Mereja

Author: Serkadis

  • Smartphones take the world stage, as BlackBerry and Nokia shipments collapse

    In February, I predicted that smartphone sales would surpass feature phones within a couple quarters. Looks like I am likely wrong, as shipments already have, according to IDC. Last month the analyst firm predicted such circumstance this year, which by Q1 is sooner than anyone anticipated.

    Meanwhile, something more shocking occurred turn first quarter — my, God, when will the milestones stop? Chinese manufacturers Huawei and ZTE pushed BlackBerry and Nokia out of the top five. Right Nokia — the company that invented the smartphone and had,until last year, a 14 year-run as global handset leader. The worldwide phone market undergoes dramatic changes, and they’re far from over.

    “Phone users want computers in their pockets”, Kevin Restivo, IDC senior research analyst, says. “The days where phones are used primarily to make phone calls and send text messages are quickly fading away. As a result, the balance of smartphone power has shifted to phone makers that are most dependent on smartphones”. Nokia is too attached to feature phones, by the way.

    Manufacturers shipped 418.6 million handsets in Q1, up 4 percent year over from 402.4 million. Smartphones captured 51.6 percent share — that’s 216.2 million, up 41.6 percent annually from 152.7 million.

    Samsung widened its lead over Apple — 70.7 million smartphones to 34.7 million, respectively. A year earlier, the South Korean company’s lead was more modest over its American rival — 44 million to 35.1 million. Samsung shipments rose a stunning 60.7 percent, compared to just 6.6 percent for Apple. Their respective market shares: 32.7 percent and 17.3 percent. The fruit-logo company lost nearly 7 points of share.

    LG posted strongest growth (110.2 percent), but Huawei’s gains weren’t far behind (94.1 percent). The two vied for third place share, 4.8 percent and 4.6 percent, respectively. ZTE rounded out the top 5 with 4.2 percent share. Among handsets driving LG shipments: Google Nexus 4.

    “A year ago, it was common to see previous market leaders Nokia, BlackBerry (then Research In Motion), and HTC among the top five”, Ramon Llamas, IDC research manager, says. “While those companies have been in various stages of transformation since, Chinese vendors, including Huawei and ZTE as well as Coolpad and Lenovo, have made significant strides to capture new users with their respective Android smartphones”.

    Success of the homegrowns poses problems for Apple, which counts China as its second most important region, next to North America. China generated $8.2 billion revenue for Apple during calendar first quarter, largely from iPhone.

    But Chinese manufacturers move West, and with success. Huawei shipments outside of Asia-Pacific nearly doubled, for example.

    We’ll know more when Gartner releases figures. The analyst firm measures actual sales rather than shipments.

    Photo Credit: Massimo Cavallo/Shutterstock

  • U.S. lawmakers secretly negotiating to exempt themselves from Obamacare

    Top lawmakers on Capitol Hill are negotiating a secret deal to exempt themselves from Obamacare. The Obamacare mandate is a total nightmare, of course, and it doubles health insurance rates while providing nothing resembling actual “health” care. It’s such a nightmare…

  • Martial law is real: Americans now being forced out of their homes at gunpoint

    If you ever wanted to see what a police state looks like up close and personal, look no further than Boston in the aftermath of the marathon terrorist attack. New video footage released online following last week’s lock-down and the house-to-house searches for a lone…

  • Facts about the elusive morel mushroom

    Springtime is here, singing loud and clear, with bird’s song and a green brushstroke awakening yards and trees to a new rhythm. As beauty colors in the landscape, wild varieties of plants, herbs, and mushrooms begin to appear. One of the most mysterious species coming…

  • Official EU research verifies bee holocaust caused by dangerous man-made poisons, Big Ag and Big Government do nothing

    A class of insecticide chemicals commonly applied to rapeseed, also known as canola here in the U.S., as well as sugar beets, corn, and various other crops is killing off bee populations across the globe, and a prominent environmental watchdog group is now demanding…

  • Ministry of Truth makes Boston bombing suspect disappear

    The boy. Abdul Rahman Alharbi. He was here, then he wasn’t. He was featured in major stories, then he wasn’t. The Ministry of Truth (controlled media) has no further concerns. For a few hours, Alharbi was the prime suspect in the Boston bombing. Then he was…

