Smartwatch App Helps Track Glucose

http://www.wsj.com/articles/smartwatch-app-helps-track-glucose-1423443067?mod=e2fb

Medical-device maker DexCom Inc. is designing an app that will display readings from its diabetes glucose monitor on Apple Inc. ’s smartwatch, giving the watch an early foothold in the health-care market at a time when regulatory treatment of such systems has eased.

DexCom’s glucose monitor tracks a person’s blood-sugar levels continuously. The company has shown a picture of the app, which converts that data into a simple graph that is just a glance at the wrist away. It says the app is expected to be ready when the Apple Watch is launched in April.

Apple declined to comment. The company hasn’t accepted any apps for the coming watch yet but has provided guidelines and code to developers for creating apps for it. The latest iPhone operating system increased its health and fitness offerings.

The Food and Drug Administration had been closely scrutinizing such applications. But the agency loosened its oversight in late January, months after a group of software engineers, many of whose children have Type 1 diabetes, developed a system for monitoring diabetes patients’ blood sugar over the Internet. The system was distributed without first getting regulatory approval.

The group’s effort challenged the slow pace of innovation and regulatory approval in the field. It also highlighted the growing role that Silicon Valley companies and software developers hope to have in monitoring and maintaining people’s health.

Some 29 million Americans have diabetes. Between 5% and 10% of them have Type 1, an autoimmune condition in which the body is unable to convert glucose into energy. People with Type 1 diabetes rely on taking insulin and regular monitoring to make sure their blood sugar doesn’t go dangerously high or low, both of which can cause life-threatening conditions.

The DexCom monitor uses a hair’s-width sensor under the skin to measure blood glucose levels every five minutes.

Previously, the FDA considered glucose monitors and any associated software to be Class III medical devices, meaning they received the highest level of regulatory scrutiny. But the spread of NightScout, the system developed by the group of software engineers, and DexCom’s submission of a separate iPhone app for review prompted the FDA to change course last month.

DexCom’s monitors will remain Class III devices, but software that helps display the data they produce on mobile devices or smartwatches now only needs to be registered with the FDA and doesn’t require prior marketing approval.

The FDA has been reassessing its health-apps policies. “We felt that the risks that the app imposed weren’t as high,” said Alberto Gutierrez, director of the FDA’s Office of In Vitro Diagnostics and Radiological Health.

The issue came to a head last year when the group of software engineers, working on their own time, developed NightScout, which met a critical need. The software takes data from a glucose monitor made by DexCom, mainly for Type 1 diabetes patients, and uploads it to the Internet. That allows parents—and caregivers—to keep track of their children’ blood sugar from afar via their cellphones, tablets and Pebble watches.

NightScout spread quickly to thousands of users who found each other on Facebook andTwitter . By bypassing the FDA, the system’s creators skipped a process that had snarled or deterred formal development of similar products by medical-device companies.

Last fall, the group did take the invention to the FDA. The agency’s new rules give NightScout a pathway to regulatory compliance, according to FDA officials.

DexCom still needs to make sure its Apple Watch app complies with FDA rules. But thanks to the rule change, it doesn’t need to get approval before bringing the app to market.

Steve Pacelli, DexCom’s head of strategy, said the regulatory nod for the iPhone app came in January, much faster than the company expected.

Designers Are Ditching The Mouse For The “Flow” 3D Motion Touch Controller

http://techcrunch.com/2014/12/29/pixel-perfect/

FOVE Uses Eye Tracking To Make Virtual Reality More Immersive

http://techcrunch.com/2014/09/09/fove/

SMART WATCH FORECAST: The Apple Watch May Lead Wrist-Worn Computers To Mass Market Status

http://www.businessinsider.com/global-smartwatch-sales-and-the-apple-watch-2014-9

Consumers will come to embrace smart watches because they will be relatively unobtrusive and allow them to do things that smartphones don't. 

The mass-market debut of smart watches is now a reality with Apple's announcement today of "Apple Watch," which features a user interface organized around the "digital crown," a new take on the watch's winding mechanism. 

In BI Intelligence's proprietary forecast for the smart watch market, we provided a half-dozen charts and datasets illustrating the potential for smart watches within the wearable computing space, and mobile. 

