice transmission frequency range up to 7 kHz. There are also other major challenge preventing great sounding calls – especially noise challenges facing cellphone users. To get good sound quality we need to develop algorithms that isolate the person speaking from all other sources of noise.
Financial Services needs to get over its reluctance and go mobile in 2016, but it might not happen in large scale this year. Compliance concerns have long prevented financial services businesses from adopting mobile capabilities as quickly as other industries. Yvette Jackson of Thomson Reuters argues that technology advancements have made compliance worries of the past now obsolete.
Mobile payments are finally taking the momentum in North America, Japan and some European countries in 2016. Every second consumer is expected to smartphone or wearable device purchases to pay in few years. There are now types of mobile payment technologies in use. Some of them will turn to be interim techniques.
Despite many tools available mobile application development is still hard work in 2016. Mobile developer report shows growing back-end challenge: 33.9 per cent spent more than half their development effort on back-end integration. This effort includes creating and debugging APIs, finding documentation for existing APIs, and orchestrating data from multiple sources. iOS and Android dominate as target platforms. The disappointment for Microsoft is that all its hoopla about the Universal Windows Platform (UWP) does not seem to resonate here. What about making money? Only just over 60 per cent of those surveyed are primarily out to make money from apps themselves, with others aiming for goals such as customer loyalty and brand awareness. In-app purchases are the most effective method, followed by advertising and app purchase. Application landscape is changing: Single-function applications no longer meet the everyday life needs on mobile devices.
Web standards are becoming promising for mobile use but they are still far from making mobile apps obsolete in 2016. There’s a litany of problems with apps. There is the platform lock-in and the space the apps take up on the device. Updating apps is a pain that users often ignore, leaving broken or vulnerable versions in use long after they’ve been allegedly patched. Apps are also a lot of work for developers. Use the Web and the Web browser can sometimes help in solving some of those problems while creating other different set of problems. For example updates to HTML apps happen entirely on the server, so users get them immediately. Also HTML-based platform and a well-designed program that makes good use of CSS, one site could support phones, tablets, PCs, and just about anything else with one site. Currently HTML5 standards are advancing rapidly in the area of mobile Web applications. Web standards make mobile apps obsolete? I don’t think that it will happen immediately, even though many big tech companies are throwing weight behind a browser-based world (backed strongly by Google and Mozilla). So app or web question will still very relevant for mobile developer in 2016.
Google appears to be lining up OpenJDK – an open-source implementation of the Java platform – for future Android builds. Android runs apps written in Java on its Dalvik engine, and lately, its Android Runtime virtual machine. These apps require a Java class library, as well as various Android-specific bits and pieces, to work. Now it seems the next big releases of Android will use not the heavily customized Harmony-derived library but instead OpenJDK’s core libraries.
Android, which is controlled by Google, is one of Facebook’s biggest markets. Facebook has a contingency plan in case the company falls out with Google, according to The Information: a way to deliver app updates without going through the Google Play Store — currently the only way to update apps — and has a way of handling in-app payments. Amazon, which makes Android-based tablets, has a similar system: The app acts as a new store front from which other apps can be downloaded and updated, without Google Play.
There will be fascinating conversation in tech about smartphone apps and the web – what can each do, how discovery works, how they interplay, what Google plans with Chrome, whether the web will take over as the dominant form and so on. Ask the question: Do people want to put your icon on their home screen?
Mobile Internet continues to be important also in 2016. There is place for both Internet pages and apps. The internet makes it possible to get anything you’ve ever heard of but also makes it impossible to have heard of everything. We started with browsing, and that didn’t scale to the internet, and then we moved to search, but search can only give you what you already knew you wanted. In the past, print and retail showed us what there was but also gave us a filter – now both the filter and the demand generation are gone.
There is hunt for a new runtime, and a new discovery layer. Could it be messaging, Facobook or something else? Facebook and Google try to make mobile publishing platforms faster. Facebook has Instant Articles platform that aims to make articles loading fast on mobile devices. Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) is Google’s plan to make pages appear super-fast for those using mobile devices. Fast-loading pages may also mean fast-loading ads, with advertising platform support for AMP that’s been announced. I expect that first those plaforms will make loading the articles faster than traditinal pages, but over years those systems, if they catch, will be bloated to be slow again.
Maybe in 2016 we should stop talking about ‘mobile’ internet and ‘desktop’ internet - it’s like talking about ‘colour’ TV, as opposed to black and white TV. We have a mental model, left over from feature phones, that ‘mobile’ means limited devices that are only used walking around. Get over it. For 15 years the internet was a monolith: web browser + mouse + keyboard. The smartphone broke that apart, but we haven’t settled on a new model. Mobile’ isn’t about the screen size or keyboard or location or use. Rather, the ecosystem of ARM, iOS and Android, that has bigger scale than ‘Wintel’.
Dick Tracy had it right. Wearable devices are becoming more of any every day item as they proliferate across markets. Wearable market is still immature and growing in 2016. While many new fitness bands, smartwatches, and other wearable devices have entered the market, most have under-whelmed prospects and users. It is quite clear the wearable industry is in its infancy and fraught with growing pains. You can expect the top five vendors will not only shift places, but come in and drop out on a quarterly basis. Wearables grew 197.6% in Q3 2015 when mobile companies shipped a total of 21.0 million wearables worldwide.
Whereas the smartphone is the ultimate convergence product, we are learning that wearables are inherently divergent products. It seems that super-duper smartwatches loaded with full-blown phone/email/camera/voice assistant capabilities together with all other bells and whistles are not necessarily winning recipe like it was for smart phones. Many consumers want instead simplicity, ease of use, and instant actionable feedback. As an embedded developer of wearables, not only do you have the challenge of addressing battery life issues, but also architecting and developing a system that takes full advantage of the underlying hardware. Heartbeat monitoring has become the must-have feature for fitness trackers. China has quickly emerged as the fastest-growing wearables market, attracting companies eager to compete on price and feature sets.
The newest wearable technology, smart watvches and other smart devices corresponding to the voice commands and interpret the data we produce - it learns from its users, and generate as responses in real time appropriate, “micro-moments” tied to experience.
Links to some other mobile predictions articles worth to check out:
16 mobile theses by Benedict Evans
Mobile 2016 Predictions from EE Times
2015 Appcelerator / IDC Mobile Trends Report: Leaders, Laggards and the Data Problem
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Tomi Engdahl says:
MediaTek’s 4G Market Share Gains to Slow in 2016
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1328831&
MediaTek, Qualcomm’s largest competitor in the smartphone silicon business, reiterated expectations that its market-share gains in the 4G business may slow this year after soaring in 2015.
“We’re still looking to extend our 4G market share,” said MediaTek Senior Vice President David Ku on a conference call to announce the company’s fourth-quarter 2015 results. “Our 4G growth rate should be higher than the industry end-market growth.”
MediaTek expects the global 4G market this year to grow within a range of 5 percent to 10 percent from 1.4 billion units in 2015. Last year, the company shipped about 150 million long-term evolution (LTE) chips in the high end of the 4G segment. Overall, MediaTek shipped about 400 million smartphone chips in 2015 as it entered the business in competition with Qualcomm.
Companies in the smartphone business may need to adjust to slower sales after market research firm International Data Corporation (IDG) reported that shipment growth in 2015 slowed to 9.8 percent last year, ending years of double-digit increases on an annual basis.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hybrid Polymer breakthrough could lead to self-repairing materials
http://www.androidauthority.com/self-repairing-hybrid-polymer-materials-670890/
Today’s high-end smartphone customers may whine at the very thought of plastic cases, but in the future plastics may be very much back in fashion, albeit with far more interesting properties than what we are familiar with today. A completely new class of material called a hybrid polymer has been developed by researchers at Northwestern University, which could open the door to a wide range of new practical uses.
The researches envision new materials with properties ranging from self-repairing and regenerating through to strong artificial muscles that can flex and contract. The end result could be synthetic materials that behave in very life-like ways.