  • The fight against Monsanto – Seattle natural grocer supporting GMO labeling

    Seattle natural grocer PCC Natural Markets is ready to stand up against Monsanto and other genetically modified organism (GMO) food producers. PCC has joined the fight to force food companies to label products that include genetically modified organisms, a practice found…

  • Seven really effective ways to get unstuck

    Getting stuck is nothing to worry about. It happens to us all. In fact, getting stuck mentally and emotionally is unavoidable. If you think you should never be at a loss for what to do or lack motivation in life, then your expectations are impossibly high. The real…

  • Government paranoia: Teacher suspended after showing students garden tools

    The intemperate, extreme nature of today’s education establishment just keeps getting more and more absurd, as evidenced by details of a recently filed lawsuit surrounding claims that a teacher was suspended after bringing garden-variety tools to class. Attorneys…

  • Doctors walk out of national Obamacare implementation meeting

    According to live tweets and images sent from ophthalmologist Dr. Kris Held, nearly all doctors had walked out in protest and disgust of Obamacare implementation talks at a prominent national health care meeting. Typically, The American Society of Cataract and Refractive…

  • Forty percent of parents still giving kids dangerous medication that harms children

    Despite years of warnings from the medical establishment about the dangers over-the-counter medications pose for young children, it is alarming to know that as many as 40 percent of parents are still giving their kids these harmful substances. The latest University…

  • Eat these six delicious healing foods high in fiber to regulate your digestion

    Fibers are considered an important part of our daily diet. Yet, there are no nutrients taken into our bodies from fiber, and fiber content is not even digestible. So what’s the point? Fiber functions primarily to ensure proper and complete digestion of the nutrients…

  • Crazy scientists develop implantable microchip that supposedly induces appetite suppression

    Pretty soon every bodily function will be capable of regulation and control by futuristic, man-made technologies, and this bionic insurgence is apparently starting with the human appetite. As reported by BBC News, U.K.-based scientists have developed an implantable microchip…

  • Research: Low vitmain D levels found in chronically depressed people

    The most recent study that supports an association of mental health and vitamin D was conducted in Amsterdam, Netherlands. It’s focus was chronic depression. It was entitled “The association between low vitamin D and depressive disorders,” was published in the April…

  • Your home is filled with toxic flame retardants

    Two new studies published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology confirm that the average home is filled with toxic flame retardant chemicals that may cause anything from cancer to hormonal problems to birth defects. In the first study, researchers from…

  • Children’s dislike of healthy foods may pose a serious threat to their future – Learn to help them eat healthier

    Children’s dislike of healthy foods may pose a serious threat to their future. Parents, especially health-conscious parents, knowing that they are the greatest influences on their children’s habits, can feel pressured to correctly instill healthy eating patterns. If…

  • Eating watermelons can help reduce blood pressure

    According to a new study, a pre-hypertensive condition is one of the major risk factors for serious health threats such as strokes and heart attacks. However, not too many people are aware that simply eating watermelons can be very effective in naturally fighting off…

  • Californians sign petition to inject children with mercury, implement Orwellian police state modeled after Nazi Germany

    Activist Mark Dice is at it again, this time asking citizens on the street of California to sign a petition mandating maximum mercury injections for children along with door-to-door gun confiscations using police and military forces. Astonishingly, person after person…

  • AT&T launches its internet of things effort and it’s pretty big

    AT&T is finally ready to unveil its home automation and security product, and it’s a pretty big deal. The product is built on AT&T’s acquisition of Xamboo in 2010, and it will put AT&t in competition with security giants such as ADT as well as a variety of startups building out routers, hubs and “http://gigaom.com/2013/04/18/zonoff-gets-3-8m-to-connect-the-smart-home-with-super-software/”>software for the connected home.

    It’s also AT&T’s first foray into an over the top service. The company will offer the service in all areas where it provides wireless service, which may not seem like a big deal, except that the system will connect to both the AT&t wireless network as well as the wireline broadband inside a home. Looks like Ma Bell is ready to make some money on other people’s pipes.

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    What’s inside Digital Life

    As for the service, it’s pretty compelling for the average person who’s evaluating a home automation or security system, especially if AT&t does open up the platform later as it promises it will. There are two basic packages. The cheaper entry-level package costs $29.99 a month plus $149.99 for equipment and installation. It includes 24/7 home monitoring, a wireless keypad, a remote some sensors and an indoor siren. The more expensive package includes all of that plus three more sensors of the owner’s choice for $39.99 a month and $249.99 for the gear and installation.