Here are the dynamics and numbers we see driving the emerging smart watch market: 

• We forecast 91.6 million smartwatch units sold globally in 2018. With an average selling price of about $100, that translates to a $9.2 billion market by 2018. Subscribers can download a spreadsheet and charts that show year-by-year estimates and the numerical assumptions behind our market forecast. 
• A mass-market smart watch would be the first new mobile device since the smartphone to upgrade or enhance a ubiquitous consumer product — the wristwatch. A watch with an Internet connection isn't as alien a concept as Google Glass. 
• And watches are a huge addressable market. It varies by age and gender, but consumer surveys reveal a slight majority of the U.S. and global populations still wear a watch, around 55%. 
• Even if only a minority of watch-wearers upgrade to Internet-connected and app-centric smart watches, that's still a huge market and a boon for growth-hungry tech players and app makers. 
• In the future, about one in 20 smartphones will be paired in some way with smart watches. 
• Smart watches will come to absorb the market for popular smart fitness bands like the FitBit. Activity trackers will also tell the time, and smart watches will track steps and sleep. The market will blur into one. 
• Through just the first half of 2013, the Kickstarter-launched Pebble watch shipped 93,000 smart watches and took over 275,000 pre-orders.
• The market in mainstream, wearable computing has so far been anchored by smart fitness bracelets, and pioneered by Pebble, but mass-market smart watches will absorb some of the fitness wearables market, and become the wearables category-leader for the ordinary consumer.
• Smart watches will have screens, even if they're tiny, and potentially run software that allow them to serve as a robust extension to smartphone operating systems and apps. 

Apple unveils two new iPhones, Apple Watch and ApplePay

http://money.cnn.com/2014/09/09/technology/mobile/apple-iphone-iwatch-event/index.html?hpt=te_t1

The 'Holographic' 3D Video Machine Has Arrived

http://thecreatorsproject.vice.com/blog/the-holographic-3d-video-machine-has-arrived

We've brought you holographic technology before, but nothing quite like this.

Recently completed by Chris Helson and Sarah Jackets, two Scotland-based artist who have been honing away on the project for seven years, this innovative 3D video machine will make its debut on July 31, as part of the Alt-W at theEdinburgh Art Festival. Inspired by the famous holographic message sent to Obi-Wan Kenobi from Princess Leia inStar Wars, the 360-degree piece, entitled Help Me Obi, has already won an Alt-w production award from New Media Scotland.

Inspired by scientific concepts that have garnered iconic cultural significance, Helson said the project is not to be confused with a 3D hologram: “We use the term holographic because there is nothing else like it,” said Helson. “The machine creates 360 [-degree] moving video objects apparently floating in space and the viewer is able to walk around the machine and see the video object from any position.”

The duo, best known for their striped public sculpture of light, started Help Me Obi in 2007. No easy feat, “It has taken this long to make it work well,” said Helson, noting that the original designs that came together to made it happen still can't be spoken about due to the patent-registering process. The biggest challenge, he says, was getting rid of the flicker. “It was a bit like the very first TV,” he said, “not easy to see the image, but enough to see the possibilities.”

The video objects presented by the piece include the NASA Voyager 1 Space Probe, the first man-made object to leave the solar system and enter interstellar space, and a loose narrative between a holographic baby and a real child— actually the same person. The baby in the video is Helson and Jackets' son as a newborn, and the boy in the photos looking at the baby is the same child, now five years old.

As far as the artists know, this is the first device of this kind being made at this particular scale: their video objects can be made nearly 12 inches in size. “When you actually stand there with them floating in front of you, they have a life that you connect to in a very different way than you would with a film or video, or even a 3D film,” says Helson.

How much is it a shout out to Star Wars? To Helson and Jackets, it's the cultural reference that is important— the idea of Obi-Wan Kenobi as both classical warrior and messenger. It’s also about attempting the impossible: “The two parts of this work— Voyager, and the baby— look to reveal something of how we understand ourselves and our place in the universe,” he said.

