Fitbit sprinted into Wall Street in its debut as a public company Thursday, as its shares opened 52 percent higher than the price that the wearables company had set for them.Priced at US$20 on Wednesday, the stock instead opened at $30.40. Earlier in the week Fitbit had increased the price range of its IPO to $17 to $19 from the original range of $14 to $16.With its shares trading for around $30, Fitbit is worth approximately $6 billion dollars.Fitbit’s wearables collect health and fitness data, including calories burned and steps walked. While smartwatches also offer these features, some analysts are bullish about fitness trackers, saying that they generally have simpler user interfaces, longer battery lives and lower prices.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A software update to the Apple Watch’s OS gave third-party developers access to the device’s sensors this week, fulfilling a request they’ve had since Apple unveiled the wearable.With watchOS 2, which Apple showed on Monday at its annual developer’s conference, developers can create more-capable apps that directly tap into the watch’s components, like its microphone and heart rate sensor, instead of relying on an accompanying iPhone to handle app processing.While developers welcomed this news, some think Apple could go even further in making the watch a better platform for their apps.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Apple has confirmed it’s deploying camera-equipped cars to capture data—including images—to improve its mapping service.The cars have been spotted in several U.S. cities over the past few months, leading to speculation that Apple was collecting mapping data to better compete with Google Maps.“Some of the data” the cars collect will appear in future updates of Apple Maps, the company said Wednesday. Beyond mentioning images, Apple didn’t say what additional information the vehicles would collect. Apple also didn’t share what it would do with the data that doesn’t make it into Maps.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Expect Apple Watch apps to gain a lot more functionality now that Apple is opening its hardware sensors to third party developers and allowing apps to run natively on the device.The changes come with watchOS 2, an update that’s due in the Fall and will also bring new watch faces and other advances to end users. For developers, the highlight is that their apps will be able to make use of Apple Watch hardware features like the digital crown, accelerometer and heart rate sensor.People who use the personal training app BodBot, for example, won’t have to enter as much workout information manually now that the app can gather data from the watch’s sensors, said Sergio Prado, who co-developed the program.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Expect Apple Watch apps to gain a lot more functionality now that Apple is opening its hardware sensors to third party developers and allowing apps to run natively on the device.
The changes come with watchOS 2, an update that’s due in the Fall and will also bring new watch faces and other advances to end users. For developers, the highlight is that their apps will be able to make use of Apple Watch hardware features like the digital crown, accelerometer and heart rate sensor.
People who use the personal training app BodBot, for example, won’t have to enter as much workout information manually now that the app can gather data from the watch’s sensors, said Sergio Prado, who co-developed the program.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Some Facebook users should soon be able to receive encrypted emails from the social networking site if they add PGP public keys to their profiles.
Facebook called the PGP feature “experimental” and said it is slowly rolling it out, although a timeline wasn’t provided. The PGP key details will be added to the “contact and basic info section” of a person’s profile under “contact information.”
Facebook sends messages to private email accounts to inform users when they have a private message or friend request, for example. It currently uses TLS to establish secure connections to a person’s email provider, but this won’t keep the details of an email private from prying eyes.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Developers creating content for Google’s Cardboard virtual-reality system should look to short online videos for inspiration and avoid drawn-out experiences.Content for Cardboard should be “snackable virtual reality,” said Jon Wiley, the product’s principal designer, during the I/O developer conference on Friday.“For Cardboard, you want [an experience] to be more like traditional YouTube content,” he said, adding that Google’s VR platform isn’t really designed for “long duration experiences.”Google sees Cardboard as a device that friends can pass around to get a feel for what VR is all about, said Manuel Clement , a user experience designer on Google’s virtual reality team. In that context, shorter content would work better.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Intel and Altera are apparently once again on speaking terms and said to be nearing a deal in which Intel would buy the smaller chip maker for US$15 billion.News of a possible deal first surfaced in media reports in late March, but those negotiations broke down after Altera supposedly rejected a bid of $54 per share from Intel in early April.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Global PC shipments will decline for the fourth consecutive year as people continue re-directing money towards smartphones and tablets.Worldwide PC shipments will decrease by 6.2 percent in 2015, even though the end of Microsoft’s support for Windows XP spurred demand for PCs and nearly stabilized shipments, according to IDC. PC vendors, anticipating the arrival of Windows 10, have reduced their inventory levels.Windows 10 will be a “significant contributor” to PC shipments, but won’t lead to a sales burst. Although enterprises will purchase PCs running Windows 10, consumers won’t be as keen on buying a new PC because Microsoft will provide them with a free upgrade to the new OS, as long as they’re running legal versions of Windows 7 or 8.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Microsoft is bringing Cortana to iOS and Android smartphones, extending the voice-controlled personal assistant to platforms beyond Windows 10 and Windows Phone.Using the Cortana iOS and Android apps people will be able to dictate emails, set appointments and conduct Web searches by speaking commands, among other features. The app will also let people arrange to receive notifications like sports scores and flight information.Windows 10 will include a program called Phone Companion to help people set up on Cortana and sync their PCs with their smartphone, whether it runs iOS, Android or Windows Phone. The Phone Companion program will also let users sync OneNote, Music, Office and OneDrive between their Windows 10 PC and their Android, iOS or Windows Phone smartphone.