Outmoded technology dies hard in futuristic Japan.Telegrams remain popular, the fax machine industry is alive and well and now shipments of feature phones are on the rise.For the first time in seven years, shipments of old-school flip phones increased in 2014 while those of smartphones fell. While it may be a statistical anomaly, Japan’s flip phones are highly evolved devices with unique features that keep them popular.Feature phones notched a 5.7 percent gain last year to 10.5 million units, compared to a 5.3 percent drop in smartphone shipments to 27.7 million, according to MM Research Institute (MMRI), which noted that Apple retains a dominant smartphone share of about 60 percent. The MMRI study followed feature phones, which in Japan consist mainly of flip phones,To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Changes starting to take place behind the scenes in mobile networks may eventually pay dividends to anyone with a smartphone, a connected refrigerator or an IT department.Carriers have done things pretty much the same way for years, with cellular base stations at the edge of their networks feeding into a series of specialized appliances at central facilities. Now they’re virtualizing those networks in several ways, seeking the same rewards that enterprises have reaped by virtualizing data centers: efficiency and flexibility. The trend will be in full swing at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona next month.It’s good news for mobile users that they may not hear much about. A more efficient network leaves more free capacity for the video or application you want to run, and a more flexible carrier could quickly launch services in the future that you don’t even know you’ll need yet. The new architectures may even change how some businesses pay for mobile services.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Paranoid tablet users, rejoice. The first units of the secure Blackphone tablet will be demonstrated at the upcoming Mobile World Congress show in Barcelona early next month.The tablet will be the second product from SGP Technologies, which makes the privacy-centric Blackphone smartphone. A pre-release version of the tablet will be shown at the booth of Graphite Software, which has written a special interface for the device to run sensitive applications.SGP is planning a press conference at MWC where it will probably announce the tablet. A Blackphone spokesman declined to share details on the tablet launch or the press conference. However, a Graphite Software executive said the tablet would be announced at MWC and would be on display at Blackphone’s booth as well as Graphite’s.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
With all of the varying news reports claiming that Apple has plans to develop its own car, there has been a lot of debate regarding the wisdom behind such a strategy. While some Apple enthusiasts might understandably welcome an Apple-inspired car, there is certainly no shortage of arguments to make against Apple entering an entirely new industry.Falling in the latter category, former GM CEO Dan Akerson recently sat down for an interview with Bloomberg where he advised Apple that it has no idea what it's getting itself into.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that Apple placed its first Apple Watch orders with its manufacturing partner Quanta for 5 to 6 million watches. That's extremely bullish for Apple because only 720,000 Android Wear watches shipped in 2014 from such companies as Motorola, Samsung, and LG, while Pebble shipped 1 million smartwatches, according to market watcher Canalys.
Apple's rosy forecast for its premium-priced watch appears aggressive when one considers that Canalys reported a total 4.6 million smart wearable bands shipped in 2014.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
In most IT departments, the very words "shadow IT" conjure visions of out-of-control users merrily spreading sensitive data on insecure services and unapproved devices, risking huge losses and costing IT personnel lost sleep. From the CIO to the help desk, IT folks typically make their disdain clear to any user who will listen.But most users aren't listening. They're too busy riding the wave of slick cloud-based apps and services and powerful consumer-oriented devices to do their work faster, easier, and cheaper than they can with the outmoded enterprise offerings available through official channels. They see shadow IT as essential to achieving maximum productivity.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
How about this for an idea: run broadband to the home via wires and then spurt the last few meters via airwaves.Neat idea, right? You get the benefits of bulk speed through wire and the portability of a consumer device through airwaves.And, if you think you've heard the idea before, you're not mistaken. It's called wired Internet service coupled with Wi-Fi. Been there, done that.Still, it's a good idea.Well, here's a novel twist on that theme — run broadband via fiber to the home and then send the last couple of yards via airwaves. But, in this case, don't translate to Wi-Fi for the last few yards. Use the light you've already got in the fiber and just extend it outwards from the wire to the devices.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
With nearly $200 billion in cash on its balance sheet, Apple can do almost anything – including buying Tesla at a relatively affordable market cap of just $25 billion. But the swashbuckling Elon Musk's electric vehicle and reusable SpaceX rocket depend on technological breakthroughs and big capital investments over long periods before seeing a payback. That just isn't how Apple rolls.The abbreviation for research and development at Apple should be r&D (small r, big D) because the company keeps the riskier research small and invests big in development. The battery breakthroughs needed for mainstream electric vehicles are still on the horizon, and Apple doesn't have the cultural disposition to put its battery patents in the public domain to stimulate innovation as Tesla did. Nor does Apple have the stomach to make big investments to achieve speculative economies of scale needed for a mass-produced electric vehicle like Telsa has in its battery Gigafactory. No one at Apple has ever said anything like JB Straubel, Chief Technical Officer and Co-founder of Tesla Motors, has said:To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Sprint and T-Mobile don't fully comply with a series of voluntary smartphone and tablet unlocking policies, even though both companies were praised last week by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for doing so, according to an independent analysis performed by a former developer of unlocking software."Sprint and T-Mobile aren't delivering on half the commitments they made to the FCC," said Sina Khanifar, a Web developer who conducted the analysis on his own by comparing carrier unlocking policies with a voluntary Code the carriers committed to follow.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Last Thursday, Microsoft released its long-anticipated Windows 10 Technical Preview for smartphones. This first public release of Windows 10 for smartphones improves on many Windows Phone 8.1 features, but it offers few compelling new capabilities. Also, while Win10 TP for smartphones is supposed to run universal-style apps (the latest incarnation of what have been called Metro, Modern, and Windows Store apps), there's still little congruence between the new universal smartphone apps and their big-screen universal namesakes.Note that Microsoft limited the beta bits to Lumia 630, 635, 636, 638, 730, and 830 smartphones. The advanced Windows Phone fan base, which has been migrating to the Lumia 930 (Icon), 1000, 1300, and 1500 series, got snubbed. Microsoft explained that it didn't bring this first beta to the 930 or the 1520 because of conflicts with "a feature that will be coming soon called partition stitching."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
