Connecting devices can take hundreds of pins, which is a lot of real estate. That’s one reason why Sony’s new wireless chip technology is so exciting—a circuit board free of clutter could be here in just three years. More »
Category: Wireless
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Sony Wireless Chip Connections: No More Wires, No More Pins [Guts]
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What I Want To See In The Next iPhone OS
With Apple due to reveal the next generation of the iPhone operating system this Thursday, now is as good a time as any to discuss what we can hope to see in the upcoming fourth version of the mobile OS. You’ve already seen Patrick’s take, now here’s mine.The last major update to the iPhone’s operating system arrived last June, bringing with it many desired features. Highlights from the 3.0 update included the long awaited copy and paste, in addition to features such as spotlight search and voice control. But what can we expect from tomorrow’s 4.0 unveiling?
Custom Message Alert Tones
A small request and one that has bugged me ever since I bought my iPhone. I simply want the ability to customize my ringtone for when I receive an SMS. If it can be done for calls, why not for texts? But why stop there? When in a room full of iPhone owning friends, it can often prove annoying to hear the email notification noise every few minutes, let users customize that too. Choice is a beautiful thing.
App Navigation
iPhone users tend to have a lot of applications installed, so it comes as no surprise that these app-addicts want a better way to organize their growing collection of mobile software. Thankfully Apple is aware of the problem and introduced a visual way to organize apps in iTunes 9. However, beyond the occasional iTunes reshuffle, the daily on-device swiping to find that specific app is way past tedious.
Many alternatives have been presented as a solution, including stacking, page overviews, category views, and more. A personal preference would be the introduction of folders. A folder could be presented just like any other application icon, which when pressed dug down into a page of specific apps. For example, a folder containing news applications, with another housing all of a user’s games. This would not only make it easier to find a specific app, it would also offer more breathing space to those more commonly used.
Improve The Lock Screen
A locked iPhone currently provides very little information at-a-glance. Adding information such as today’s calendar events, local weather and any missed calls or messages would offer up a much more useful hub for quick scanning. Of course if Apple were to add all this data to the lock screen it could turn off users who prefer the current minimalist version. A simple section in the device’s settings app could make it easy for users to pick and choose what information is displayed.
Wireless Sync
Picture this: You get home and your iPhone instantly connects to your home networks Wi-Fi, within seconds your iPhone realizes that your MacBook Pro is also connected to the same network. Once a connection is made your device begins to sync all your photos, notes, messages and anything else you choose, straight to your laptop, creating a seamless backup, all of which happens in the background, over the air. Sounds great right? Hope it sounds great to Apple, too.
What do you want to see?
The dream-features detailed above are just a representative selection. Plenty of other requests for the future of the iPhone’s OS have been suggested, some great, others not so much. I’d love to hear about your own feature requests in the comments.
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People Want Mobile Broadband, But Not Personal Hotspots
Global sales of mobile broadband devices rose 55 percent in 2009 over the year previous year, according to a recent Infonetics Research report, even despite the effects of the economic downturn. Even more surprising, however, was that sales of personal hotspots such as Novatel’s MiFi fell 28 percent.
As 3G technologies transition to faster speeds and fourth-generation wireless networks are launched, it makes sense that overall sales of mobile broadband devices would — but convenient personal hotspot sales should be on the rise, too. In fact I would hava expected them to have been increasing at a faster rate than other 3G solutions like embedded modules inside laptops or USB dongles. These pocket-sized personal hotspots connect to the web just like their USB counterparts, but easily share that pipe with several other devices over a Wi-Fi connection — usually for the same monthly fee. With the ubiquity of Wi-Fi radios in computers, phones and even consumer electronics (think handheld games and digital cameras), a personal hotspot makes far more financial sense. And that shared connection adds value to existing devices that can leverage it.
User confusion about personal hotspots may be one reason for decreasing sales. Whenever I take the MiFi out at coffee shops or around other people, I’m invariably asked what it is and what it does. Although these small routers debuted just prior to the January 2009 Consumer Electronics Show, people simply don’t know about them – a point driven home by Novatel in an earnings call.
Is this lack of knowledge encouraged by carriers? With the same monthly fee as a single-use 3G solution, I have to wonder how actively carriers promoting the MiFi devices. Why sell one mobile broadband enabler that shares the connection when you can sell multiple solutions and multiply revenues?