Google Glass hack allows brainwave control

Take pictures and socialise with Twitter. No hands, no voice.

http://mindrdr.thisplace.com/static/index.html

Los Altos School District Tries Out Virtual Reality in the Classroom

http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Class-Action-Los-Altos-School-District-Tries-Out-Virtual-Reality-in-the-Classroom-257601401.html

The STEM Lab (short for Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) at Gardner Bullis Elementary School in Los Altos is the site of an unusual class project.

“So my animal was a dolphin,” sixth grader Adam Mekay explains to a first grader.

Adam and his classmates are among the first kids in the country to use a new 3D educational display.

“These are some of the body parts of the dolphin,” Adam continues as he pulls apart a 3D representation of a dolphin. “It’s really awesome how it’s shown here.”

The Los Altos School District is doing a pilot program to test zSpace, a learning tool that uses polarized glasses and a stylus to create an immersive educational experience. “It’s actually like I haven’t imagined it before,” Adam says. “I never knew technology was this advanced.”

STEM teacher Amy Shelley says her students have been wowed by the technology. “I tell them, ‘turn your hand and see the inside of it.’ And they, like some of them jump back in excitement at what they can explore,” she says.

On the day of our visit the sixth graders are using zSpace to make presentations about marine life to their class buddies, the first graders.

“They couldn’t believe there was an actual like, lobster in front of them,” says sixth grader Grace Souders. “My buddies - they actually tried to touch it.”

The zSpace system tracks the location of the user’s glasses and generates a real-time 2D display of the students’ 3D experience.

“When computers came along we stopped interacting spatially and started looking at things that were stuck to a screen or behind a screen,” says zSpace director of educational solutions Elizabeth Lytle. “And with zSpace that barrier is removed.”

Sixth grader Brandon Son is a fan. “It feels like you’re kind of picking up the actual fish and just taking it apart and it feels like you’re right there with the animal,” he says.

The district doesn’t know definitively yet if zSpace improves learning outcomes, but early signs point to success.

“A lot of them will come in at lunch and use zSpace on their own time,” says STEM teacher Shelley. “And they’re just finding tons of different things that they can explore.”

“I just think my school is really lucky to be able to have it,” Grace says.

As for the cost, the zSpace STEM lab setup costs $25,000 to $50,000.

The pilot program in Los Altos continues through next school year and will expand to include all schools in the district.

zSpace is also in use at UCSF and Stanford for research and medical education.

This is Digital Marketing: From Ad Men to Math Men | Mediative

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oH87MtZuBcY

Digital marketing is complicated enough for insiders. For outsiders, it's a tangled web of technology, jargon and acronyms. The aim of this video is to get a clearer picture of where digital marketing stands today.

State of Digital Marketing 2014 [Infographic]

http://socialtimes.com/state-digital-marketing-2014-infographic_b141250

Webmarketing123.com recently surveyed more than 500 marketers about their digital goals and challenges. They found that while digital gets the most lip service, it receives only 1/4 of the budget. Not surprisingly, mobile is a priority. Eighty-eight percent of marketers report difficulty in measuring ROI across social channels and understanding which channels are generating the most leads and revenue. Oh, and don’t use the term ROI, marketers hate it.

Smart TV Apps Are Going To Drive The Next Big Shift In How We View Our Media

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-smart-tv-app-industry-2014-1

Why is an apps-enabled living room so exciting?

Consider the market: 

• There are some 800 million pay TV households worldwide, according to MRG.
• In America, the average person still spends more than four hours per day watching TV, and more than five hours per day engaging with all screens, according to Nielsen.
• TV also still represents the majority of worldwide ad spending: $350 billion last year, or 63% of all ad spending, according to Nielsen.

Innovation in the TV space is inevitable: 

• Consumers want it: A survey by Nielsen and YuMe found that 17% of Internet connected TV users plan to decrease or cancel their cable subscription in the coming year.
• TV is ripe for app-led innovation: The old guard, represented by cable and entertainment conglomerates, will not be able to fend off improvements and user experience innovations like those that apps are bringing to mobile phones. 
• The devices are there: the Smart TV revolution will not just be led by new TVs with built-in Internet connections. Consumer will also adopt less expensive game consoles and set-top boxes like Roku and Apple TV, which transform traditional TVs into Smart TVs with access to app stores. At least 20% of U.S. consumers already have their TVs connected in one of these ways.
• The operating systems and app stores are there: TVs would offer mobile-based apps a new screen to conquer. Apps would be able to sync across PCs, tablets, smartphones, and TVs. Smart TVs and set-top boxes will likely run on mobile operating systems, iOS and Android.
• The players are in place: Apple and Google seem like logical smart-TV leaders — Apple through its skill of designing and marketing great platforms, and Google through its prowess in digital video and advertising. Also, pay attention to Samsung and Microsoft, among others. But consumers won't gravitate to smart TV apps until the app stores are stocked with well-curated collections of great software.