This hybrid polymer is formed from two different types, one with strong covalent bonds and supramolecular polymers with weak bonds that contain nano-sized compartments.
For gadgets, the technology could also form the basis for self-repairing and even self-assembling materials.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Microsoft is reportedly buying SwiftKey for around $250 million
http://www.theverge.com/2016/2/2/10900456/microsoft-swiftkey-acquisition-reported-250-million
Microsoft already has one of the better mobile keyboards out there, and it sounds like it may soon own another great one. The Financial Times reports that Microsoft is entering a deal to purchase SwiftKey for around $250 million, with plans to announce the acquisition this week. Pinged for comment, Microsoft said it has “nothing to share at this time” and SwiftKey declined to comment on “rumors [and] speculation.”
SwiftKey has been one of the most popular keyboard apps on iOS and Android. It launched on Android in 2010 and came to iOS in 2014.
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/f86534c6-c9fa-11e5-be0b-b7ece4e953a0,Authorised=false.html?ftcamp=published_links%2Frss%2Fcompanies_technology%2Ffeed%2F%2Fproduct&_i_location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ft.com%2Fintl%2Fcms%2Fs%2F0%2Ff86534c6-c9fa-11e5-be0b-b7ece4e953a0.html%3Fftcamp%3Dpublished_links%252Frss%252Fcompanies_technology%252Ffeed%252F%252Fproduct&_i_referer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theverge.com%2F128fe97b585567748167ea9411efc4a5&classification=conditional_standard&iab=barrier-app#axzz3z3RnR3so
Tomi Engdahl says:
Wearables becames a billon-dollar industry
Wearable electronics has been talked about for years to come. The term referred to in the past, above all, the so-called. smart clothing. Only last year, largely of Apple’s Watch wearable thanks, wearables became a billion-dollar business. All in all, wearable devices sold 232 million copies.
According to Gartner, one in eight sold last year was the so-called wearable electronic devices was smart watch, since they were sold 30.3 million pieces together. This year, wearable going to sell 50 million units next year and already 67 million.
Wearable is still not the most popular wearable electronic device, not even close. Blutooth headsets were sold last year to 116.3 million units. Headphones sales continue to grow, but the rate has already been clearly slowing.
What about the original smart garment? Last year, they sold 60 000 copies. This year is achieved, according to Gartner million units of clothing, and next year by 5.3 million.
Research estimates that wearable devices sold this year, a total of 275 million copies. Next year, the rate is almost 323 million.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3937:puettavista-tuli-miljardibisnes&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
By 2019 world will spend $2.8 TREELLION on the rubbish we write about
About one dollar in five will go on smartmobes, but servers and storage will also grow
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/02/05/by_2019_world_will_spend_28_treellion_on_the_rubbish_we_write_about/
Information technology analyst house IDC says that world spending on information technology will hit US$2.8 trillion in 2019, up from this year’s $2.46 trillion.
Healthcare outfits will do the heaviest lifting, lifting their spending by a compound annual growth rate of 5.5 per cent. Financial services types, the media sector and resources industries will all grow at 4.6 per cent, IDC says.
Software and services will grow even faster at 6.7 per cent. Hardware won’t grow as fast, but will account for 40 per cent of spend. Half of the hardware category’s haul will consist of smartphones, but there’s also some joy for the enterprise with the firm putting its name to predictions of 2.6 per cent growth for servers and 3.2 per cent for storage.
Tomi Engdahl says:
MIT Neural Network IC Aims At Mobiles
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1328877&
MIT researchers have designed a chip to implement neural networks and claim it is 10 times as efficient as a mobile GPU. This could be used to allow mobile devices to run artificial-intelligence algorithms locally, rather than uploading data to the Internet for processing.
MIT researchers presented their findings at the International Solid State Circuits Conference in San Francisco.
“Deep learning is useful for many applications, such as object recognition, speech, face detection,”
The chip is called Eyeriss and the idea is that training up for the network for specific functions could be done “in the cloud” and then the training configuration – the weighting of each node in the network could be exported to the mobile device.
The chip has 168 cores each with its own memory
Tomi Engdahl says:
For some reason, VAIO announces a Windows 10 phone
The smaller, leaner PC maker’s second phone… is a Windows Phone?
http://www.engadget.com/2016/02/03/vaio-made-a-windows-phone/
apan is getting more Windows Phones. In October, Windows Japan announced that six companies were tackling Windows 10 for mobile, and following the gorgeous NuAns phone, VAIO has revealed its second ever smartphone. (The funny part is that VAIO’s once-parent company went so far as to make a Windows Phone slider, but it never saw the inside of a phone store.) Anyhow, here’s the VAIO Phone Biz. It’s for business use. It’s not a slider, and it’s launching next month, but only in Japan for now.
While VAIO hopes to concentrate sales inside businesses, it will also launch the phone with help from MVNO stores across Japan. It’s a SIM-free model, and it appears that there’s no big phone carrier that’ll be carrying the phone.) My biggest question is why VAIO chose to make something so nice for Windows 10 Phone — when Microsoft itself saw sales drop 49 percent last time it checked. It seems like a risk for the now independent, smaller company.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Tim Bradshaw / Financial Times:
Sources: Google to release Gear VR-like headset this year compatible with a broad range of smartphones, embed VR technology into Android OS — Google pushes further into world of virtual reality — Google is developing a new virtual-reality headset for smartphones, and adding extra support …
Google pushes further into virtual reality with new headset
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0%2Fb33d75fe-cc5a-11e5-be0b-b7ece4e953a0.html#axzz3zcMgSqEW
Google is developing a new virtual-reality headset for smartphones, and adding extra support for the technology to its Android operating system, as it challenges Facebook’s Oculus for an early lead in Silicon Valley’s latest platform war.
The new headset will be a successor to Cardboard.
Google declined to comment on the updated headset, but Sundar Pichai, Google’s chief executive, said last week that Cardboard was “just the first step” in its VR efforts. “Beyond these early efforts, you’ll see a lot more from us and our partners in 2016,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
PayPal launches Commerce, a toolkit for integrating buy buttons into apps, in closed beta
PayPal Commerce Matches Stripe With PayPal’s Own Native Shopping Toolkit For Apps
http://techcrunch.com/2016/02/11/paypal-matches-stripe-with-its-own-native-shopping-toolkit-for-apps/
PayPal’s first acquisition after it separated from eBay in 2015 was of a young startup called Modest, which had built a platform for small businesses to integrate buy buttons across third-party apps. Now, PayPal is taking the wraps off a new product that will integrate Modest’s technology.
PayPal Commerce — as the new service is called — launches today in closed beta, setting the stage for how PayPal could potentially reboot its platform for the next generation of the Internet and the 179 million customers already using PayPal.
“Ten Internets ago when PayPal was started, it was all these tools that no one had built yet to bring commerce to the internet. My first startup used PayPal,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Agam Shah / PCWorld:
Qualcomm bringing LTE connectivity to wearables with new Wear platform — With LTE connectivity, Qualcomm is trying to break the pattern of tethering wearables with smartphones — Wearables today are overwhelmingly tethered to smartwatches. Qualcomm wants to change that by bringing LTE connectivity …
Qualcomm’s bringing LTE connectivity to wearables with new Wear platform
With LTE connectivity, Qualcomm is trying to break the pattern of tethering wearables with smartphones.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/3032344/wearables/qualcomm-bringing-lte-connectivity-to-wearables-with-new-wear-platform.html
Wearables today are overwhelmingly tethered to smartphones. Qualcomm wants to change that by bringing LTE connectivity to wearables with its new Snapdragon Wear platform.
With the Wear platform, Qualcomm wants to drive the development of sleek wearables like smartwatches, smartbands and smartglasses that offer long battery life. With Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and LTE, Qualcomm is enabling more ways for wearables to connect and transfer data over the Internet, other than using the smartphone as an interface.