Related content from GigaOM Pro (sub req’d):
Everybody Hertz: The Looming Spectrum Crisis
Image courtesy of Novatel Wireless
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Nexx Systems Gives IPO Price Range
Ryan McBride wrote:
Nexx Systems, a Billerica, MA-based maker of advanced equipment that packages semiconductors for smartphones, has proposed a price range of $5.20 to $7 per share for its planned initial public offering, according to an SEC filing dated April 6. The company, which plans to list its shares on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol “NXS,” says the IPO could bring in as much as $42 million. The firm’s top shareholders are La Jolla, CA-based Enterprise Associates (35.7 percent), Sigma Partners, of Menlo Park, CA (29.4 percent), the company’s chairman, Richard Post (15.4 percent), and the firm’s CEO, Thomas Walsh (3.5 percent).
UNDERWRITERS AND PARTNERS
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Big Ideas Need Work, Amazon Isn’t Too Late in Mobile Apps, and More from VC Tom Huseby
Gregory T. Huang wrote:Breakthrough ideas and management “dream teams” by themselves are overblown. What really counts is hard work and the ability to adapt. That’s one of my main takeaways after chatting with Seattle-area venture capitalist and mobile guru Tom Huseby. He also shed new light on the dynamics between Apple, Google, and Amazon in the mobile sector—and explained why he has had to raise his game as the playing field in mobile has become more level.
Huseby, a prominent VC with SeaPoint Ventures, Oak Investment Partners, Covera Ventures, and Voyager Capital, spoke with me recently on a wide range of topics—sort of a state of the union for the Seattle-area mobile industry. First, I wanted to get his take on the importance of thinking big and working on breakthrough ideas—ones that could truly change the world—as that was the theme of our Xconomy Forum last week.
“Most of the big ideas are just negative energy,” Huseby said—until they get worked on. That’s because most entrepreneurs tend to sit on big ideas; either they don’t tell people about them for fear of revealing too much to competitors, or they’re too busy with other things. “A good idea that isn’t acted on is just negative energy—a sinkhole—it sits there and draws your attention,” he said. He stressed that the key is what people do with their ideas. “You can make a bad idea happen if you work on it. Good ideas won’t work if you don’t work on them. At big companies, they usually don’t work,” he said. “Good ideas have to morph.”
In particular, to make a breakthrough in the mobile sector, he said, “you have to have an almost unbelievable value proposition.” As for Web companies, Huseby said giants like Google and Amazon are examples of “massive vision,” followed up with smart execution and thorough analyses of what it would take to carve out large slices of their respective markets in search and retail.
Given all that Apple, and now Google, have done to change the landscape of mobile software with their applications platforms, I asked whether Amazon is getting into the game too late. Huseby doesn’t think so.
“You can’t be too late to an app store,” he said. “You could be too late to a music store. [iTunes] gave Apple a huge advantage on the app business.” But right now, mobile applications are still restricted to specific devices, which means there is opportunity for more big players. Huseby added that he thinks the Amazon Kindle e-book reader will eventually carry voice signals using a microphone attachment; even though he said Amazon’s revenue from that would be zero, I took this to mean the move could make the firm more competitive in the mobile sector.
Meanwhile, Huseby thinks Google’s Nexus One phone was a bit of a surprise, because Google could make so much money from its Android operating system and running its services on other companies’ phones—why bother having its own phone? He thinks the answer probably has …Next Page »
UNDERWRITERS AND PARTNERS
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How to Fix the iPad’s Wi-Fi Issues [Apple]
While we didn’t experience any troubles when we tested the iPad’s Wi-Fi, some owners are having difficulties connecting and reconnecting to wireless networks. Apple confirmed that it’s aware of the issues and posted some suggestions on how to fix them: More »
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Vitality’s Internet-Connected GlowCap Targets Behavior Change to Remind You to Stay on Meds
Erin Kutz wrote:Some people feel guilty when evading their doctor’s recommendations; others need a logical reason to follow an instruction. Cambridge, MA-based Vitality tries to factor in these differences in motivations and psychological makeup to spur patients toward a common goal: to make sure they take their medications as prescribed.
On its most basic level, Vitality’s GlowCap system functions to remind users of when they’re forgetting their prescriptions. It involves an Internet-connected pill cap that also sends signals to a device that resembles a nightlight. When a deadline is missed, the system will blink and sound an alarm, which gets louder as time goes by. If the medication is still not taken, GlowCaps generate an automated phone call to the user to remind them to take a pill and ask them why they’ve forgotten it so far.
“We have a device that notices right in the moment that someone is making a decision and intervenes right away,” says founder and CEO David Rose, who previously founded and ran Ambient Devices, a Cambridge-based company that pioneered the use of household devices like clocks to convey information to people, on everything from the stock market to the weather.