But there are plenty of barriers to a successful TV-based app ecosystem:

• The existing smart TV app market is way too fragmented between a half-dozen or so immature platforms, and worse — most of these are very difficult to develop for.

In full, the report: 

• Looks at data on Internet connected TV adoption among consumers
• Digs into new video consumption behavior and explains how an app-centered TV will leverage the trend toward digital video
• Discusses the cast of characters — from media and cable conglomerates to manufacturers and software giants — trying to get into the smart TV space, and who will likely win
• Looks at what consumers are doing on their app-enabled TVs
• Juxtaposes alarming trends in the pay TV market, with healthy growth in Internet-enabled TV usage
• Examines what needs to happen for smart TVs to emerge as a key app development platform

For full access to the report on Smart TV Apps as well as our archive of over 100 in-depth reports and hundreds of charts on mobile computing, digital video, and the Internet, sign up for a free trial subscription today. 

Top 11 Mobile Trends Of 2013

http://readwrite.com/2013/12/18/mobile-trends-2013#awesm=~osbptkAgmBPJA3

It was a big year for mobile in 2013, as it has been for the past several years.

Smartphones took the first steps toward becoming hubs we can use to control our entire lives. Companies became smarter about how they use and deploy mobile devices to make their worker more efficient. Wearable computing is still in its infancy, but 2013 brought the first inklings of a world in which computers will be part of our everyday attire. And the major mobile platforms have matured to the point where it takes some real effort to identify important feature differences between them. Ubiquitous computing is alive and well.

Let's take a look at the top 10 trends from the mobile industry this year.

The Power Of Connecting Technologies

 

Two technologies this year will be integral to smartphones' next evolutionary step: Bluetooth Low Energy and Wi-Fi Direct.

Apple, Google and Microsoft all added the newest standards for Wi-Fi Direct and Bluetooth to their mobile operating systems. And by so doing, they've opened the door to new types of apps, functionalities and accessory devices that will make the smartphone act as the hub of your computing world. And all because a host of gadgets will be able to talk to one another without draining your smartphone battery.

In iOS 7, for instance, Bluetooth Low Energy (also known as Bluetooth Smart) has enabled developers and hardware makers to build energy efficient accessories like smartwatches, fitness trackers and even home appliances. Apple also instituted AirDrop—the ability to share files directly with other smartphones—using Wi-Fi Direct peer-to-peer networking.

Android adopted some of the newest capabilities for Bluetooth Smart in the Jelly Bean 4.3 update in July. This so-far overlooked capability will push a whole legion of Android accessories into the market, including smartwatches like the Galaxy Gear or Qualcomm Toq and the Google Glass headset. The next wave of connected devices and accessories will be managed through these wireless standards.

Wearables On The Rise

 

This was also the year that a nascent new device category started to gain popularity: wearables.

The first mass market smartwatches hit the market this year—the Galaxy Gear, the Pebble and the Qualcomm Toq. Google Glass—Google’s Internet-connected goggles—has been stirring up interest all year even though only a few thousand people have had access to the units. Fitness trackers like the Nike FuelBand and FitBit were a hit among regular consumers (read: no longer just early adopters) this year.

Rumors persist that both Apple and Google, among others, are working on their own smartwatches. Both Apple and Google have filed their own patents that envision how their smartwatches could work and may have entries into the market by this time next year.

It wasn't the year of the smartwatch, but 2013 was a good starting point for all the wearable gadgets that will come in 2014 and beyond.

Carriers Change The Plan

 

T-Mobile should win an award this year for changing how U.S. consumers buy smartphones. At least on the surface.