    AT&T also has a slew of add-on devices including water leakage sensors, wireless cameras and thermostats that a consumer can buy and add to the plan for a monthly fee. AT&T has staffed two call centers around the clock in the U.S. and has provided a battery with the system to ensure that the product is reliable and online all the time. The wireline broadband and AT&T wireless provide redundancy for the connectivity.

    Glen Lurie, the president of emerging enterprises and partnerships at AT&T, explained that the whole plan behind the system is for it to be secure and easy for customers to use. That’s why for example, you can’t just bring any old connected device onto the Digital Life network. Much like AT&T’s wireless network, the AT&T wants to test the devices before it will allow them on your home network. Lurie declined to tell me when AT&T would bring on additional partners. He also declined to tell me what companies AT&T is partnering with at launch.

    And yet …

    However, AT&T’s plan is pretty darn basic at the entry-level and adding standard components for really useful automation and security can bring the total installation and gear cost to about $600 and the monthly service fees to about $55 a month if you add the security camera ($200 installed) and energy management ($150 installed) packages. Remote door locks, water shut-off valves and other tweaks are extra.

    That’s not crazy considering you get an integrated app that’s actually quite nice to use for controlling everything, but it’s still a significant investment: especially given the closed nature of the ecosystem.

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    I’m currently contemplating a $210 set of connected door locks (the non-connected locks are about $85) and so I know that adding connected gadgets to your home isn’t cheap. Because for some of these devices, like thermostats or door locks are also installed into the home, you had better hope you like the overall service. Of course, that’s great for AT&T, because it presumably reduces churn. My colleague Kevin Tofel and I had a good discussion of how to choose a home automation system this week on the internet of things podcast.

    And once I have those locks I’ll have to wait for a system such as MobiPlug or SmartThings to support those locks if I want to integrate them into my existing home network. Or maybe I’d have to hope my locks are supported by a software vendor such as Zosoff. Plus, I’d have to do the equivalent of programming scenes that AT&T already has its app. The Leave Home scene will turn down your air, turn off the lights and lock your doors, for example.

    Lurie claimed that AT&T is ahead of its competitors by about two to three years, noting that many of the home security products from companies such as Comcast or Time Warner Cable are provided by outside vendors and don’t have an integrated ecosystem like what AT&T is offering.

    I think the integration is wonderful, but I do think it will be more powerful when I can bring in some of my existing connected devices onto the AT&T Digital Life network. While the hub that comes with the service supports Wi-Fi, 915 Mhz and other radios, the devices connect in a proprietary mesh that AT&T uses because it ensures security. It also ensures I can’t bring my own devices into the Digital Life family just yet.

    But for those without my own particular hangups, the product is certainly worth a look. It launches in 15 markets on Friday including Atlanta, Austin, Texas; Boulder, Colo.; Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, Philadelphia, Riverside, Calif.; San Francisco, Seattle, St. Louis and select areas of the New York and New Jersey areas.It will be in 50 markets by the end of 2013, available for purchase online and for testing at AT&T wireless stores.

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  • The New York Times Releases Its Headline-Reading Google Glass App

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    Google’s ambitious Glass display is still a ways off from its public release, but it looks like those newly minted Glass Explorers now have something else to do besides taking first-person photos. The New York Times just pulled back the curtain on its own Glass-friendly app today, which makes it the first installable third-party app available for the ambitious headset (Path was technically the first third-party app, but it’s preloaded on early versions of the device).

    It’s no surprise to see the Grey Lady embrace Glass so enthusiastically — Google developer advocate Timothy Jordan first showed off an early version of the New York Times Glass app at SXSW 2013 in Austin (you can see his full talk here), which pipes new news and headlines to the head-mounted display at regular intervals. Navigating through that stream of news seemed easy enough: a quick tilt of the head would allow the user to sift through photos and full articles, as well.

    Setting up the app is a simple process — clicking on the link above asks for access to your Google account:

    Once that’s all done, Glass can occasionally chime in by reading headlines in your ear, but the app is also capable of reading off brief article summaries too. All told it seems like a very neat, (if strangely intrusive way) to consume your daily dose of news, and other companies have already pledged to craft their own Glass experiences — Path and the New York Times are a given, but Evernote and supposedly even Twitter are working on apps for Google’s daring device.