Until I tried them on, I had no interest in wearing Google Glass around town. But the simple snap of a photo with Google Glass on Wednesday without moving my head or hands gave me a new understanding of Glass. Read more »
Given the documented ability of mobile apps, search, and social networking to lift sales, it makes forehead-smacking sense for retailers to shift their focus away from sales lost to showrooming into harnessing the shopper’s in-store wireless experience for themselves and their brands. Read more »
Californian startup Pelican has designed a camera composed of multiple smaller cameras, which aims to overcome the noise issues typically associated with tiny smartphone shooters. And it seems imaging-focused Nokia wants in. Read more »
Nokia’s latest Series 40 handset represents a welcome boost for WhatsApp in emerging markets, and a useful reminder of how Nokia continues to eke relevance out of its ageing platform. Read more »
Combine cheap sensors, smartphones and supercomputers and you have a water quality monitoring project that could go viral. MoboSens, a project from a university research lab is worth a look. Read more »
“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. Read more »
With sales slumping due to the popularity of cameras in smartphones, companies like Canon are making cameras that let smartphones access photos directly for editing and sharing. Read more »
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. Read more »
The mobile platform wars escalated once again in the first quarter of 2012 as BlackBerry finally took the wraps off its much-anticipated new operating system. Meanwhile Android continued to build on its dominance both worldwide and in the U.S., cementing a two-horse race with Apple. Read more »
Cloud computing is finally starting to add value to business, as those in charge of cloud within enterprises are moving from talking to doing. That much was very evident in the first quarter of 2013. Read more »
Expense management is crucial for companies who wish to install successful, safe BYOD programs. Here’s a look at the ways in which enterprises can monitor costs when it comes to their employees’ personal mobile devices. Read more »
Do you remember Apple’s rounded rectangles patent? Well, this week Motorola obtained a patent for eight-sided smartphones. Read more »
A group of data protection officials from across Europe has published its opinion on smartphone apps. It makes for ugly reading, as the fragmentation of the mobile ecosystem renders compliance near-impossible. Read more »
The console era is over — or so a growing number of game-industry executives would have us believe. While social and mobile gaming have taken a sizable share of the video games market, there is room for growth for hardware, particularly in streaming technology and the emergence of open-source platforms. Read more »
Canonical has shown off the tablet UI for the touch-friendly Ubuntu, with many of the features pitched squarely at the corporate market. Whether it succeeds there depends on how Windows 8 fares in the enterprise. Read more »
Nvidia has launched its first integrated smartphone chip that combines its GPU-based application processor and a modem. The new chip will give Nvidia a processor to compete against Qualcomm’s integrated chips. Read more »
Everywhere I park, people keep asking me about the Chevy Volt. Now, the most often asked question of “how exactly does it work?” can be answered by the car, a QR code and your smartphone. Read more »
Our site — and the content on it — now adapts to whatever device you’re reading. The first phase of our site redesign, which went live today, also includes more curation, easier sharing and a crisper display. Read more »
Samsung’s Galaxy Grand looks like a large Galaxy S III, but the 5-inch display uses a low 800 x 480 resolution. Still, the Grand may be a smart strategy thanks to other decent specs and dual-SIM support which should generate interest in China, India and Africa. Read more »
Want to get your brain amped up this morning? Why not peruse the 20 tech trends for 2013 from frog design? the design consultancy has listed predictions that range from controversial to confusing with a few that may make you think. Read more »
AT&T Mobility CEO Ralph de la Vega predicts a record smartphone sales quarter over the holidays, beating even last year’s 9.4 million device sales. The conditions that made last year’s Q4 a success are in place, including the timely fall release of the iPhone. Read more »
Sprint’s approach to the connected car is certainly odd for a carrier. Instead of focusing on connectivity, Sprint wants to become an automotive infotainment and telematics systems integrator. To accomplish this it’s soliciting a lot of help, starting with Airbiquity, Aeris and WirelessCar. Read more »