At the core of the new wearable platform, available now, is the Wear 2100 chip to which an LTE module can be attached. It is the first in a new family of chips the company will release for wearables.
LG Electronics said it would launch smartwatches and other wearables with the Wear 2100 chip by year end. LG last year announced the LG Watch Urbane 2nd Edition LTE, but scrapped the product due to hardware issues. That product could be launched with the Wear 2100 this year.
There are already wearables with cellular connectivity, but most have 2G/3G connectivity. LTE modems tend to be power hungry, and using the 2G/3G network is a more power-efficient way to transfer data using a cellular connection.
Andrew Cunningham / Ars Technica:
Qualcomm announces Snapdragon X16 LTE modem supporting 1 Gbps downloads and 150 Mbps uploads
Qualcomm promises gigabit LTE speeds with its new Snapdragon X16 modem
And there are new low-end phone and wearable Snapdragon chips for later in 2016.
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/02/qualcomm-promises-gigabit-lte-speeds-with-its-new-snapdragon-x16-modem/
Qualcomm’s lead in the mobile SoC and modem market is no longer as unassailable as it once was, but the company continues to be out in front when it comes to pushing new LTE technologies. Case in point: its new Snapdragon X16 modem, which together with the WTR5975 transceiver boasts Category 16 LTE download speeds of up to 1Gbps. Most of today’s phones top out at 300Mbps or 450Mbps, and the upcoming Snapdragon 820 will only go up to 600Mbps. The X16 will also support upload speeds of up to 150Mbps, which is equal to or only slightly higher than upload rates supported by current LTE modems.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ken Yeung / VentureBeat:
Facebook is testing SMS integration in Messenger on Android, launches multiple account support — Facebook has confirmed that it is looking to bring back SMS support in Messenger and has also launched multiple account support. At least for now, both features are only for Android users.
Facebook is testing SMS integration in Messenger on Android, launches multiple account support
http://venturebeat.com/2016/02/11/facebook-is-testing-sms-integration-in-messenger-launches-multiple-account-support/
Facebook has confirmed that it is looking to bring back SMS support in Messenger and has also launched multiple account support. At least for now, both features are only for Android users.
Android Police earlier reported spotting these new features in the popular messaging service. Facebook Messenger used to have SMS integration, but the feature was removed in November 2013. At the time, Facebook said that the feature “just didn’t take off.”
Facebook declined to say how many people are able to take advantage of SMS in Messenger. The test is only for a small number of Android users in the U.S. To see if you have the feature, check if you have a “Change SMS App” option in your Messenger settings.
With the growing importance of messaging among businesses to communicate with their customers, multiple account support has become crucial.
Tomi Engdahl says:
MEMS Microphone Market to Hit 13% CAGR
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1328892&
The microelectromechanical-systems (MEMS) microphones market will grow from about 3.6 billion units in 2015 to over 6 billion units in 2019, according to market research company IHS Technology.
Over the same period the market value will grow from about $800 million in 2015 to about $1.3 billion in 2019, a compound annual growth rate of 13 percent.
Apple is a key purchaser of MEMS microphones although its significance is set to diminish as the devices become more mainstream. Apple shifted from three MEMS microphones in the iPhone 6 line to four in the iPhone 6S line and is set to purchase about 1.5 billion MEMS microphones in 2016, about one third of a market valued at about $900 million according to IHS.
Microsoft and Motorola introduced smartphones with four MEMS microphones, before Apple but at lower volumes
Four or five MEMS microphones
Four microphones help with hands-free calling and voice commands for Siri, Google Now, Cortana and other applications and MEMS microphones are being added for richer audio fidelity in video recording, noise cancellation and better call and recording performance.
“It will be harder for manufacturers to justify a move to five microphones in the coming years, unless clear and potentially popular use cases are identified,” Boustany said. “So far, Motorola’s Droid Turbo is the only handset with five MEMS microphones to become widely available.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Lauren Goode / The Verge:
After a bevy of acquisitions by major brands, the age of indie fitness apps is over
The age of indie fitness apps is over
They’re all being bought by ‘brands’
http://www.theverge.com/2016/2/12/10978234/fitness-app-brand-takeover-runkeeper-under-armour-adidas-fitbit
What do Endomondo, MyFitnessPal, MapMyFitness, Runtastic, FitStar, and RunKeeper all have in common?
Aside from all being smartphone apps that track your health and activity, all of these apps have been acquired by bigger companies — bigger brands — over the past couple of years, the latest being RunKeeper, which was just bought by running shoe maker Asics. Endomondo, MyFitnessPal, and MapMyFitness went to Under Armour. Runtastic was acquired by Adidas. FitStar was bought by Fitbit, which at the time wasn’t yet a public company, but in its own right has swelled to become the market leader for activity trackers.
Apps joining forces with apparel giants and device makers makes sense, in many ways. For apparel companies, it means acquiring an already-amassed community of digital customers. For app makers, it’s a tidy little exit. Many of the apps offer tiered services, but the number of consumers actually paying for premium subscriptions may not be enough to sustain a long-term business.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Tragic Data Behind Selfie Fatalities
http://priceonomics.com/the-tragic-data-behind-selfie-fatalities/
The selfie is inescapable.
Though in its waning days as a buzzword, it continues to pervade every facet of daily life. In the course of any given week, “selfie” is mentioned in 365,000 Facebook posts and 150,000 tweets. A comb of Instagram hashtags turns up more than 50 million results for the word.
Like any wide-spread activity, the selfie is not immune to tragedy. In pursuit of the ultimate profile pic, stick-yielding youths often go to extremes: They perch themselves on cliffs. They pose beside wild animals. They play chicken with oncoming trains. And sometimes, they don’t make it out alive.
While selfie deaths have received a fair amount of coverage
Polls have shown that 30% of all photographs taken by 18 to 24 year-olds are selfies — the highest percentage of any age bracket. So the average age here (21) doesn’t come as much of a surprise: it makes sense that the demographic taking the most selfies also perishes the most in the process.
Though women take significantly more selfies than men, 36 of the 49 selfie-related fatality victims were male. Studies have proven that men are two times more likely to take recreational risks than women are, even when it comes to selfies.
“It’s all about me. It’s putting me in the frame. I’m getting attention and when I post that to social media, I’m getting the confirmation that I need from other people that I’m awesome,” says lead researcher Jesse Fox. “You’re not thinking about the consequences of your actions, so who cares if you’re dangling off the side of the Eiffel Tower?”
“A lot of these so-called selfie deaths can be blamed more on carelessness than photography,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Qualcomm Unveils Wearable SoC
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1328928&
Qualcomm announced a thinner and lower-power family of SoCs, Snapdragon Wear 2100, targeted at the wearable market. The Snapdragon Wear platform is a full suite of silicon, software, support tools, and reference designs.
The company had previously pushed its mobile chips, such as the Snapdragon 400, into the wearable segment. This represents the first time Qualcomm has created a wearable-specific platform.
Tomi Engdahl says:
William Herkewitz / Popular Mechanics:
MyShake Android app uses your phone’s accelerometer to detect earthquakes and automatically warn scientists
With “MyShake” App, Your Phone Feels Earthquakes and Automatically Warns Scientists
And MyShake won’t kill your battery life, either.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/a19435/myshake-earthquake-app/
Your newest app hums away in the background as your phone lies on the coffee table. The gentle thump of your speakers, the quiver of sound waves from a slammed door or a coffee mug set down too abruptly—these things do not perturb it. But as soon as the app feels the telltale rumble of a earthquake, it perks up.
Shooting out a tiny data packet, the app automatically warns scientists at a central database about the quake within milliseconds. Your phone has just become a single node in an entirely cellphone-based earthquake early warning system, and if enough smartphones users around you download the app, then you soon could be getting instant warnings that a quake is rolling your way.