First, it did away with the two-year carrier contract. Then it allowed people to upgrade their devices twice a year. In short, T-Mobile introduced a much more European approach to the process by allowing consumers to pay for devices via monthly installments—seemingly a sharp break with the lump-sum-and two-year-contract model that had dominated smartphone sales since the release of the first iPhone in 2007.

T-Mobile describes itself as the “unCarrier.” That proved to be true for about a week, until Sprint, Verizon and AT&T immediately copied T-Mobile’s new contract and monthly installment plans. As it turns out, none of these plans really save the consumer much money, and they still tie customers to two-year contracts.

That said, smartphone buyers do have more choices of devices and upgrades and contracts that they did at the beginning of the year.

Mobile Gadgets Are Cheaper Than Ever

 

Nexus 5 starts at $349Nexus 5 starts at $349

Apple is now the gold standard in the smartphone wars—literally so, with its introduction of the gold version of the iPhone 5S. Yet Apple has proven the exception to a general rule this year, which is that mobile devices have been getting cheaper.

The base price for an iPhone hasn't changed all that much since 2007. A new iPhone 5S will cost you—or your carrier—a baseline $649. The iPhone 5C cost $549. Yes, U.S. consumers can get these devices for $199 or $99 respectively through carrier subsidies, but that doesn’t change the actual cost of the device. The cheapest iPad you can get is still $499 while the iPad Mini starts at $399. If you add more storage (or cellular connectivity for iPads), the prices rise fairly quickly.

But the average cost of mobile devices is starting to fall. International Data Corp (IDC) reports that the average price of smartphones this year is $337, down from $387 in 2012. By 2017, IDC predicts that the average cost of a smartphone will be down to $265.

We have seen the power of the falling prices of gadgets in world markets. Nearly a billion smartphones will be sold this year. The new high-end Nexus 5 from Google and LG costs $349. The new Moto G from Motorola costs $179. These are the best examples of quality smartphones being sold at or below IDC’s average price. Manufacturers like Samsung, ZTE, Huawei and Nokia have all pushed out cheap smartphones intended to flood the global market.

For tablets, Samsung has a variety of tablets available across a variety of price points and sizes. Google has pushed tablet pricing with the Nexus 7 at $229 while Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablets range from $169 to $379. In the future, tablet prices will also continue to drop.

Phones Of Every Shape, Size And Cost

 

Major manufacturers are also offering a much broader array of devices than they used to. Nokia, for instance, has taken its Lumia smartphones running Windows Phone and created both smaller, cheaper versions (the Lumia 520 at $99) and advanced devices with big screens (the Lumia 1520 with a 6-inch display) and extraordinary features (the Lumia 1020 with a 41-megapixel camera). The smartphone game is no longer just a battle of flagship phones; diverse product lineups allow manufacturers to address increasingly specific niches of the market.

In many ways, Samsung is responsible for this trend. In 2011, it released 21 different Samsung Galaxy devices—from the Galaxy Ace to the Galaxy Z. Samsung hasn't slowed down much since; it launched 23 Galaxy phones in 2013, and currently offers four different versions of its flagship Galaxy S4.

Other smartphone competitors have taken note and have mimicked Samsung’s approach. To a certain extent, so has Apple—it released two smartphones this year with the iPhone 5C and iPhone 5S, the first time it's broken with its original one model per year practice.

iOS 7 As A Viral Hit

 

Apple usually announces the newest version of iOS—the operating system that runs iPhones and iPads—at its World Wide Developer Conference in June. Apple release iOS as a beta for developers to build their apps on before the OS is officially released to the public after Apple’s new gadgets are released later in the year (for instance, iOS 7 was released to the public a week after the iPhone 5S launch this year).

In past years, most people that downloaded the iOS 7 were developers of mobile apps. That changed in a big way this year. One of the most popular stories on ReadWrite for 2013 was, “How To Download And Install The iOS 7 Beta.” Shortly thereafter, the ReadWrite top story was, "How To Downgrade The iOS 7 Beta Back To iOS 6 The Easy Way."

The stories were intended to be a quick guides for developers, but instead attracted a huge audience looking to get a preview of iOS 7. Websites that sold access to the beta cropped up all over the Internet. Hundreds of thousands, perhaps even millions, of people were using the iOS 7 beta before Apple officially launched it for the general public.