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Apple says it has resolved a widespread iCloud issue that caused service disruptions for 40 percent of its users—that comes out to at least 128 million people, based on a company customer count.Several services, including iCloud Mail, had been running slower for some people, Apple said in an early status report. Apple later updated iCloud’s status page to reflect that all services were working normally. The service issue lasted for around seven hours, starting at approximately 2:15 a.m. ET and ending around 9:30 a.m. ET, according to the service’s status page.Apple didn’t provide details on what caused the disruption or how many people were affected. However, the company said in a 2013 earnings report that 320 million people use iCloud, which lets them back up and sync information stored on Apple devices via the company’s cloud.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The tech challenges that accompany IoT projects shouldn't deter companies from attempting to find meaning in data gathered from connected devices. The solutions may be closer than they think.The IT behind the Internet of Things, including sensors, databases and analytics software, has been around for a while. The challenge is getting these disparate systems and components to work together, said Phil Regnault, a senior vice president with Hitachi Consulting, on a panel at MIT's CIO Symposium. MORE ON NETWORK WORLD: 12 most powerful Internet of Things companies
Data analysis tools and data storage, technologies that are key to IoT, are extremely affordable, according to Richard Soley, executive director of the Industrial Internet Consortium. "There's no excuse for not using this technology today," he said. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Samsung will not have to pay all of the US$930 million in damages that Apple was awarded in 2012, a U.S. appeals court ruled Monday.The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, D.C., agreed with a California federal jury that Samsung violated Apple design and utility patents related to the iPhone. However, the appeals court reversed the jury’s finding that Samsung infringed on Apple’s trade dress, or the overall look and packaging of a product.Thus, the U.S. District Court in San Jose, California, where the case was originally tried, must recalculate the portion of the settlement dealing with trade dress.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Apple, which has been working hard to bolster its mapping technology since ditching Google Maps in 2012, has acquired Coherent Navigation, a startup offering a high-accuracy GPS navigation service.Coherent’s navigation system is used in the Iridium satellite network, according to the LinkedIn profile of Paul Lego, who was CEO of the company before going to work for Apple. Coherent, which was founded in 2008 and is based in the San Francisco area, counts the U.S. government as a customer and had been aiming its technology at the mining, construction, energy and agriculture industries. Coherent had fewer than 10 employees, according to its LinkedIn page, which states that the company “has ceased operations.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Apple, which has been working hard to bolster its mapping technology since ditching Google Maps in 2012, has acquired Coherent Navigation, a startup offering a high-accuracy GPS navigation service.Coherent’s navigation system is used in the Iridium satellite network, according to the LinkedIn profile of Paul Lego, who was CEO of the company before going to work for Apple. Coherent, which was founded in 2008 and is based in the San Francisco area, counts the U.S. government as a customer and had been aiming its technology at the mining, construction, energy and agriculture industries. Coherent had fewer than 10 employees, according to its LinkedIn page, which states that the company “has ceased operations.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The first self-driving cars built by Google are heading to public roads for the first time.A “few” of the prototype vehicles Google has developed will appear on the streets of Mountain View, California, this summer, the company said Friday. Until now, those vehicles have been tested and driven on private property.“Safety drivers” will go along for the ride, but they’ll only take control “if needed,” using a removable steering wheel and brake and accelerator pedals, according to the company.The initial prototype Google showed in May of last year lacked manual controls and only had a power button, but the company promised that later versions would include these components.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Apple’s efforts to allow people to control household appliances from their iPhones through the company’s HomeKit framework are gaining momentum.Chip maker Broadcom announced Tuesday that the SDK for its WICED hardware platform, which allows manufacturers to build so-called smart devices that can connect to the Internet, is fully compliant with HomeKit. The HomeKit protocols from Apple allow manufacturers to create products that can be controlled from an iOS device.For example, if a smart lock was integrated with HomeKit, people could use an app on their iPhones or speak a command to Siri, Apple’s voice-controlled virtual assistant, to unlock a door. Using Siri to handle voice commands when a person isn’t in his house requires an Apple TV, which works as a gateway to a home network.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Internet of Things projects can yield data and insights that help companies operate more efficiently and improve products, but also give hackers additional targets to attack.Expect more malware like Stuxnet, a worm that went after Siemens industrial control systems and mostly infected computers in Iran, said Alan Tait, CTO of Stream Technologies, a London company with technology that enables machine-to-machine communication.“As we connect more things to any form of the Internet, even if there’s security, people will still go after them,” he said.Tait, along with other speakers on different panels, appeared at the LiveWorx conference in Boston on Wednesday to discuss how companies are handling IoT security issues and finding value in linking devices to the Internet.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Google has acquired startup Timeful, whose iOS app uses machine learning to help people plan their days.People link Timeful to their calendars and then enter tasks, projects, events and hobbies into the app. For example, a user can tell Timeful he likes to jog four days a week, wants to finish painting a room by the end of the month and has a work presentation due on Friday.Timeful’s algorithm will use this information to create a schedule tailored to a person’s needs and preferences. The more information that is entered into Timeful and the more people use the app, the better it becomes at learning users’ activity patterns, schedules and habits.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Google has acquired startup Timeful, whose iOS app uses machine learning to help people plan their days.People link Timeful to their calendars and then enter tasks, projects, events and hobbies into the app. For example, a user can tell Timeful he likes to jog four days a week, wants to finish painting a room by the end of the month and has a work presentation due on Friday.Timeful’s algorithm will use this information to create a schedule tailored to a person’s needs and preferences. The more information that is entered into Timeful and the more people use the app, the better it becomes at learning users’ activity patterns, schedules and habits.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Fred O'Connor