The answers culled in these phone calls, in addition to initial interview questions with the user, help the Vitality system create a profile and determine the forces that motivate them, such as authority, social support, or rewards. Rose says there are many reasons beyond forgetfulness that users skip meds, such as concerns of cost, side effects, or lack of education on the effects of their disease. The GlowCaps system aims to both prevent those factors from becoming hindrances, and implement services that encourage users to take their drugs in the future, based on their individual psychological profiles.
For example, if the co-pay costs of a prescription cause a patient to skip meds, the system could help implement financial incentives for users who take their prescription when they’re supposed to. For patients motivated by authority figures, the system can help coordinate regular reports with their doctors, documenting their prescription adherence. GlowCaps helps coordinate refills with a patient’s pharmacy, too.
It also offers the capability to e-mail your adherence rate to a selected friend or family member, if you’re someone who is spurred by social support. Many patients taking medications to treat diseases that don’t cause immediate discomfort, such as high blood pressure, osteoporosis, or high cholesterol, are more inclined to skip pills. Vitality can target this user with regular, interactive, educational e-mails on the long-term effects of their disease.
“Just like an exquisite friend or boyfriend, we try to make a system that learns to adapt over time with what happens to work for you,” Rose says.
Wade wrote about the Vitality when the company’s Ethernet-connected device hit Amazon.com in August, selling for $99 each directly consumers, skewed toward baby boomers who need a way to keep their aging parents on track with taking medication. But Rose has since evolved his business to market and test-drive the product alongside bigger organizations. And Vitality has a new version of the GlowCap device, which uses a cellular network to connect to the Internet, and will be used in future distribution programs.
Later this month the company will …Next Page »
UNDERWRITERS AND PARTNERS
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Where Bytes, Bio, and Healthcare Converge: Introducing Xconomy’s Health IT News Channel
Ryan McBride wrote:We’re not much in favor of rigidly categorizing news by industry here at Xconomy, in part because we follow exciting companies that often transcend conventional definitions of what is a software, energy, or biotechnology business. But we do try our best to deliver breaking news and in-depth coverage to communities of readers, and one such community is clearly coalescing around the use of information technology in healthcare. To help bring that community more front and center, today we’re announcing the launch of a sector-specific channel for health IT news.
Our new Health IT channel features healthcare technology news coverage and other features from across the Xconomy network in Boston, San Diego, and Seattle, as well as other important “national” stories not specific to one of our cities. The channel has a new feature not found on our previous Life Sciences and Startups channels: the Health IT AppWatch, a section where we’re delivering news on applications that help consumers and medical professionals exploit the capabilities of the Web and mobile devices to improve their own well being or the health of those close to them or in their care.
As part of launching the new channel, we’re also boosting our efforts to provide insights and opinions from top innovators in the field of healthcare technology through our Xconomist Forum (the equivalent of our Op-Ed page), already one of the most popular and most-read portions of our site. And, as many of you may know, we are bringing our new focus on Health IT live through events on both coasts. We’re holding our first dedicated health IT event, Healthcare in Transition, at the MIT Media Lab on April 26. A few weeks later, on May 12 in Seattle, we are holding How Information is Transforming Medicine and Healthcare. Both those events feature leading executives, entrepreneurs, innovators, and investors from some of the most interesting and dynamic health IT startups and large companies around.
Our new channel, therefore, is a vehicle through which we’re setting out to capture the growing excitement and opportunities around using tech as a tool to revolutionize healthcare. The U.S. government is pouring billions of dollars into technology for sharing and storing electronic health records, recognizing the value of using information technology to improve the quality and economics of the healthcare system. But startups and their investors are already looking beyond the forthcoming surge in electronic health records adoption, rushing to fill a bevy of gaps in how information is gathered, analyzed, and shared throughout the healthcare system. Meantime, large established companies such as the data storage and management giant …Next Page »
UNDERWRITERS AND PARTNERS
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iPad Test Notes: Wireless [Ipad]
The iPads we bought today don’t have 3G guts, so we really need to know: How good is the Wi-Fi reception? Turns out that it’s pretty decent, but not quite as good as what the iPhone 3GS gets. More »
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Official: Verizon slashes Palm Pre Plus to $49.99, Pixi Plus to $29.99. Mobile Hotspot plan now free
After several hours of on-again, off-again, we have official word that the pricing below is a promotion from Verizon, but no word how long it wil last. Mobile Hotspot is now free for all new and existing customers using webOS on Verizon – though it might take a bit of time for your bill to reflect the change.