The new Android app is called MyShake, and you can download it for free from the Google Play Store starting today. Engineered by a team of seismologists and computer scientists led by Qingkai Kong and Richard Allen at the University of California, Berkeley, MyShake is not only the coolest citizen-science tool you can download on your phone (a low bar, perhaps) but also heralds a massive step forward for seismological research. Using your smartphone’s existing accelerometer, this is the first publicly available app to turn your phone into a mobile earthquake measuring station. In addition to releasing the app, the scientists also describe the underlying science and methods behind MyShake in a new paper published today in the journal Science Advances.
http://myshake.berkeley.edu/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Andrew Liszewski / Gizmodo:
Mattel’s $40 Google Cardboard-compatible VR View-Master 2.0, coming this fall, fixes many problems of the original — The VR View-Master 2.0 Will Be the Best Google Cardboard You Can Buy — Last year Mattel completely re-invented the View-Master by turning it into what eventually became …
The VR View-Master 2.0 Will Be the Best Google Cardboard You Can Buy
http://toyland.gizmodo.com/the-virtual-reality-view-master-2-0-will-be-the-best-go-1758981678
Last year Mattel completely re-invented the View-Master by turning it into what eventually became one of the better Google Cardboard solutions on the market. For $30 it was cheap, comfortable, and held almost any smartphone available. And this year Mattel will be introducing a new model that fixes all the original’s minor problems.
Tomi Engdahl says:
James Risley / GeekWire:
Former lead architect of Windows 95 announces Swipe, an open-source document creation platform for mobile — Windows 95 architect launches open-source, media-rich document creation platform for mobile devices … PowerPoint is fine for your business presentation, but getting your message across …
Windows 95 architect launches open-source, media-rich document creation platform for mobile devices
http://www.geekwire.com/2016/uievolution-founder-launches-open-source-media-rich-document-platform/
PowerPoint is fine for your business presentation, but getting your message across with a few pictures and text alone may not fit when you’re trying to give a product demo on a website or present your findings via email. That’s where a new project from Satoshi Nakajima comes in.
With Swipe, announced today, users can build media-rich documents with animations, video, vector graphics and audio via any touch-enabled device. The open-source platform will make its official debut next month at the Silicon Valley Comic-Con.
UIEvolution is the first to adopt Swipe. The company’s cloud-based ExperienceManager will allow its clients to create content using Swipe and push that content to interactive screens. With UIEvolution’s software running on more than 18,000 screens in hotel rooms and cruise ships, this will allow its clients to quickly create new experiences made with touch in mind.
UIEvolution Founder and Interim CEO Satoshi Nakajima Launches Swipe
http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160216005748/en
Swipe™, an open source platform embedding visual and audio agency into digital documents, comes from the technology entrepreneur, esteemed engineer, and founder and current interim CEO of UIEvolution.
Swipe
http://www.swipe.net/
Enabling media-rich & Animated documents for touch devices
Swipe is a domain-specific, declarative language for non-developers (such as designers, animators, illustrators, musicians, videographers and comic writers) to create media-rich/animated documents that contain photos, videos, images, vector graphics, animations, voices, musics and sound effects, which will be consumed on touch-enabled devices such as smartphones, tablets and touch-enabled set-top-boxes (such as iPhone and Apple TV).
Tomi Engdahl says:
Wearable Tech Goes à La Mode
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1328941&
Please hold all eye rolling until after the slideshow…
When I arrived in Paris earlier this month, the first billboard that jumped into view was an ad for the “Weareable Fashiontech Festival.”
I rolled my eyes, thinking that I don’t have time for this.
What doesn’t pique my interest, however, is “wearable” technology pitches in general, largely because they tend to be apples dressed up as oranges. I’ve had a few “wearable tech” experiences of my own. In Cannes in the early 2000’s, the Mobile World Congress organizers pioneered the mobile technology fashion show concept. Needless to say, it didn’t exactly take the world by storm.
However, thanks to advancements in sensors, 3D printers and an industry-wide push for the Internet of Things, along with the Makers’ movement, wearable devices are now ubiquitous. They’ve infiltrated our clothing and they no longer look like some sort of sci-fi parasite trying to burrow into human flesh.
Still, an absent element in most so-called “fashion tech” wearables is a point of view from fashion designers.
Tech guys may find LED-lit T-shirts “kind of cool.” But given access to the technology, artists or real fashion designers would likely conceive whole new uses for “wearable” fabrics, much different from the stuff of engineers’ dreams.
Designs exhibited at the Weareable Fashiontech festival in Paris last week included ‘spider dresses’ capable of protecting a woman’s body (some of you might have already seen this at the Consumer Electronics Show last year), fungal T-shirts that breathe and live on their own, and clothing designed to communicate with others. Yes, some of this stuff was fairly weird (wearable fungus?), but it all offers a glimpse of how tomorrow’s fashion might blend with technology.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Apple keeps Android Wear compatibility to a minimum
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/brians-brain/4441385/Apple-keeps-Android-Wear-compatibility-to-a-minimum?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20160217&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20160217&elqTrackId=58643d559d7f4cad99999ed99acaeca0&elq=174ddc5eae854b0b9d7851ca667b9f9c&elqaid=30871&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=27013
Who’s to blame for this discrepancy? My earlier “walled garden” comment likely tipped my hat as to who I believe is the primary culprit. Google’s reportedly been working on Android Wear support in iOS for quite some time now, so I suspect it’s delivered pretty much everything it can given Apple’s longstanding API reticence. Conversely, were Apple to decide to bring Android compatibility to its own Watch, I suspect the company would have a much easier experience (aside from needing to deal with the diversity of Android versions now in the potential-customer base, that is), and would deliver a much more robust result.
This contrast and underlying incompatibility are no surprise; they’re the latest example of a longstanding corporate strategy difference that’s also evident in the Mac OS X-vs-Windows openness variance. But as with computers, smartphones, tablets, TV media streamers, cars (??), or any of the other markets in which Apple participates, it’ll be interesting to see which strategy ends up coming out ahead, and how “winning” will be measured … volume, revenue, and/or profit, and for the base hardware and/or associated services and software?
Tomi Engdahl says:
Medical and Biometric Sensors for Consumers
http://www.eeweb.com/news/medical-and-biometric-sensors-for-consumers
Consumers are beginning to take advantage of the array of tools now available to measure and improve their health. Already, smartphones can give users a lot of useful information by using the sensors that are built in or connected to them. Beyond these devices, wearables like smartwatches, smart clothes, and other gadgets will provide even more measurements and add usefulness by being at the right place (in/on one’s body) at the right time (while the user is active, asleep, at a medical appointment, or all the time). Companies and consumers alike will certainly take advantage of all the big and small data collected by way of these tools in the coming years.
Smartphones are #1 right now
The expectation is that six billion people will be using smartphones by 2020. With the ability to gather and store information, access networks, and connect to devices locally, smartphones are going to be a huge component of the consumer medical device market. For many people, the smartphone is their primary connection to the internet, way of conducting business, as well an amazing tool to address medical needs.
Smartphones are outfitted with a bevy of sensors, all of which are capable of measuring information about its user and the local environment, and without the need for any additional equipment. These components include:
optical sensors (can take HR and SpO2 readings)
accelerometers for pedometer and sleep monitoring
fingerprint reader for security
face recognition
microphones for sleep monitoring and speech recognition
temperature
barometer
orientation
Smartphones also have many ways to connect to other sensors through USB, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, NFC, etc., giving manufacturers a large array of communication tools to fit the best size, price, and capabilities for the sensors’ intended use. Being able to connect with other sensors is ok, but apps that are able to display and capture information are what will make them a powerful tool for a user and his / her doctor to use. Specifically, the programs which package all that data so that it is interesting and easy for users to understand will have a huge part in the success or failure of sensors in this area
Wearables are a rapidly developing segment
Smartwatches and wrist-worn devices are another segment that will be highly used to monitor our health. 100 million units of heart rate monitor (HRM)-enabled devices will be sold per year by 2018, with the majority of those units being wrist-based wearables. Many of the smartwatch variety are multi-function devices with phone, internet browsing, and apps.