Layered software design in iOS 7.Layered software design in iOS 7.

This viral phenomenon proved to be a fairly large problem for Apple and iOS. Beta versions of operating systems are not meant for a wide audience because they can be bug and crash prone, eat inordinate amounts of battery life and make devices generally unusable. iOS 7 is the biggest jump the operating system has taken since the iPhone was released in 2007 with the new “flat” design along with 1,500 new application programming interfaces.

A conversation with testing platform uTest said that their data showed that iOS 7 had almost twice as many bugs as previous beta versions of iOS. With all of the public attention to the beta, those bugs caused a lot of problems for casual users who didn't have the means to troubleshoot their devices.

After the end of the beta period, Apple also faced several problems with iOS 7 (such as an iMessage bug and several security issues) when it rolled out the release to the public. Again, the problems with iOS 7 were compounded by the popularity of the operating system as well as Apple’s unique strategy of making it available to every compatible device on the first day of availability. That's a credit to Apple, but also now a source of headaches.

That experience demonstrated that iOS isn't just a faceless operating system operating a popular device, but part of mainstream tech culture—new features, bugs and all.

Android Is All Grown Up

 

Google used to update Android several times a year to add features while fixing bugs and security holes. Google has since slowed its release cycle; the period between the June 2012 launch of Jelly Bean 4.1 and KitKat 4.4 October 2013 was the longest that Google had gone without releasing a new, named version of Android (Google launched two Jelly Bean updates—4.2 and 4.3—in the interim).

Google’s Android engineers believe they have achieved feature parity with other major mobile platforms (such as iOS and Windows Phone). The Jelly Bean 4.3 release saw the integration of several minor user features and a couple background developer features, like Bluetooth Smart integration. Android updates are getting smaller and further between.

As such, Google has turned its attention to other aspects of Android. In May of this year, Google didn’t announce a new version of Android but rather a suite of new tools for developers to make more money from their Android apps such as the ability to accept a variety of currencies and a translation service. Google also released its own integrated developer environment—Android Studio—at Google I/O. In October, Google released KitKat 4.4, making Android much slimmer to run on a variety of hardware profiles.

Windows Phone Claims Clear No. 3 Status

 

Nokia Lumia 1520Nokia Lumia 1520

At the beginning of 2013, the company formerly known as Research In Motion changed its name to BlackBerry. It then released BlackBerry 10, the long-awaited update to its aging mobile operating system. At the time, it was a very fair question to ask if BlackBerry or Windows Phone would emerge as the clear third operating system after Android and iOS.

Anybody that picked BlackBerry was kidding themselves (me included). BlackBerry 10 fell flat and by the autumn the company was looking to sell itself to anybody that could foot the bill.

In the meantime, Windows Phone continued to rise (albeit with marginal growth compared to iOS and Android). Nokia’s push towards a wider portfolio of devices along with its ability to feature new developer tools like the Image SDK have allowed Windows Phone to claim the No. 3 tag ahead of competitors like Firefox OS, BlackBerry or any other emerging platforms.

Microsoft is committed to Windows Phone and its $7.4 billion acquisition of Nokia’s devices and services division is an example of that. For the foreseeable future, Windows Phone will be able to hold its position in the market and carve out a user base.

The Beginning Of Enterprise Mobile 2.0

 

From Appcelerator developer surveyFrom Appcelerator developer survey

If we date the smartphone revolution to July 2007 (when the iPhone was released), then we are now in Year 6 of mobile changing consumer behavior. Yet for large companies, the full effect of mobile is only beginning to be felt.

For enterprises, mobility was once synonymous with BlackBerry devices and laptops. The primary concerns at the time were to make those devices as secure as possible while also enabling workers to go just about anywhere. The same cycle is being played out, just this time with Androids and iPhones and tablets. That was essentially what Enterprise Mobile 1.0 was about: security and the bring-your-own-device movement.

Enterprises move much slower than the rest of the consumer world. They have old processes, old ways of making decisions and spending money. Instead of six week or even six month windows, enterprises work on 18 to 36 month cycles. That includes technology adoption. Last year I joked with an IBM mobile executive that enterprise mobile was in version 1.5, somewhere between adoption and optimization.

