New products of the weekOur roundup of intriguing new products. Read how to submit an entry to Network World's products of the week slideshow.Persistence Technology for Dell Android DevicesKey features: Absolute has introduced its Persistence technology to Dell Android devices, allowing IT to remotely manage, track, and secure devices on or off the corporate network. More info.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Electronics maker Sharp is showing off smartphones that can play back video at rates up to 2,100 frames per second (fps) for a smoother slow motion effect.The struggling manufacturer’s latest Android flagship phones, Aquos Zeta, Aquos Xx and Aquos Serie, have cameras that can record at 210 fps in 854 x 480 pixel resolution (FWVGA mode) or 120 fps in full HD mode.When combined with frame compensation technology, the phone can play back video in slow motion at 2,100 fps in FWVGA or 1,200 fps in full HD. Sharp calls it the world’s highest-rate super slow motion playback for smartphones.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
BlackBerry plans to lay off an unspecified number of staff in its devices unit, as it attempts to make that business profitable, while expanding in other areas.The smartphone company in Waterloo, Ontario, said in a statement over the weekend that it had decided to consolidate its device software, hardware and applications business, “impacting a number of employees around the world.”The company said that as it moves into the next stage of its turnaround, it aims to reallocate resources in ways that will “best enable us to capitalize on growth opportunities while driving toward sustainable profitability across all facets of our business.”The company had 6,225 full-time employees as of Feb. 28 this year, the end of its last fiscal year.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
How could Apple resist buying a company with technology dubbed iGPS? It fits right in along with the iPod, iPhone and iPad, no?
While Apple doesn’t feel compelled to announce small acquisitions that the SEC doesn’t force it to disclose, news outlets this past week revealed that Apple has indeed snapped up a Bay-area GPS-focused company called Coherent Navigation that launched in 2008. Ironically, that company has fallen off the map, ditching its web presence, and revealing on its LinkedIn page that it has ceased operations.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
If you think stop-and-go city traffic can be bad around rush hour, just wait until connected cars get in on the act and start bringing mobile networks to a standstill too. There isn't enough capacity, a new report says.Market intelligence strategist Machina Research paints a gloomy connectivity picture of excessive growth from M2M, which includes connected cars.Growth in that area threatens to disrupt all mobile data traffic.Parking lot
UK-based Machina Research analyzes Internet of Things (IoT), M2M and Big Data. Its report says that mobile data will double in certain cells at rush hour. The report predicts a 97% increase over 10 years. The big driver will be cars.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
By building browsers with integrated ad blocking, German company Eyeo hopes to attract more users. A beta version of the Android browser is now available for download from the Play store.There are several reasons people choose to block ads: They can cause pages to load slower, consume data plans, and shorten battery life, according to Eyeo. The company also contends users are safer since malware often hides behind ads.The Adblock Browser for Android is based on Firefox and Adblock Plus. The functionality is the same as when using the existing Adblock Plus add-on.The reason for developing browsers with ad blocking baked in is that the add-on hasn’t attracted many users. By integrating the functionality, it becomes easier for non-tech savvy users to benefit from it, according to Ben Williams, communications and operations manager at Eyeo.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Many smartphones can stand up to a splash or a dip in fresh water, but they don’t go too well in seawater due to the corrosive salt.Now electronics maker Kyocera has launched an Android smartphone in Japan that’s at home in shallow seas, allowing users to surf, selfie and text at the same time.The Torque G02 is a ruggedized outdoor phone that can be dunked in seawater to a depth of 1.5 meters for 30 minutes. In Kyocera’s tests, it also withstood the weight of a 100 kilogram load spread evenly across its surface.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Connected cars will add to mobile traffic jamsExpect mobile networks to struggle as they are called on to handle a rapidly increasing number of connected cars. Traffic growth from M2M (machine to machine) connections, particularly from cars, will cause headaches for mobile operators, says Machina Research. Car connections are expected to surpass 500 million in 2019 and then 1 billion in 2023, when they will account for more than half of all M2M connections over cellular networks. And they’ll use lots of data, thanks to connected entertainment and navigation systems.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Google said Thursday it would make changes to its Maps search system after racist search terms brought up the White House among their top results.In Google Maps, some queries containing racist terms against African-Americans listed the White House and other surprising places among their top results. Google apologized and said it was working on a fix, but it had little else to say about what was causing the results to appear or how the company would fix the issue.Now Google is providing more information. The company has begun to update its ranking system to address a majority of the searches in question, by building on a previous algorithmic change that was developed for Google Search, Google said in a blog post.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