Medical and biometric devices in the home
Home-use devices like bathroom scales are a part of many people’s daily routines, and can measure a great deal more than just its user’s weight. Scales can use electric currents and user entered values to measure weight, BMI (body mass index), fat % (percent body fat), LBM (lean body mass), water mass, muscle mass, bone mass, and more. These newer scales help consumers get past the single weight number and give a larger window into their health. Newer models connect with fitness devices and smartphones leverage these measurements into an even more powerful dataset.
Future tools
Cooking-Hacks (the open hardware division of Libelium) has its e-Health Sensor Platform V2.0 for Arduino and Raspberry Pi available. This is an exciting developmental tool for makers and developers for now, and they are sure to bring forward new ideas and tools in the near future. The e-Health Sensor is a versatile platform for connecting many types of health sensors into one tool that is easy to setup and communicate with. It should be noted that this platform is not fully certified for medical applications and is not intended for monitoring critical patients and professional diagnosis; however, it shows the way research and development for powerful and economical systems will be applicable for most of us.
Worth noting is that since Cooking Hacks is development-oriented, maker communities can access it, play with it, and in some cases develop useful applications that benefit everyone. This type of platform shows the promise of accessible, affordable, broad spectrum monitoring and tracking for everyone. Some types of monitoring and health information don’t require expensive equipment and specialists to gather, which should help consumers greatly reduce their costs.
The Connected World Will Benefit Your Health
Evolution of wearables, sensors, and smartphones is ongoing. With the combination of tools, tomorrow’s health tech adopters will be able to build a more complete picture of their health. Users will be able to conduct a physical at their convenience, let a physician take all their vitals and stats without being present, and it’ll all be completed at a very low cost. To the first point, there will likely be less of a need for ‘annual’ physicals; instead, users will adopt continuous physicals, so that conditions don’t go untreated between visits.
Tomi Engdahl says:
iPhone sales shrank for the first time
Apple introduced the iPhone revolutionized the smartphone market in 2007. In the next eight years the company was able to introduce the constantly growing sales figures. The flight ended only last year in the fourth quarter, while iPhone sales figures shrank for the first time.
According to Gartner, iPhones were sold in October-December, 71.5 million pieces. A year earlier the figure was 74.8 million. At the same time the readings meant that Samsung rose from October to December while the largest smartphone manufacturer.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4009:iphone-myynti-kutistui-ensimmaista-kertaa&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
Unknown operating system billions of mobile phones
Everyone is familiar with Android, iOS and someone still remembers the wane in particular, Windows Mobile, but Express Logic’s ThreadX was not to the general public feeling. Still, this operating system can be found in more than 3.3 billion mobile phone.
VDC Research confirms that ThreadX system has been used a total of 5.4 billion devices. 3.3 billion mobile phones in addition to the list is, for example, to 874 million office device, and more than 776 million consumer electr device.
ThreadX is Express Logic’s developed, ie Real time: royalty free RTOS. It is widely praised for the rapid and low-overhead platform.
RTOS runs on devices the actual operating system or user interface that appears on the lower level. Its task is to prioritize and distribute applications to the requests of the tasks so that the device-level activity is carried out without delays.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4008:tuntematon-kayttojarjestelma-miljardeissa-kannykoissa&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
$3 Smartphone From India
http://hackaday.com/2016/02/18/3-smartphone-from-india/
The release of the Ringing Bells Freedom 251 means exciting things for India, and if it goes well possibly the hacker community, too. This $3 device comes with all the things you’d expect from your standard smartphone. Considering any of the individual components alone (4″ IPS screen, cell modem, 1450 mAh battery, 1.3 GHz quad-core processor, 3.2 MP front and 0.3 MP rear cameras) could cost more than the whole thing put together, some skepticism is warranted.
There is speculation about how this is possible given Ringing Bells’ claims of no government subsidies. Considering the prototype presented to the media was from Chinese company Adcom, this may be a big scam in the making. The BBC does an examination of the many ways this seems sketchy
Is India’s $3.6 smartphone too good to be true?
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-35601544
On Wednesday evening a virtually unknown Indian company launched the “world’s cheapest smartphone”, named Freedom 251, for 251 rupees ($3.6; £2.50), in Delhi.
The handset, from Ringing Bells, a company less than a year old and based in Noida near the capital, Delhi, is a 3G smartphone with specifications similar to phones at least 15 times more expensive.
On Thursday, it opened its website freedom251.com for pre-orders with payments due in full in advance – the phone would be sold online over a five-day window. Deliveries are promised by June.
The website crashed, and it put up a notice claiming overwhelming response at “600,000 hits per second”,
The firm’s founder, Mohit Goel, said the phone would be locally made as part of the “Make in India” program promoted aggressively by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government.
Adcom is a Delhi-based importer of technology products. Its Ikon 4 handset, available for 4,000 rupees (about $59; £41) on Indian e-commerce site Flipkart, appears to be very similar in specifications to Freedom 251.
Meanwhile, according to media reports, the Indian Cellular Association has written to telecoms minister Ravi Shankar Prasad saying it was not possible to sell a 3G phone below 2,700 rupees.
How is it so cheap?
At this price, the phone is clearly being subsidised. The company denies any government subsidy or involvement, and says that economies of scale will ultimately help it meet the low selling price.
However, industry experts familiar with telecom manufacturing say that the handset’s cost of components alone adds up to over eight times its selling price, not counting production, distribution and marketing costs. That suggests an over 90% loss being absorbed somehow.
In 2015, 94% of feature-phones (as opposed to smartphones) sold in India were priced below 2,000 rupees ($30; £21), according to data from analyst firm CyberMedia Research (CMR). So clearly there is a huge market in India for very low cost feature-phones.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Joe Rossignol / MacRumors:
Report: Smartwatches outsold Swiss watches for the first time in Q4 2015 with 8.1M shipments, Apple accounted for 63% of smartwatches with 5.1M units
Apple Watch Sales Estimated at 5.1 Million in Holiday Quarter, Swiss Watch Sales in Trouble
http://www.macrumors.com/2016/02/18/smartwatches-overtake-swiss-watches-data/
The latest data from Strategy Analytics reveals that the Apple Watch remained the most popular smartwatch through the fourth quarter of 2015, capturing 63 percent global market share based on an estimated 5.1 million sales in the three-month period.
Samsung trailed in second place with 16 percent market share and an estimated 1.3 million sales. Apple and Samsung together accounted for 8 in 10 of all smartwatches shipped worldwide during last year’s holiday shopping season, based on the data.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Matthew Panzarino / TechCrunch:
Apple apologizes for Error 53, says it was designed to be a factory test, releases iOS update that restores bricked phones but doesn’t re-enable Touch ID — Apple Apologizes And Updates iOS To Restore iPhones Disabled By Error 53 — Earlier this month, a Guardian report flagged …
Apple Apologizes And Updates iOS To Restore iPhones Disabled By Error 53
http://techcrunch.com/2016/02/18/apple-apologizes-and-updates-ios-to-restore-iphones-disabled-by-error-53/
Earlier this month, a Guardian report flagged a curious ‘Error 53’ message that was disabling iPhones. The error was caused by unofficial repair shops replacing the connector that ran between the Touch ID sensor in an iPhone’s home button — usually in the process of replacing faulty home button assemblies.
Today, Apple is issuing an updated version of iOS 9.2.1 for users that update their iPhones via iTunes only. This update will restore phones ‘bricked’ or disabled by Error 53 and will prevent future iPhones that have had their home button (or the cable) replaced by third-party repair centers from being disabled
Tomi Engdahl says:
George Slefo / Ad Age:
Sources: Google’s AMP initiative to speed mobile pages to launch Wednesday, with Wall Street Journal, BuzzFeed, and Washington Post among those participating
Official Launch Date for Google AMP Confirmed
Google’s Accelerated Mobile Pages Is Launching Feb. 24, Ad Age Has Learned
http://adage.com/article/digital/official-launch-date-google-amp-confirmed/302746/
Google will be introducing its Accelerated Mobile Page initiative on Feb. 24, several sources familiar with AMP confirmed to Ad Age.
