Many long-standing legal rules of engagement between publishers and consumers tilted the playing field in unexpected ways in the first quarter. The period also saw a major expansion in the amount and quality of original productions for web-based video platforms and a major move by chipmaker Intel to stake a claim in the digital living room. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
How are U.S. teenagers accessing the internet and using mobile devices? A new report from the Pew Research Center shows that both cell phone adoption, but specifically smartphone adoption, is growing at a rapid pace. Read more »
As of Jan. 26, it’s illegal for U.S. consumers to unlock their own cellphone but that could change now that the White House has showed support for a petition to overturn the rule. Read more »
In the five years since the iPhone hit the market, Apple and Google have delivered more than 40 billion cumulative downloads of apps. Other sources predict the app marketplace will swell to surpass 66 billion downloads in 2016, a growth fueled by tablet, entertainment, and enterprise apps. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Smartphone sales are expected to hit 54 percent of all cell phone sales by 2013, according to new projections from IHS. That is two years faster than previous projections and shows just how big the market is becoming thanks to low-cost handsets and more smartphone adoption. Read more »
Golfer Phil Mickelson withdrew from The Memorial Tournament this weekend, and apparently cell phones –or people snapping pictures with them — were to blame. The bigger story is one of cell phones, etiquette and sporting events — something the Summer Olympics will bring to the fore. Read more »
Eighty-five percent of the global population owns mobile phones. This report forecasts the global handset market, examining the Americas; Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA); and Asia-Pacific. Drivers include an increased number of subscribers in developing countries and the rollout of 3G and 4G wireless networks. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
With Apple and Nokia at each others’ throats over control over the upcoming nano-SIM standard for mobile phones, the ruling body that was set to decide between them has instead postponed its vote for at least a month. Read more »
If you’re like many of us, you’re already thinking over some New Year’s resolutions that will make you a better “you” in 2012. But how are the tech industries’ thought leaders approaching the new year? We asked 12 of them for their resolutions. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
One of the year’s largest smart grid conferences — DistribuTECH — closes today in San Antonio, Texas. It’s like the CES for utilities, power companies and the vendors that are trying to sell them stuff. Here are the top 10 trends I took away. Read more »
Not all cellular network traffic comes from our cell phones and gadgets; a growing amount will come from machines using these networks to communicate, including the utilities that provide you with power and water. Spring announced a host of new smart grid partnerships on Thursday. Read more »
Which stories dominated the green GigaOM clicks in 2011? This year was filled with smart thermostats, a dream of Apple getting into solar, the bankruptcy of Solyndra, the efficiency of cloud computing, Google’s green data centers and Tesla’s Model S. Read more »
LinkedIn has announced that the technology behind IndexTank, the search engine startup it acquired back in October, has been released as open source software. It was pretty clear that IndexTank was bought largely for its talent, so it’s good news that its technology will live on. Read more »
When it comes to the promise of data as the currency of the web, the current state of affairs has privacy advocates and many consumers up in arms. But it doesn’t have to be the one-sided affair it is today, in which companies have all the data and all the rights, and we shouldn’t have to be afraid of who’s doing what with our information. With laws, products, practices and education, data can become a far more valuable currency than cash ever was. Keeping that in mind, this research note examines five issues that must be addressed by policy makers and entrepreneurs so that they can deliver on our data-driven digital future. Companies mentioned in this report include Twitter, Facebook and Foursquare. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Connectivity changes everything. That’s the credo driving just about every corner of our day-to-day lives. As human beings, we are now connected to one another through not just our social networks but also our cars, the books we read, the albums we download and even our own health and wellness habits (to name just a few areas). With that in mind, GigaOM Pro has singled out certain areas in the technology industry where we see this shift to constant connectivity taking place most drastically. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Imagine buying your SIM-free mobile phone from a local electronics store, logging in as soon as you turn the phone on for the first time and having the phone ready to use immediately. In the future, even the phone number itself will disappear. Read more »
Sometimes you need a plain old phone more than you need a smartphone. But with all the activities and apps you have running on your iPhone, your battery may not hold out when you need it most. Here’s how to help make sure it does. Read more »
Collaborative consumption refers to a class of new businesses that use the web to enable the sharing and bartering of goods and services — from cars to apartments to office space. The market evolved out of the first generation of general-purpose P2P marketplaces such as Craigslist and eBay and is now tied to the way we use the Internet and cell phones. GigaOM Pro conducted a survey of GigaOM readers to gauge the popularity of the collaborative consumption movement, which services readers are using and the impact certain security concerns will have on the growth of industry. This research note examines the survey’s results and provides analysis on the current state and future of the web-sharing market. Companies mentioned in this report include Zipcar, RelayRides, thredUP and Airbnb. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free GigaOM Pro trial subscription. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Windstream, a Little Rock, Ark.-based phone and broadband company says it is buying PAETEC Holding Company of Fairport, N.Y. for $2.3 billion. On closing this deal, Windstream will have a bigger national footprint with a bigger fiber network to service the luractive business customers. Read more »
Sprint reported record low churn rates and its highest average revenue per user yet, but lost $847 million. Why? Although 1.1 million new subscribers were added, all were from wholesale and pre-paid customers. Postpaid subscriber numbers may turn around in the future though, thanks to LTE. Read more »
Cell phones can teach us a lot about energy efficiency. New energy technologies that have commonly been introduced first in cell phones are now being mimicked across other industries, leading to information technology and transportation that is more energy-efficient. Read more »
The death of a battery: We’ve all seen it happen. In phones, laptops, cameras and now electric cars, the process is painful and — if you’re lucky — slow. But why does this happen? Read more »
Silicon Valley start-up PayNearMe is addressing the 1/4 of households that don’t use credit cards and today, it’s rolling out four new options that ramp up the number of things consumers can pay with using cash. Read more »
Need help choosing a cell phone plan? It used to be easy but now that smartphone adoption is rising, there’s a wider wider range of considerations including available software applications, handset platforms, and the cost of a data connection. This guide should get you started. Read more »
Ah, April Fool’s Day. Other sites are covering the pranks pulled by the tech community extensively today — I like the fact that Techcrunch is grading them — but I’m going to take this opportunity to do what I do best: Read way too much into […] Read more »
