Strong interest in the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus helped Apple sell more smartphones than Samsung in the fourth quarter of 2014.Apple sold 74.8 million smartphones globally during the fourth quarter, up from 50.2 million in the year-earlier quarter, according to Gartner. Apple’s decision to offer phones with larger screens paid off, the research firm said. U.S. and Chinese buyers are especially keen on the iPhone 6 and the iPhone 6 Plus, said Gartner, adding that demand for the phones is still strong in both countries. The larger screens also gave Apple customers a reason to replace their older phones.Samsung, by comparison, sold 73 million smartphones in the fourth quarter, down from 83.3 million in 2013’s fourth quarter. Samsung had held the quarterly sales title since 2011.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The Internet of Things is really an Internet of data about things, and combining that information with other kinds of knowledge could add to its impact.At Mobile World Congress this week, data is starting to come together in new ways. One of the most powerful combinations may emerge from partnerships between IoT veteran Jasper Technologies and two software giants: Salesforce.com and SAP.Jasper sells a SaaS platform that companies use to monitor and control products or equipment in the field. It’s designed to handle all the functions involved in making money from a device or just using it within an enterprise, including setup, ongoing service and data collection. Jasper sells its SaaS through mobile operators, and the platform can be deployed through multiple carriers to give customers global reach.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The push to virtualize mobile networks is picking up speed at Mobile World Congress this week as carriers and vendors promise new services and faster connections.Telefonica, the big international carrier based in Spain, plans to roll out a virtualized platform from Hewlett-Packard across its whole network in the coming years, a significant vote of confidence in NFV (network functions virtualization) only about four years after the concept emerged.NFV changes the back end of a carrier’s network from a set of specialized appliances into applications running on virtualized servers. The same way virtualization gives enterprise IT more freedom to deploy new capabilities, NFV should help carriers roll out new services and meet capacity demands.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Cisco seems undaunted by HP’s nearly $3 billion acquisition of wireless LAN titan Aruba Networks. Cisco is the market leader in WLANs while HP gains a solid No. 2 position by acquiring Aruba.Said Jeff Reed, vice president of Cisco’s Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions Group:
Enterprise mobility continues to be a key driver of growth in the networking industry. While some companies seek to bolt on wireless to their existing portfolios, mobility remains at the core of our networking business. As the clear market leader, we have delivered unified wired, wireless and cloud-managed platforms to our customers for years and will continue to do so.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Samsung hit its mark with its Galaxy S6 announcement at the World Mobile Congress in Barcelona this week.The company came prepared with an entirely new smartphone design and a concise explanation of the powerful hardware, rich display, strong security, great camera, and intuitive Android Lollipop software. The Galaxy S6 and the Galaxy S6 Edge stood out as high-end hardware designed to compete with top-tier Apple and HTC smartphones.The S6's design and engineering afforded Samsung the luxury to concentrate on just the most important features during the announcement. It eliminated the temptation to add a bloated feature list that consumers often ignore and which mobile device companies are so often inclined to add during product announcements out of a desperation to differentiate me-too devices.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A group of companies, including Cisco Systems and mobile device management software vendor AirWatch, have joined forces to help enterprises take advantage of features that are integrated in Android and iOS.The companies have launched an initiative called ACE (App Configuration for Enterprise), which provides documentation for developers to help them build applications that can be more easily managed and secured.The first version of the ACE documentation covers six areas: remote app configuration, app tunneling, single sign-on, access control and security policies.There are tips regarding technical approach, security considerations, sample code and best practises. In addition to AirWatch and Cisco, development tool company Xamarin, online-storage vendor Box and ERP provider Workday are also helping get ACE off the ground. The group made the announcement Tuesday at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The Galaxy S6 is a great-looking phone with great specs -- but is it really an iPhone 6 killer? I've got specs and details. (Note that I'm comparing the non-curved version of the S6 to the iPhone 6, not the iPhone 6 Plus.)ScreenThe nod goes here clearly goes to the S6. It's got a 5.1-inch screen compared to the iPhone's 4.7-inch one. And it wins on resolution as well, 2560 x 1440 at 576 ppi, versus 1334 x 750 at 326 ppi for the iPhone 6.ProcessorThe S6 is powered by an Exynos 7 series quad 2.1GHz chip plus a quad 1.5Ghz, Octacore application processor. The iPhone 6, meanwhile, has an A8 64-bit chip. There's no real way to do a head-to-head comparison on this one, so we'll call it a tossup.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Securing your Android deviceImage by ShutterstockAndroid security news has been heating up lately, with Google going on the defensive when it came to its recent patching kerfuffle. And then there are the steady warnings about Android malware and warnings to enterprises about cheap Android-based phones.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
In the 1890s, Nikola Tesla captured the imagination of the world with his invention of the Tesla coil, a device that could transmit electricity through the air, no wires required. More than 100 years later, the world has responded by adapting this breakthrough technology… mainly to recharge their electric toothbrushes.But things are changing rapidly in the world of wireless power, with some new ideas coming to the forefront in the last few years. As more and more gadget makers get hip to the idea of a world without power bricks, this is a technology category that’s about to explode.MORE: 10 mobile startups to watch
How will your phone, your lights, and even your electric car someday be powered without a wire? Here’s a primer on how wireless power works.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Connecting to wireless networks using the enterprise or 802.1X mode of Wi-Fi security is a bit different compared to using the personal or pre-shared key (PSK) mode. Though connecting to enterprise networks with your laptop may have been straightforward, Android presents you with additional settings you may not understand.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
Google will sell wireless service in the U.S.At Mobile World Congress on Monday, Google executive Sundar Pichai confirmed the rumors: The company plans to sell mobile service in the U.S., but insists it won’t mount significant competition to mobile carriers. Pichai said the offering will give Google a platform for experimenting with new services for Android smartphones....And teases launch of Internet-via-balloon, but Zuckerberg scoffsGoogle’s ambitious efforts to bring balloon and aircraft-borne connectivity to underserved areas of the globe are pushing past some key milestones, with a public launch likely in a few years, Pichai said at MWC. But Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg later picked holes in the plans, criticizing them as costly and impractical, and said the best way to grow Internet access worldwide is to work with telco operators—as he’s doing with the internet.org effort.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Geofencing technology -- tracking the location of a mobile device -- could offer an extra layer of security for enterprises trying to manage both company-owned and employee-owned devices. However, the technology can also raise worries about privacy and battery life.Extra layer of securityLast fall, Romania-based CoSoSys Ltd. added geofencing to its mobile device management software, tracking location via GPS, Wifi and Bluetooth beacons.But the first major use of the technology wasn't for companies tracking employees -- but for companies tracking visitors.MORE: 10 mobile startups to watch
CoSoSys has customers in the high-tech industry who want to ensure that visitors can't take pictures when they enter particular secured areas. Typically, they ask visitors to leave their mobile devices at the door, to put tape over the camera lenses.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
BlackBerry isn’t giving up on the smartphone market, and now hopes to make a mark with the Leap, an all-touch LTE device with a keen price tag.