AMP is a direct response to similar but proprietary platforms like Facebook’s Instant Articles and Apple’s News. Unlike them, however, AMP is open source, meaning anyone can use it.
Google says AMP pages load 85% faster than standard mobile web pages. The company wants to reinvent the mobile web by delivering content at near instant speeds.
Publishers, meanwhile, have been eagerly awaiting their chance to test AMP’s efficacy in encouraging readership on mobile devices. The Wall Street Journal, BuzzFeed and the Washington Post are among those who will have AMP sites ready next week.
A Google spokeswoman declined to comment on the date of AMP’s roll-out.
While AMP pages load much faster, many revenue streams for publishers won’t be available. Interstitial ads and site takeovers aren’t allowed. Elements that are script-based, widgets that suggest other reading and video that visitors have to watch before they get to the content they’re seeking are also off the table.
Still, delivering content at blazing fast speeds may be a necessary measure for publishers — and Google — to keep consumers on the mobile web. Consumers currently spend far more time with apps than the mobile web.
Tomi Engdahl says:
James Vincent / The Verge:
GSMA announces new eSIM specification for smartwatches, fitness trackers, and tablets; Samsung’s Gear S2 Classic 3G will be first device to use the new standard — Samsung’s Gear S2 has the first certified eSIM that lets you choose carriers — The day the physical SIM card disappears is slowly getting closer.
Samsung’s Gear S2 has the first certified eSIM that lets you choose carriers
The Gear S2 Classic 3G will use a new industry-approved eSIM
http://www.theverge.com/2016/2/18/11044624/esim-wearable-smartwatch-samsung-gear-s2
The day the physical SIM card disappears is slowly getting closer. Last year, we heard that Samsung, Apple, and various mobile carriers were working to create a new standard for embedded or eSIMs (programmable SIMs that allow you to switch carriers without swapping the physical card in your device). Now, the GSMA has announced a new eSIM specification for smartwatches, fitness trackers, and tablets, with Samsung’s Gear S2 Classic 3G the first device on the market to come equipped with the new technology.
Now, a few caveats are needed. This isn’t the first mobile device to offer a programmable SIM card (certain iPads have this functionality using Apple’s own tech, for example). Nor does the standard apply to smartphones, with the GSMA saying that won’t be coming until June. And while the June eSIM will allow users to store the profiles of multiple carriers on a single phone, this new specification only supports one carrier at a time. However, this is still a big step forward for the eSIM, with the new specification backed by some of world’s largest hardware manufacturers (including Samsung, LG, Microsoft, and Huawei) and mobile carriers (including AT&T, Verizon, Vodafone, Deutsche Telekom, Telefónica, and EE).
Tomi Engdahl says:
7 trends you’ll likely see at MWC
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/brians-brain/4441440/7-trends-you-ll-likely-see-at-MWC-?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20160218&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20160218&elqTrackId=874c005a2b9c4f75888f92c5f25a77a6&elq=af61efef94d141858f8d1024ba970f82&elqaid=30888&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=27027
The early January Las Vegas-based Consumer Electronics Show is becoming an increasingly common place for cellular industry-targeting chip, software, and systems companies to ply their newest wares. Yet the late February Barcelona-based Mobile World Congress (MWC) show remains the dominant conference for wireless applications. This year’s event takes place next week, February 22-25 to be exact. What should you expect to hear announced there? Glad you asked.
LTE bandwidth improvements
Next-gen wireless advancements
New design wins for latest SoCs
Next-gen SoCs
Smartwatch evolutions
Handset successors’ other advancements
Apple’s influence
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mary Jo Foley / ZDNet:
Microsoft cancels Project Astoria for porting Android apps to Windows 10, still working on tools for porting iOS and Win32 apps — Microsoft: Our Android Windows 10 bridge is dead, but iOS, Win32 ones moving ahead — Microsoft’s iOS bridge will be the only Microsoft toolkit …
Microsoft: Our Android Windows 10 bridge is dead, but iOS, Win32 ones moving ahead
http://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-our-android-windows-10-bridge-is-dead-but-ios-win32-ones-moving-ahead/
Microsoft’s iOS bridge will be the only Microsoft toolkit for bringing mobile code to all Windows 10 devices, including Xbox, Microsoft officials said a day after buying mobile-tool vendor Xamarin.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Andrew Cunningham / Ars Technica:
Samsung announces 256GB NAND flash chips for phones and tablets that use the faster Universal Flash Storage 2.0 interface
Samsung is making fast flash chips for 256GB phones and tablets
The UFS 2.0 interface will provide speed similar to today’s SATA SSDs for PCs.
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/02/samsung-is-making-fast-flash-chips-for-256gb-phones-and-tablets/
Tomi Engdahl says:
New 4″ iPhone With 12MP Camera Said to Cost $400-$500, iPhone 5s to Receive 50% Price Cut
http://www.macrumors.com/2016/02/27/new-4-inch-iphone-400-to-500-iphone-5s-half-off/
KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has issued a research note to investors, a copy of which was obtained by MacRumors, in which he claims Apple’s next-generation 4-inch iPhone will feature a 12-megapixel rear-facing camera, as opposed to an 8-megapixel sensor as previously rumored
Tomi Engdahl says:
Toshiba Scraps Wearable Device a Week Before Launch
http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2016/02/22/toshiba-scraps-wearable-device-a-week-before-launch/
Now you see it, now you don’t. Toshiba Corp. has scrapped the sale of a glasses-type wearable device just six weeks after announcing it, and a week before the products were scheduled for shipment.
The Wearvue TG-01 was supposed to be used by workers in warehouses and or factories who needed a hands-free way to look at information such as manuals or work lists. Toshiba said on Jan. 13 that it would start shipping on Feb. 29 to customers who placed online orders.
“Because the glasses-type device had gained great interest, including among the media, we wanted to consider until the very last minute” whether to pull the plug, a company spokesman said Tuesday.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Android malware downloaded more than two billion times
Malware is no longer an exception, but the rule of smartphones. Research tells us that users have downloaded the Android malware cell phones for more than two billion times.
Proofpoint research institute found the study of the official Android app stores, ie, 12 thousand malware. They steal the user’s information and create devices backdoors.
And the world of the iPhone in the camp not much better. Proofpoint’s software is used to protect mobile devices from companies and statistics, up to 40 per cent of businesses iPhones contained some kind of malicious software. The reading is shockingly high.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4043:android-haittoja-ladattu-yli-kaksi-miljardia-kertaa&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
Vlad Savov / The Verge:
Qualcomm recovered from Snapdragon 810 debacle, dominating MWC 2016, with almost every OEM using its Snapdragon CPUs, and Snapdragon 820 in most new flagships
Qualcomm is back with a vengeance
Welcome to Snapdragon World Congress
http://www.theverge.com/2016/2/26/11119086/qualcomm-snapdragon-820-mwc-2016-domination
The biggest winner of Mobile World Congress 2016 wasn’t a phone or a phone manufacturer, but a phone chip manufacturer: Qualcomm. Having endured a rough time in 2015 due to heat and power issues with its Snapdragon 810 flagship-class processor, the American chipmaker has returned to form with its new Snapdragon 820 generation. Practically every smartphone manufacturer in attendance at MWC had a Snapdragon-powered device to show off to the world.
Samsung introduced its new pair of flagship handsets, the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge, which will rely on the Snapdragon 820 in the United States. LG broke all its previous records for hype and excitement with the modular G5, which will be powered by Qualcomm’s chip around the world. And Sony brought out a trio of new smartphones, with the Snapdragon-powered Xperia X Performance
The reason for ebullience from Qualcomm’s partners is obvious the moment you pick up a Snapdragon 820 phone: these devices are wicked fast.