Enterprise Mobile 2.0 is about adoption, efficiency, optimization and productivity. After securing the devices and apps they use, many companies focused on one important aspect of mobility that suited their enterprise needs. Accounting, sales, marketing, CRM, compliance, employee management, IT or any variety of other departments went mobile. In 2013, we are seeing enterprises that have adopted mobile practices begin to branch out. Now, instead of just having one mobile solution (like a CRM app), enterprises are creating mobile capability for more departments as they upgrade their infrastructures.

It is not just large technology enterprises that are pushing mobile either. Large enterprises in a variety of sectors are going mobile, some of which have been slow to the party. Industries like healthcare, banking, transportation, government, automotive, telecommunications and insurance are becoming increasingly mobile. These industries are updating their horizontal capabilities with customer-centric apps as well as improving their cloud infrastructure and developer processes to align themselves for the next 10 years of mobile innovation.

The Streaming App & Connected Televisions

 

Early in 2013, HTC and Samsung both came out with capabilities in their flagship smartphones (the HTC One and Samsung Galaxy S4) that included infrared blasters. Those IR blasters could serve as remote controls to televisions or any other old remote device. It was the beginning of a trend that would come to some extremes in 2013.

Later in the year, Google announced the Chromecast, a dongle that plugs into a TV that allows for users to stream YouTube, Netflix or movies and music from the Google Play store. Chromecast owners can use their Android or iPhone to control the dongle as a remote control. Later in the year, popular streaming box Roku also released an app that allows users to control it with a smartphone.

Both Roku and Chromecast join a variety of features from across the industry, such as Apple TV, where users can stream what is playing on their phones/tablets to a television set or use their smartphones as remotes to control their televisions.

The Year Of The Smartphone Camera

 

The Lumia 1020 camera is second to none.The Lumia 1020 camera is second to none.

Mobile manufacturers have had to face a difficult truth over the last couple of years: it is really difficult to market their new flagship smartphones without some type of hook or gimmick. The problem for manufacturers is that they are running out of natural extensions of mobile computing to add those eye-catching gimmicks.

Voice control was popularized in smartphones by Apple’s Siri. Gesture-based (both facial movement and touch-based) computing is interesting and still evolving, but not the selling point that it used to be. People do not care as much about speeds and feeds (the hardware inside the device) as much as they once did.

With avenues to gain consumer attention dwindling, manufacturers have taken to enhancing and marketing one of the most-used aspects of smartphones: the camera.

Every major smartphone announcement this year has featured significant new camera features. It started with BlackBerry’s editing tools that could allow you to erase movement in a picture in the BlackBerry Z10 and moved to the new sharing features and “ultrapixels” in the HTC One. Samsung’s 13-megapixel Galaxy S4 camera has so many features and modes that the smartphone’s camera took up about half of our review of the device.

The Moto X has a gesture-based “quick open” feature with enhanced optics and a 10MP camera. The iPhone also greatly upgraded its optics with a bigger aperture that captures more light and new photo modes. All in all, smartphone cameras were greatly improved this year and have become the primary battle point in the advertising and marketing wars between manufacturers.

Of all of these smartphone camera innovations, Nokia took the cake. The Finnish manufacturer released the Lumia 1020 with a 41 MP camera, enhanced optics and software to control them. A camera like the one on the Lumia 1020 has never really been featured on a top-end smartphone before (though the smartphone itself is just decent). If 2013 was the year of the smartphone camera, Nokia can claim the title of best mobile camera of the year.

The 10 Most Important Charts Of The Year In Mobile, According To Tech And Digital Media Industry Executives

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-most-important-charts-in-mobile-2013-2013-12

Top Digital Marketing Trends in 2014

http://socialmediatoday.com/anitaloomba/2035211/top-digital-marketing-trends-2014#!