The company launched the new product on Tuesday at an event in Barcelona, where Mobile World Congress is now in full swing. And just like many other vendors at the event, BlackBerry isn’t focusing on the high end of the market but the mid-range, with smartphones that cost about US$300 or less.+ See our full coverage of MWC 2015 +
The Leap will run BlackBerry 10 OS and cost $275 unlocked when it goes on sale in April. The smartphone has a 5-inch, 720 x 1280 pixel screen and is powered by a 1.5GHz dual-core processor from Qualcomm.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Bless Microsoft’s heart; it’s still betting on Windows Phones. In fact, Microsoft is “excited” about the “impressive growth of the Windows Phone ecosystem.” The company is so excited that it released the infographic (posted above), bragging about that growth.Have you looked at the smartphones Microsoft has introduced so far at World Mobile Congress? I hadn’t heard of most of the brands, but any growth is better than none. We aren't going to look too hard at any specs, since none of them are high-end, but you can see some pictures of them.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
If you’re on the lookout for a new Android high-end smartphone, the One M9 from HTC and Samsung Electronics’ Galaxy S6 are two hot possibilities.The products were announced on Sunday in Barcelona. They are both good-looking devices with the latest components integrated, but there are also differences that might sway you one way or the other. Here’s a spec comparison between the phones:ProcessorAs anticipated, Samsung chose its own Exynos processor to power the S6. The version used by the smartphone has four cores running at 2.1GHz and another four cores running at a slower 1.5GHz. HTC decided to stick with Qualcomm, and the One M9 is powered by a Snapdragon 810, which has four cores running at 2.0GHz plus another four cores running at a slower 1.5GHz.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Millicom’s agreement with Vodacom to allow users of their respective mobile money services in Tanzania transmit funds to each other is part of an ongoing trend to allow interoperability among services from different networks.The agreement, announced last week, means that four million Tigo Pesa users will for the first time be able to exchange money with Vodacom’s six million M-Pesa users in Tanzania. Tigo is Millicom’s subsidiary.Last year, the company brokered a deal with India’s Bharti Airtel and Tanzania’s Zantel, a subsidiary of Etisalat, that allowed customers of the three operators to conduct mobile money transfers across their networks.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Best at MWC 2015Samsung, HTC, Sony, Microsoft and others are using the annual Mobile World Congress (MWC) event in Barcelona to debut their latest smartphones and other gear. Here’s a look at the new Android and Windows devices.ALSO: Read all the stories out of MWC 2015To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Tinder, the popular dating app, wants to offer a second chance at love for users who may passed on a potential mate.For a price, users can now undo their most recent left-swipe on someone’s profile, which signals disinterest. Another new feature, called Passport, lets users search for people in other locations beyond their pre-selected geographic radius.Tinder said these are its two most requested features. They’re available in a new paid version of the app called Tinder Plus.Pricing details were not disclosed at the time of launch on Monday, though the cost of upgrading in San Francisco is US$19.99 per month. A report in TechCrunch cited a monthly fee of US$9.99, but it appears the price might vary from market to market. Tinder, based in Los Angeles, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
VMware has jumped into the hot NFV market with a platform that lets service providers run their network functions as virtualized applications from different vendors.The company launched VMware vCloud for NFV on Monday at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, where telecommunications and IT vendors and their carrier customers are all promoting NFV (network functions virtualization) as the future of mobile networks.NFV takes back-end functions involved in managing services and subscribers out of dedicated appliances and turns them into virtualized applications that can run on generic hardware. This makes carriers faster and leaner, allowing them to roll out new services more quickly and be more flexible in how they run their networks. It’s also designed to help support the new demands that come with the Internet of Things.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
VMware has jumped into the hot NFV market with a platform that lets service providers run their network functions as virtualized applications from different vendors.
The company launched VMware vCloud for NFV on Monday at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, where telecommunications and IT vendors and their carrier customers are all promoting NFV (network functions virtualization) as the future of mobile networks.
NFV takes back-end functions involved in managing services and subscribers out of dedicated appliances and turns them into virtualized applications that can run on generic hardware. This makes carriers faster and leaner, allowing them to roll out new services more quickly and be more flexible in how they run their networks. It’s also designed to help support the new demands that come with the Internet of Things.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here