This isn’t yet a total return to Qualcomm’s hegemony of a couple of years ago, but it’s a big step toward reasserting its position as the dominant force in mobile chips. Samsung’s Exynos, Huawei’s Kirin, and Apple’s A series of processors will all figure as important counterbalances to this year’s upcoming Snapdragon ubiquity, helping to ward off complacency at Qualcomm. And MediaTek, the company that’s been most active in stealing away market share from Qualcomm, will be sure to redouble its efforts after having a subdued MWC.
Tomi Engdahl says:
6 sensor-rich devices to augment reality
http://www.edn.com/design/sensors/4441450/6-sensor-rich-devices-to-augment-reality?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_consumerelectronics_20160224&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_consumerelectronics_20160224&elqTrackId=c2f67d8e15014f12bc55f9e337d87986&elq=ff98e0443d6f439888de89ddebff6534&elqaid=30997&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=27096
AR (augmented reality) and VR (virtual reality) are about to take the tech world by storm, with 2016 expected to see an explosion in AR/VR offerings. Companies big and small are racing to develop devices, whether they are accessories for their console systems or standalone systems in their own right.
On the next pages, we look at several of the better known devices and what types of sensors are making AR/VR a true consumer reality.
castAR
Valve/HTC Vive
Oculus Rift
Microsoft Hololens
Playstation VR
Bonuses: Google cardboard and Samsung Gear VR
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google adds Virtual Reality section to Google Store; starts selling Cardboard compatible viewers in the US
By Daniel Tyson on March 1, 2016 — 88 readers now
http://ausdroid.net/2016/03/01/google-starts-selling-cardboard-compatible-viewers-on-the-google-store-in-the-us/
Google has been moving into the Virtual Reality space for a few years now, ever since Cardboard was announced as a throwaway at the end of Google I/O back in 2014. They’ve previously left the sales of devices, including the DIY Cardboard headsets to other manufacturers but now it seems you can buy them from Google themselves, at least in the US.
Google is offering three headsets on the Google Store, with their own Cardboard headset selling for $15USD, the Mattel View-Master VR Starter Pack, which includes an iPhone 5/5c/5s adaptor and View-Master preview reel selling for $29.99USD and the Goggle Tech C1-Glass VR Viewer selling for $14.99USD.
Google has been ramping up their VR efforts of late, rumours abound of a standalone Google VR product in development, but so far they’ve been content to push the Cardboard platform as their preferred VR system. It’s fairly successful too, with Google recently announcing that over 5-million Cardboard viewers had been shipped around the world and over 25 Million Cardboard app installs have been completed.
Tomi Engdahl says:
This cable could be the charger Apple and Android users have dreamed of
http://thenextweb.com/insider/2016/03/01/this-cable-could-be-the-charger-apple-and-android-users-have-dreamed-of/
Look in your bag. How many cables are in there? If you’re an iOS user you’ll have one, two or if you’re like me, three Lightning cables nestled away.
Most of your other accessories (Bluetooth headphones, camera, hard drive) all need Micro-USB cables for them to work. So now you have an angry ball of entwined charging cables.
Enter LMcable. The company has created what they say is the world’s first Lightning and Micro-USB in one. There have been others, which split the connectors into separate part. So rather than ‘first’, they really mean, ‘first connector to have both’.
One side of the connector is the pins for a lightning port. On the other is those suitable for Micro-USB. Both have a 2.4A output
LMcable | The world’s first IOS & Android Common Connector
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lmcable/lmcable-the-worlds-first-ios-and-android-common-co
LMcable is the world’s first cable containing a 2-in-1 connector that can work on both micro USB and lightning devices.
LMcable combines the function of lightning and micro USB together into one simple and innovative connector. You can use it just simply like you use the common charging cable.
Tomi Engdahl says:
World’s Cheapest Smartphone a Hoax?
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1329068&
A $3.73 phone. Could that be real? That question still hangs in the air as the industry deems it impossible while the phone vendor has yet to retract its claim. Here’s the latest.
An Indian company called Ringing Bells Pvt. Ltd recently made waves by opening a pre-sale booking for a $3.73 (₹251) phone. Yes, you read that right! A $3.73 phone.
The booking for the Freedom 251 model started Feb. 18 morning and closed Feb. 21 evening (here) with the promise of deliveries in June.
The company claims that the phone runs Android Lollipop ver. 5.1 using a 1.3GHz quad-core processor, 1GB RAM and 8GB internal memory. The phone has a 4-inch QHD IPS display and offers SD card support up to 32GB, a 3.2Mpixel AF rear camera and 0.3Mpixel front-facing camera. The phone reportedly connects you using 3G.
So what is Ringing Bells? Established 2015, the company
Too good to be true?
But a $3.73 phone! Really? Has Ringing Bells just sounded the death knell for your phone design?
Don’t worry. At least not yet because reports surfaced a few days ago that the Indian Cellular Association (ICA) wrote the Indian minister of communications and IT, Ravi Shankar Prasad, that the cheapest BoM for a product like this is about $40 (₹2,684 at US$1:₹67.28). The ICA estimated the least retail price at $60 (₹4,027).
And here it starts getting even more interesting. Local reports started claiming soon after that this was in fact a Chinese phone from a company called Adcom, which then turned out to be demo unit. And then someone noticed that the UI icons were ripped off from an iOS screen shot.
The company, which has raised over $260,000 (₹17.5 million) through its website
Tomi Engdahl says:
Matthew Lynley / TechCrunch:
Google pilots Hands Free, a voice activated mobile payments system, at stores including McDonald’s and Papa John’s in San Francisco’s South Bay area — Google experiments with a way to pay without taking out your phone — Google is rolling out a pilot program today that introduces …
Google experiments with a way to pay without taking out your phone
http://techcrunch.com/2016/03/02/google-experiments-with-a-way-to-pay-without-taking-out-your-phone/
Google is rolling out a pilot program today that introduces a new way to pay cashiers — and it involves leaving your phone in your pocket.
It’s called Hands Free, and it’s a way to basically connect your phone with a point of sales system using the sensors on your phone. The end result is that a point of sale device is already aware of your phone’s presence, and when you want to pay for something, you can do so through Hands Free. The service is launching in a pilot in the Southern San Francisco Bay Area today.
Users basically walk up to a cashier, which can detect that the phone is in the area and gives the point of sale system the ability to charge the user’s card that’s tied to Hands Free. The user tells the cashier that they will “pay with Google,” and gives their initials to the cashier, who then inputs that and the transaction is closed. Cashiers also have a way to detect what the person looks like and whether it’s the same person in the photo tied to a Google profile.
The goal here is to reduce friction in the payments process. That was the main attempt of tools like Android and Apple Pay: being able to pay for products with just your phone and not having to take out your wallet and pay with a credit card. This is all beneficial to companies like Google and Apple, because it helps bring payments closer to the phone
Hands Free Payments
https://get.google.com/handsfree/#?modal_active=none
Tomi Engdahl says:
AppleInsider:
IBM’s SleepHealth debuts as first ResearchKit app for IBM Watson Health Cloud, to study how sleep quality impacts daytime activities
SleepHealth debuts as first ResearchKit app & study to support IBM Watson Health Cloud
http://appleinsider.com/articles/16/03/02/sleephealth-debuts-as-first-researchkit-app-study-to-support-ibm-watson-health-cloud
Almost one year after IBM announced Watson Health Cloud, a cognitive computing platform built in partnership with Apple, Johnson & Johnson and Medtronic, the computing giant on Tuesday debuted SleepHealth, an app and ResearchKit study investigating the connection between sleep habits and health.
Tomi Engdahl says:
iOS 9.3 will tell you loud and clear if your employer is monitoring your iPhone
http://mashable.com/2016/03/02/ios-9-3-employer-monitoring/#VpugJRUtKaqX
Nobody likes being monitored. But even if you suspected your company is following your activities on the iPhone, would you know where to check?