2013 will be known as the year organizations began embracing different tactics for digital marketing in a big way. It will also be known as the year of the biggest social media changes:Twitter’s IPO announcement, Google andFacebook’s algorithm updates, and the list goes on. This trend of disrupting the digital marketing arena will continue into 2014 and beyond. Here is a roundup of what we predict in 2014 for the digital marketing industry:

Content continues to be king

Social Media Today reported that 78% of CMO’s believe custom content is the future of marketing. Most marketers have embraced and accepted content as a major resource in their efforts. Along with this, there has been an influx of content discovery apps which support the growth trend: Flipboard, Pulse, and Fancy (to name a few). If you’re not dedicating budget towards content development, it may be time to consider doing so!

Growth of video marketing

It goes without saying that videos have the ability to convey a message that is ten times more powerful than text content. Kony 2012 was proof that great video content has the potential of becoming an overnight viral success. Also, with apps like Instagram, Snapchat and Vine, videos are being created, viewed and shared on mobile devices. Facebook has also introduced and enhanced their mobile ads platform. Combined with the mobile potential, we predict that video marketing will grow even more in 2014.

Social media diversification

2013 has been the year of social media growth. We will continue to see this trend in the coming year. 93% of marketers already say they use social media for business, but in 2013 we also saw a surge in popularity of new networks like Pinterest, Vine and Instagram – and have become a part of everyday life. These networks are carving a unique niche for themselves, which means that businesses will continue to use different platforms to build their brands and connect with consumers.

The Post-PC Era Begins In Earnest Next Year

http://readwrite.com/2013/12/10/smartphone-pcs-install-base-2014#awesm=~opGVaP5Pvu62cf

To date, there are still more installed PCs in the world than there are smartphones or tablets. Next year, that's likely to change.

According to projections from mobile analyst Ben Evans, the number of smartphones in use around the world will pass that of PCs for the first time next year. According to a chart from Evans, the estimate of installed PCs in the world is a little north of 1.6 billion. The global install base of smartphones is near 1.3 billion and growing at a much faster clip than PCs. If you add tablets into the equation (with a tick more than 200 million installed across the world) then mobile devices are almost on par with PCs already.

Evans predicts that the total number of installed smartphones in the world will eclipse PCs in 2014 sometime in the second quarter.

Evans notes that the numbers are appropriately approximate because firm numbers of devices "installed"—meaning purchased, activated and used—by global consumers is difficult to pinpoint with a high degree of accuracy.

The broad stroke numbers are very easy to see. IDC predicts that 314.2 million PCs (desktop and laptop/notebook) will be shipped in 2013, down from 349.4 in 2012. That is a 10.1% shortfall year-over-year, the biggest single year drop in PC history.

On the other end, smartphones are predicted to eclipse one billion shipments this year. IDC shows smartphone shipment growth of 39.3% year-over-year with little sign of slowing down.

See also: Dropping Prices Are Driving Mass Smartphone Adoption Across The World

IDC predicts that 1.7 billion smartphones will ship in 2017, versus estimated PC shipments of 305.1 million. Shipments, of course, don't equal sales of actual devices to consumers. It is also important to note that even sales do not mean an addition to the installed base, as many as older models are replaced by newer ones. In aggregate, the install base rises over time—just not at the rate of shipments or sales. 

The Power Of Ubiquitous Computing

The era of ubiquitous computing is upon us. Smartphones and tablets are devices that are always connected, always with us. The adoption curve of mobile devices has been astonishing in the last several years, fueled by Western consumers rushing to buy the latest and greatest smartphones. Now smartphone and tablet prices are dropping around the world, leading to a billion smartphone shipments this year.

Over the last several years, “mobile shopping” has become a big buzz term around the holidays. IBM has tracked the data for Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday for the last several years and notes that 25.8% of sales were made from a smartphone or tablet on the American holiday. On Black Friday, 21.8% of sales were through smartphones or tablets. Essentially, between one out of every four and five online sales on the biggest shopping day of the year were made by mobile devices. People have their tablets and smartphones close at hand and look online for deals.

At some point this ceases to be a “mobile” phenomenon. Instead of “mobile shopping,” it is just “shopping” … through whatever computer happens to be close at hand. That is the power of ubiquitous computing.

As smartphones overtake PCs globally, the notion that anything is seen as a mobile trend ceases to be important. Instead we are just all connected wherever we go by the a powerful computers in our pockets.

summary; In 2014, smartphones will most likely eclipse PCs in terms of the number of devices in use around the world.