As PayPal prepares for its upcoming IPO as an independent eBay spinoff, it wants to make at least one thing clear: It’s got mobile covered.Over the past couple years, the payments company has re-engineered its back-end technology to become a strongerplatform for merchants, letting them incorporate a wider range of features into their payments services and improve the checkout process for customers. Many of the changes have been aimed squarely at improving the payment process on mobile devices.Roughly one-third of transactions processed by PayPal now come from mobile devices, PayPal President and incoming CEO Dan Schulman said Thursday during an event in San Francisco. In 2010, mobile was responsible for only about 1 percent of the company’s transactions.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office published an Apple patent application today that suggests the company has explored a new kind of mobile hotspot technology that is easier to set up, provides a more reliable connection, and has a longer battery life.The patent application, first reported by Apple Insider, is for a small, cylindrical Wi-Fi hotspot device consisting of two pieces: one containing the networking hardware, the other a battery pack. Screw the two pieces together and you have a mobile Wi-Fi hotspot.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Don’t call it a developer conference… …when it’s really Google Prom. OK, it’s also a developer conference, but isn’t that what you picture if I say the words “Google Prom?” I/O generally features at least a couple fairly major announcements from Google, and the 2015 edition isn’t expected to disappoint. Here are the seven things we’re looking for this time around.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Don’t call it a developer conference… …when it’s really Google Prom. OK, it’s also a developer conference, but isn’t that what you picture if I say the words “Google Prom?” I/O generally features at least a couple fairly major announcements from Google, and the 2015 edition isn’t expected to disappoint. Here are the seven things we’re looking for this time around.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Generally speaking, I’m pretty good at skipping past ads in my Twitter stream, but this one grabbed my attention with a clickbait headline that proved harder to resist than a perfectly grilled slab of beef.“Would you believe this steak was cooked by an iPhone?”Not for a nanosecond, of course, despite the multitude of stories connecting fire and iPhones over the years.But I couldn’t escape the attendant curiosity: What in the name of Steve Jobs might allow a marketing professional – no, make that even a marketing professional -- to suggest such a preposterous feat might be possible.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Lenovo’s recent acquisitions have taken a bite out of the company’s earnings, with its net profit in the first quarter dropping 37 percent despite strong PC sales.The Chinese company paid US$2.9 billion for Motorola Mobility and $2.1 billion for IBM’s x86 server business. Prior to the acquisitions, Lenovo typically reported strong earnings on continued PC demand in its home market.The impact of the acquisitions was not unexpected. The Chinese PC maker has said its net profit will fall in the short-term, following the acquisitions last year.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Google Maps lists the White House among top search results for certain queries containing racist terms against African-Americans.The Washington Post first reported the issue after a reader alerted the newspaper that entering a well-known racial slur while Google Maps is focused on the nation’s capital yielded the White House as the first result. The result comes up when using Google’s mobile Maps app, as well as its Maps website.Regardless of the user’s location within Maps, a search for another racially insulting term against blacks listed the Underground Railroad TV station in Chicago as the top result, with the White House coming in second. Other similarly racist query terms also gave the White House as the top result, along with the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia in Big Rapids, Michigan.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
"Bigger, better, faster" is a mantra with which many of us are now familiar. Even if it isn't something we have printed on a t-shirt, it can be how we strive to live without often realizing it. Improvement is a part of life. You don't have to look hard to see examples of certain things that have already realized their great potential for improvement. But what about things we take for granted, like wireless? Wireless is all around us, but it's something we take for granted. Sometimes it’s harder to find a business or public location without Wi-Fi than it is to find one with it. So can wireless actually advance? Whether it's in the boardroom or the living room, we have expectations of buttery-smooth audio and video. As the number of wireless devices grows at a profound rate, how can we shore up the wireless network to provide service to all that’s connected? Wireless AC may be the light at the end of the tunnel. With Wave 1 speeds of 1.3Gbps (your mileage may vary) we're offered a chance to handle the larger amount of requests constantly bombarding our access points (APs). Still, the struggle in dense environments Continue reading
DronesImage by Northrop Grumman/Chad Slattery/Handout via ReutersThe world of drones – military and public – is changing so fast it’s hard to keep up with the changes. Here we take a look at some of the most recent advancements, such as getting drones to fly as a group, deliver orders in restaurants and take advanced technology into space. Read on:To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
High-end smartphones offer high-speed wireless connections—but few mobile operators have made the infrastructure investments required to keep up with them. The arrival of cheaper phones with 300Mbps LTE capabilities may encourage that investment.LTE chips with real-world download speeds over 100Mbps have become a standard feature on high-end smartphones, while smartphones costing under US$100 now include LTE chips, albeit slower ones.Better cameras, screens and design have gotten most of the attention on this year’s crop of high-end smartphones, but support for the latest versions of LTE, a rarity a year ago, has become a standard feature. Download speeds on the HTC One M9 and the LG G4 top out at 450Mbps on paper, while the Samsung Galaxy S6 is theoretically capable of 300Mbps.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Thanks to its inherent "openness," the open source Android OS is vulnerable to a variety of security risks, but how often do people you know actually fall victim to Android malware or other attacks?Is the Android security risk overstated? Is the Android risk really greater than the risks posed by its iOS and Windows Mobile counterparts? And what can users, and the enterprise IT departments that support them, do to better protect their Android devices? + ALSO: Researchers build security framework for Android +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here