GigaOM » mobile devices

Where new opportunity lies in the mobile operating system space

Wed, 22 May 2013 06:55:09 +0000

Roughly half a dozen new mobile operating systems will come to market over the next 6 to 12 months. Many of these look to be more sophisticated than the older ones controlled by Apple and Google. This report will examine the most noteworthy of these new operating systems, Blackberry 10, Firefox, Tizen, and others. It will also document their competitive advantages and disadvantages and gauge what their chances of success — or even true disruption — might be.

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Survey: How apps can solve photo management

suite48 — Wed, 15 May 2013 06:55:09 +0000

A recent survey found that 76 percent of respondents store their digital photos on multiple devices using multiple services.That means ample opportunity exists for companies offering solutions that tackle this “dispersed photo problem.” This report analyzes the aforementioned survey’s results, and also measures 18 different vendors against what respondents value most when it comes to photo-organizing solutions.

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How data warehousing is now a cost-effective solution for businesses

nraden — Mon, 13 May 2013 06:55:34 +0000

The new economics of data warehousing provide attractive alternatives in both costs and benefits. While big data gets most of the attention, evolved data warehousing will play an important role for the foreseeable future. In order to be relevant, data-warehouse design and operation need to be simplified, taking advantage of greatly improved hardware, software, and methods.

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Smartphones evolving from flat to flex with new shapeshifting prototypes

Amanda Alvarez — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 23:00:53 +0000

The mobile devices of tomorrow will be shapeshifters, and experimentation in the design space will make them a reality, according to Anne Roudaut. She’s a computer scientist at the University of Bristol who, along with U.K. and German colleagues, is unveiling flexible touchscreen prototypes at CHI2013 on Monday. The devices they’ve built incorporate smart materials and can morph into different shapes, hence the name “Morphees.”

Static touchscreens can be compared on dimensions like pixel density, screen size, or refresh rate, but no such vocabulary exists for shape-changing devices, Roudaut said. One of the goals of the Morphees project was to create metrics to describe flexible devices and their ability to change shape. Having these “shape resolution” descriptors will help the construction of devices to fit the services they are designed to support. Roudaut cites the example of a stress ball: downloading the app would cause the device to collapse into a sphere that the user could squeeze.

Right now, the Morphee prototypes need external help to change shape, like wires, springs, and actuators, but in the future, the flexible material, touch sensor, and actuator will be merged. “All the layers will be made of flexible material,” says Roudaut. “My work is to make that happen faster, with new prototypes, and pushing the vision so companies [become] interested in making higher fidelity devices.”

Roudaut and colleagues experimented with six different Morphees — made of materials like wood, dielectric electroactive polymers, and smart memory alloys — and measured their shape resolution along dimensions like speed (how fast can it deform) and ability to curve. They wanted to get a sense of what kinds of materials are functional — and safe. “The electroactive polymer requires a huge voltage. We had to figure out how to use it without electrocuting ourselves,” says Roudaut.

A tiled touchscreen made of wood and smart memory alloy wires (above) seemed the most promising of the prototypes. It was able to hold its shape and could quickly curve. Another prototype using a two millimeter-thick E-ink display could roll into a cylinder, but could achieve greater flexibility if it was even thinner, according to Roudaut.

These concepts are already being brought to life by companies like Fremont, Calif.-based Tactus. Its shape-changing display layer takes the place of the front glass on a smartphone and creates a physical keyboard with inflatable buttons that can appear and recede. The challenges in this space, according to Roudaut, remain finding suitably heat-resistant materials that can create sufficient force – after all, having your stress ball phone crumble when you squeeze it would be decidedly stress-inducing.

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Sector RoadMap: Social customer service in 2013

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 06:55:38 +0000

“Social customer service” refers to those services that provide customer support via social media channels. Providing such services is no longer merely a niche or specialty sideline. Challengers, or disruptors who were early with the new technology, are working to expand and integrate their offerings into enterprise systems and processes.

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Social first-quarter 2013: analysis and outlook

stoweboyd — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 21:14:19 +0000

Social business technologies remain in the foreground of discussions about business transformation, but the events of the first quarter of 2013 raised as many questions as they answered, or more.

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How to manage mobile expenses in a BYOD world

aaarcilla — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 06:55:50 +0000

For bring-your-own-device (BYOD) policies (and mobile devices in general), enterprises have focused on resolving issues related to the security and control of corporate resources loaded onto personal devices. What is not talked about often is expense management — a crucial component for implementing successful policies.

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Podcast: How enterprises can build successful BYOD programs

Jenn Marston — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 18:52:15 +0000

Implementing a formal BYOD strategy is key for many companies today. But finding one that can be managed in a secure and organized fashion is a challenge for many. In the latest GigaOM Research podcast, curator Cormac Foster and analyst Aileen Arcilla discuss challenges and steps for successful, cost-effective BYOD programs in enterprises.

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SHOW NOTES
Host: David Linthicum
Speakers: Cormac Foster and Aileen Arcilla

What is BYOD?
What is the value of BYOD when leveraged within enterprises?
What are some of the technologies that enterprises can leverage to manage a BYOD workforce?
What should enterprise do to get ahead of the use of BYOD technologies?
What about security and privacy?

PREVIOUS GIGAOM PODCAST EPISODES:

Instgram’s Twit-storm, Netflix nabs Disney, GMail’s Pretty iPad App

RoadMap re-run, our talk with Instagram’s Kevin Systrom

iTunes 11, When Things Connect, Sun Volt

What Aspiring New Media Stars Should Know About Agents and Managers

Holiday Gadget Gift Guide

War Tweets, Google TV and Nexus 4

Director Jay Duplass on low-fi movies through high-tech

Election Dissection, Ditching DSL and Dumping the iPad

Sandy’s Social, Infrastructure Impact and Forstall

Windows 8 Surfaces, and disruption eruption

iPad Mini, iMac gets skinny

Boxee Cloud DVR, Apple Rumors and Chromebook

Commutist interview: Joy of X author Steven Strogatz

Commutist podcast: Patent trolls, Costco ban and Passbook’s home run

Commutist, meet Nerdist, and interview with Chris Hardwick

T-Metro, Broadband Caps, Remembering Steve Jobs

Apple’s iO-Mess, Dirty Data Centers and Tesla

News from the Mobilize Conference

Paul Tough: How Children Succeed and what you can learn from them

The iPhone 5 Event

Come on, Kindle, Light My 4G Fire

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Smart TV forecast: gigabit Wi-Fi in the living room

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 06:55:28 +0000

The smart TV market will grow from 67 million units shipped in 2012 to 134 million shipped in 2015. As it expands, a simultaneous transition to higher-speed Wi-Fi connections based on a new standard — 802.11ac — will translate to fast growth for the new wireless technology in the TV space.

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Planning a BYOD strategy on the move

Cormac Foster — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 07:55:47 +0000

How does a business go about implementing a new BYOD strategy when the wheels are already turning? However you slice it, hitting a moving target is more work than starting from square one, but you can maximize return by locking down three key steps.

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