In the next iteration of its smartphone operating system, iOS 9.3, Apple is looking to make this an easier task. According to Reddit user MaGNeTiX, the latest beta of iOS 9.3 has a message telling users their iPhone is being supervised.
“This iPhone is managed by your organisation,” the message on the lock screen says. And in the About screen, you get a little more detail, with a message saying your iPhone’s supervisor can monitor your Internet traffic and locate your device.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sony announces hands-free wearable as part of new Future Lab Program
http://www.theverge.com/2016/3/4/11159858/sony-n-wearable-future-lab-program
Sony has a new R&D project called the Future Lab Program, an effort to involve customers in the design process for eventual products. The program will “share concept prototypes with users while still at the development stage, and look to them for inspiration, leveraging their feedback to refine and evolve its projects,” according to a press release.
The first of these concept prototypes is a wearable device currently referred to as N
Sony says it has a “hands-free user interface that creates a new way of experiencing audio such as music and sound, allowing the user to receive audio information without having to insert any object into his or her ear.” N will be shown off at SXSW next week along with some other Future Lab Program concepts, so we should be able to get a better idea soon enough.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The new memory will bring PC-power to your smartphone
Samsung has taken to prepare the volumes of the new 256 GB of flash memory for smartphones. The circuit using the mobile device’s performance will increase the next level
NEW Memory based on USF 2.0 standard (Universal Flash Storage). The technology is widely utilized, for example, digikmaroissa professional level, which must be stored in a raw image information very quickly.
Samsung, the new UFS memory is nearly twice as fast as SATA-hole SSD computers. Circuits based on its own VNAND flash
data is read from 850 megabytes per second
In practice, the UFS 256 gigabytes of memory allows the smart phone can be projected 4K two different video screen at the same time as the other memory is loaded with video.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4064:uusi-muisti-tuo-pc-tehon-alypuhelimeen&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
IDC: Windows Phone is going to have a pretty rough year
Analysts expect Microsoft’s operating system to see an 18.5 percent decline in 2016
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2449780/idc-windows-phone-is-going-to-have-a-pretty-rough-year
ANALYST OUTFIT IDC is predicting a pretty rough year for Microsoft’s Windows Phone operating system.
We already knew things were bad, but IDC has looked into its crystal ball and delivered yet more news for Microsoft that’s unlikely to be welcomed with open arms.
The researchers expect the company’s share of the smartphone market to dive 18.5 percent in 2016 to a mere 1.6 percent, which will worsen to 0.9 percent by 2020 if the firm remains in the market.
IDC blamed the shrinking share on a lack of interest from OEMs, noting that 95 percent of the 11 million Windows handsets sold last year were Nokia branded.
There’s bad news for Apple ahead, too, although not as drastic. iPhone sales are expected to come in at 231 million for the year, a drop of 0.1 percent year over year, giving the firm a 15.2 percent share of the market.
This will be down to slowing growth in Apple’s core markets of the US, Europe and China, but IDC said that Apple’s move into trade-in programmes for older iPhones and Android handsets will help with sales.
Tomi Engdahl says:
BaseMark Announces The Power Assessment Tool (PAT)
by Andrei Frumusanu on March 2, 2016 10:01 AM EST
http://www.anandtech.com/show/10111/basemark-announces-the-power-assessement-tool
Basemark has traditionally been a software company. We’ve seen and used a lot of their benchmarking test suites including Basemark OS and Basemark X. Seeking to expand its portfolio by not only providing software benchmarks to quantify performance of devices, Basemark looks to provide hardware to enable users to measure power-consumption and power-efficiency of devices. Here is where the PAT (Power Assessment Tool) comes in. The PAT is a tool that doesn’t require destructive dismantlement of a device to be able to measure its power consumption. This is an area where I’m particularly familiar with as over the last year and more have been instrumenting a lot of smartphones via external power supplies and measurement equipment by physically opening them and replacing the lithium power cells.
Basemark relies on the fact that when smartphones are fully charged, they usually enter a power bypass-mode where the internal battery cell is no longer used, and power is instead drawn directly from the connected charger. To do this the PAT is connected to a conventional charger input. Currently this is a microUSB port but Basemark tells me future revisions might consider going USB C.
It’s still a bit early to talk about the capabilities of the beta software but Basemark shows promise and once all features are implemented the PAT should represent great value in terms of analysis for both professionals and enthusiastic hobbyists.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Everything bad in the world can be traced to crap Wi-Fi
You know it’s going to go wrong, don’t you?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/03/04/worlds_woes_wifi/
The real culprit is Wi-Fi.
For reasons known only to software developers and their evil overlords, all my apps seem to be constantly poking about online, polling distant servers who knows where and reporting back on who knows what. You only have to launch a program for it to immediately turn its back on you for 10 or more seconds while it pisses off somewhere into the ether, for no good reason.
This is just fine in a public space when you have a 3G or 4G connection; assuming by “just fine” you mean you are happy to have your half-gig monthly free allocation sucked up by apps that have no business doing so. The problem is when your device, unknown to you, automatically connects to a glitchy Wi-Fi router that happens to have the same name as one you used in a coffee shop.
The real culprit, then, is shit Wi-Fi.
Suddenly, that 10 seconds during which your software normally toddles off to blow its secretive mates across the internet has turned into a non-stop orgy of heavy petting that never quite gets anywhere and has to restart again, and again, and again. While this is going on, your device – be it a laptop, tablet or smartphone – is so engrossed that it shirks your attempts to win its attention back to what you want it to do.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Will the smartphone addiction lead to depression?
Pulled research professor of psychology Alejandro Lleras points out that the new technology has always dreaded, whether it’s been television, game console, computer, or smartphone. The purpose of the present investigation was to find out whether smart phones targeting the fears any kind of margin in real life.
Lleras investigated together with the student Tayana Panovan more than 300 university students.
Internet addict self-determinations of the group was found significantly greater tendency toward depression and anxiety. A direct link, however, was not between a smartphone and mental health problems. Depression is not in fact occurred, if the phone was used a lot, but its role was not provide entertainement at dull moments.
In the extension study were tested in human behavior in stressful situations. The other test group were given test, the smart phone, and the other does not. THe effects of stress group were significantly lower with those that have phones compared to those who did not have phone.
Source: http://www.tivi.fi/Kaikki_uutiset/johtaako-alypuhelinriippuvuus-masennukseen-6310835
More:
Mobile Device Addiction Linked To Anxiety And Depression
http://sciencebeta.com/mobile-device-addiction-depression/
Is cellphone use detrimental to mental health? A new study from the University of Illinois finds that addiction to, and not simply use of, mobile technology is linked to anxiety and depression in college-age students.
“There’s a long history of the public fearing new technologies as they are deployed in society.”
This fear of new technology happened with televisions, video games and most recently, smartphones, he said. Lleras conducted the study with undergraduate honors student Tayana Panova.
“Having access to a phone seemed to allow that group to resist or to be less sensitive to the stress manipulation,” Lleras said.
Tomi Engdahl says:
‘Cheating watches’ warning for exams
http://www.bbc.com/news/education-35716523
Teachers have complained about “cheating watches” being sold online to give students an unfair advantage in exams.
These digital watches include an “emergency button” to quickly switch from hidden text to a clock face.
The watches hold data or written information which can be read in exams.
But a deputy head from Bath has warned about the scale of this “hidden market” and says it could tempt stressed students into cheating.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Intel gets a breakthrough in mobile phones
Intel has invested hundreds of millions, acquisitions, billions of dollars in order to get some kind of an important foothold in the smartphone processor supplier. Now, the American sources say that Intel delivers modem circuits for at least one third of the forthcoming new iPhone.
Information on the forthcoming iPhone device 7 are from Asian manufacturers. According to reports, this is Intel’s XMM 7360 -modeemipiiristä.
XMM circuit 7360 supports LTE terminal class 10
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4084:intelille-lapimurto-kannykoissa&catid=13&Itemid=101