While Google has put the prototypes of its Glass wearable back under wraps, the market is getting a bit more crowded.Japanese electronics manufacturer Sony announced Tuesday that it is developing an Android-compatible pair of computerized eyeglasses designed to show users low-resolution imagery, as well as text. The device is also equipped with a camera.At least one industry analyst said he doubts the new competition will put any added heat on Google, since every company trying to pursue computerized eyeglasses is facing the same challenges.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Buying refurbished smartphones will become increasingly popular in the next couple of years, with consumers benefiting from increased competition.That more consumers are considering getting a refurbished smartphone isn’t a surprise. With product innovation slowing down, smartphones that are a generation or two old look increasingly attractive compared to their new counterparts.This will help the worldwide market for refurbished phones that are sold to end users more than double from 56 million units last year to 120 million in 2017, according to market research company Gartner. That’s much more impressive than the anticipated 60 percent growth in sales of new smartphones in the same time period.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Qualcomm is planting the seeds for 4K video and faster LTE speeds in more affordable smartphones with its new Snapdragon 620 and 618 processors, which will reach devices in the second half of this year.The new chips could be in smartphones priced at US$300 and above, and some performance and 4K features are being cascaded from the Snapdragon 810 chip, which goes into premium smartphones priced above $500.Previous Snapdragon 600 series chips have appeared in a few handsets and phablets from HTC, Samsung and LG. Amazon’s Fire TV also uses a Snapdragon 600 chip and is able to deliver full high-definition video to TV sets.The new 600 series chips are built to support Android and Windows, said Tim McDonough , vice president of marketing at the company.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Facebook wants us all to create VR contentFacebook is actively looking at ways to make its $2 billion acquisition of virtual reality headset maker Oculus Rift part of the social media experience. At a re/code conference Tuesday, Chief Product Officer Chris Cox said the company is working on VR apps, and he also said he expected users to one day upload and share VR content. As re/code pointed out, creating that content is currently a nontrivial affair; Cox also told the publication that “We’re probably a long way from everyone having these headsets.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
BlackBerry has filed another lawsuit against the makers of the Typo keyboard, claiming that the new version of the iPhone accessory also copies its designs and patents.Judge William Orrick of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California last year agreed to BlackBerry’s request to temporarily block sales of the first version of the Typo add-on keyboard, which BlackBerry claimed was a knock-off of keyboards on its phones.BlackBerry believes that there is still demand for phones with physical keyboards, despite the introduction by most vendors like Apple of smartphones with only touchscreen interfaces. It announced, for example, the Q10 in January 2013 and the Classic in February last year, which combine a touchscreen and a physical keyboard.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
NASA
NASA this week began exploring a Centennial Challenge program that would require contestants to build spacecraft capable of catching, capturing, and manipulating small objects in space at high speeds.The idea is such spacecraft could take part in Mars, moon, asteroid or other missions that require sample gathering.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Yahoo, one of Silicon Valley’s aging giants, wants to show it’s got the goods for today’s mobile app developers.On Thursday, the company will hold its first-ever mobile developer conference. The daylong event in San Francisco shows the company wants to develop lucrative relationships with developers and put mobile at the center of its turnaround effort.The event will feature talks by top Yahoo executives, including CEO Marissa Mayer, and deep dives into Yahoo’s technology services for mobile apps. A critical part of those services is Flurry, a mobile analytics and advertising company Yahoo acquired last year. Flurry tracks more than 600,000 apps worldwide, providing information on app performance and users that can aid in ad targeting.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Sina Khanifar, a technology fellow at the Electronic Frontier Foundation and a long-outspoken advocate for cellphone unlocking, recently reviewed the major U.S. wireless carriers' policies and practices since they reached a voluntary agreement to unlock former customers' smartphones so they can switch carriers.You might be surprised to learn that most carriers are not sticking to the agreement very well.A little background on the policy – after years of criticism from relatively niche technology and privacy advocates, by late 2013 the wireless carriers found themselves the targets of mainstream criticism for their refusal to unlock former customers' smartphones. This, of course, prevented customers from switching carriers and often forced them to sign new contracts with them. Even the White House called for reform on the issue, and FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler threatened to impose new regulations on the practice if the industry didn't voluntarily change its unlocking policies. The carriers chose the latter and, through a letter from wireless trade organization CTIA, promised to reach an agreement.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
In the wake of SNL celebrating its 40th anniversary this past weekend (complete with a free SNL 40 iOS app), we take a trip back through some of Saturday Night Live's most memorable techie skits and bits. Feel free to hit me up if there are good ones I missed (I purposely left out a few NSFW ones).With smartphones, computers and the Internet going mainstream in recent years, tech has become a much more prevalent subject on the late night show.Google Glass
Tech's diversity problemTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Over the past few years, I have become increasingly reliant on Android-powered tablets for a large majority of my daily activities: general browsing, social media and email, and even for the majority of my entertainment (music and movie watching).But gaming…gaming is the one area in which Android has just never really embedded itself in my home. Sure, I play some Android games here and there, but I still own dedicated, non-Android powered consoles. Part of the reason is the lack of big, Triple-A quality games available for Android; there are some, but not as many as competing gaming platforms. The other part is the lack of great gaming hardware.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here