Even using a smartphone in fairly normal ways — checking your location with a web-based map, sending email or text messages, uploading photos and so on — can result in massive charges when it is done while roaming internationally, thanks to the market control that telecom carriers enjoy. Read more »
The Nokia spin-off is solidifying its strategy of focusing on China first. The alliance around its mobile OS will be based in Hong Kong and take in major industry players from chipset vendors and OEMs to retailers and operators. Read more »
In the year 2020, today’s smartphones will like the glorified PDAs of the last decade, according to AT&T SVP Jeff Bradley. What should consumers expect? Handsets with nearly 30 GHz of processing power, terabytes of internal storage and half-gig connections to the mobile network. Read more »
Blaast, which puts a subscription spin on the provision of key apps to low-end phones, has signed up more carrier partners in Asia and is planning a data-frugal app for Android users in developing markets Read more »
The use of “clickers,” which let students respond to professors during class, is gaining adoption in college classrooms nationwide. But Top Hat Monocle, which Wednesday announced $8 million in new funds, aims to replace those devices with software that runs on any student device. Read more »
Amazon is in the business of selling stuff, traditionally online but more recently in the form of a tablet, the Kindle Fire. Now, it’s reportedly looking at expanding to smartphones. Here’s a look at why and how Amazon might be able to pull it off. Read more »
A new survey by collaboration tools company harmon.ie reveals that working while you’re on the go is far from painless, finding that while mobile working is hugely common, remote collaboration tools are still slowing productivity, leading to errors and causing headaches. Read more »
Verizon Wireless apparently isn’t done talking about its controversial plan to phase out “grandfathered” unlimited data plans, issuing a statement Thursday explaining the new policy. What it boils down to is this: You can keep unlimited, but don’t expect Verizon to subsidize your device. Read more »
AT&T’s Digital Life program may have started overseas, but this summer AT&T will offer its new connected home service in two U.S. trial markets, Atlanta and Dallas, where it will install home monitoring and automation devices that homeowners can access from a browser, smartphone or tablet. Read more »
Smartphones and tablets are driving both in-store and online commerce, but their roles are distinct in many ways. Nielsen shed some light on how consumers are using both devices to aid their shopping. Overall, 79 percent of respondents have shopped using their smartphone or tablet. Read more »
In attempting to showcase its rich history of NFC, Nokia has actually managed to outline everything that’s gone wrong with the company over the past few years. Will it ever really understand what’s happened to it? Read more »
Placeme for iOS and Android may be both the scariest and amazingly futuristic app I’ve seen yet. The free software uses every sensor in your handset to track your activities, location and environment. Scary, yes, but it could power the smartphone personal assistant of the future. Read more »
A Samsung Galaxy Note review unit arrived this weekend; here’s a brief look at the hardware. People are asking the wrong question about the Note, trying to classify it as a phone, a tablet or even a “phablet.” I’ll show you the right question to ask. Read more »
April Fool’s day is Sunday and instead of highlighting corporate jokes or writing the traditional “gotcha” news item, we figured we’d compile a list of ways you can prank your friends. To make this really useful, feel free to add your own in comments. Read more »
The storage wars continue with Box calling in the cavalry. The business-oriented cloud storage vendor aggregated 30-plus applications to be accessed from mobile devices and used with Box’s flagship service. But Box is not alone — there are dozens of rivals in the fight. Read more »
European politicians have just voted up proposals to slash roaming charges for mobile users who stray across the continent’s borders. But it’s drawn a violent response from Vodafone boss Vittorio Colao who thinks it could create “hell” for operators. Read more »
We know consumerization is eating away at the dominance of PCs, but Forrester Research has released fresh numbers on the phenomenon. The results are bad news for Microsoft, with Forrester finding one-third of work devices are non-Microsoft and a quarter mobile. Read more »
Chrome for Android was updated this week, but not everyone is happy; here’s why the software only works on some devices. Android will take center stage at the upcoming Mobile World Congress event, and Box offers 50 GB of free storage for life to Android owners. Read more »