Verizon Wireless has radically (and we mean radically) dropped the prices of its webOS products. The Palm Pre Plus is now going for $49.99 with a 2-year contract and the Palm Pixi Plus is going for $29.99 with a 2-year contract. On top of that, Buy One, Get One is still in full effect.
That’s one way to clear a channel stuffed full of inventory. We’re not sure how long this pricing will hold, but we will say that Sprint had best stand up, take notice, and get competitive – with the Pre Plus a full $100 cheaper than its non-plussed version (and a full $100 cheaper than the proposed AT&T price), this could get mighty interesting.
(Original updates as we followed the story while it broke overnight are after the break.)
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Are You Feeling AT&T’s 100 Day Plan to Fix Their Network? [At&t]
Another iPhone, another round of AT&T promising it’ll be better this time. Honest! In fact, in December they started a 100-day plan to ” to dramatically improve the company’s network in densely-populated cities.” Are you feeling it yet? More »
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MIT’s NextLab: Designing Technology for the Next Billion Mobile Phone Owners
Eva Regårdh wrote:Fighting illiteracy in Indian villages; facilitating local health reporting in Mexico; creating a mobile logistics app for truck drivers in Colombia. These may sound like projects run by a big non-governmental organization like the United Nations Development Program, but in fact they are three examples of MIT NextLab projects run mainly by MIT students and local organizations in the respective countries.
“Traditional aid does little for the very poor,” says Jhonatan Rotberg, founder and director of the NextLab program. “Only a fraction of the donated money trickles down to those who need it most. But with a mobile phone, poor people can get ahead. For countries in the Third World, a smart phone is the perfect tool for creating local progress in a society.”
Rotberg’s vision is that one day we could all have an open-source smart phone, running an operating system such as Google’s Android that can easily be adapted to the need of different user groups. These phones will be able to do basically anything a computer can do today, but anytime, anywhere, and much more cheaply. They will bring content, applications and services to the people of the developing world, reducing friction in economic transactions and helping people to be more effective in their everyday lives.Already, over 4 billion mobile phones are in use in the world today. Markets in the Western world are near saturation. The next billion new users, Rotberg says, will be spread out in the developing countries, mainly in Africa and Asia. Many of them are poorly educated and live in rural areas. That means builders of mobile devices and mobile applications need to bring a different mindset to their work, he says.
“The big challenge is not technical, it is about usability,” Rotberg says. “Getting people to use and understand the applications is a daunting task.”
Rotberg, who gave the opening address at Xconomy’s recent Mobile Madness forum, is a lecturer in MIT’s Engineering Systems Division. Before coming to MIT four years ago, he spent years developing new business models for Telmex, the largest Latin American telecom company. At MIT, he has studied how technology, especially mobile communications, can be used to enhance quality of life in the developing world, and has worked with students and local partners to create joint MIT-industry programs that spin off promising mobile technologies for use in developing countries.“The idea was to get access to MIT’s large intellectual capital and use it for the benefit of emerging markets,” explains Rotberg. “Together with MIT Media Lab, we worked out the concept for the MIT Next Billion network”.
After that project was completed in 2009, Rotberg says, he felt no wish to go back to his old job. On the contrary, he wanted to …Next Page »
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Apple iAd to mark first major battle with Google
It is becoming quite clear that Apple is making a play into the increasingly competitive space of mobile advertising.
Reports suggest that a new personalized, mobile advertising system that could be called the “iAd” will officially be unveiled to Madison Avenue on April 7. Executives familiar with the plan quoted Apple CEO Steve Jobs as describing the new ad platform as “revolutionary” and “our next big thing.”
iAd is believed to have been built on top of Quattro Wireless, according to Online Media Daily, which said “it is expected to be the first real battle of a Silicon Valley Holy War between Apple and arch frenemy Google that is shifting its front line to Madison Avenue.”
Apple acquired mobile ad developer Quattro for a reported US$275-million in January. This came on the heels of Google’s US$750-million purchase of AdMob in November 2009. AdMob’s mobile ad platform has been particularly popular on the iPhone.
On Google’s Public Policy Blog, group product manager Paul Feng said the Apple deal is “further proof that the mobile advertising space continues to be competitive.” With more investments and acquisitions in the space from Apple, Google and others, he expects the vigorous growth and competition to continue.
On Apple’s most recent conference call, CFO Peter Oppenheimer stated that Quattro was bought because the company wants “to create a seamless way for developers to make more money on their apps, especially free apps.”
Barclays Capital analyst Ben Reitzes believes Apple is likely going to start looking at a way to get a fee for helping developers create effective mobile ads, tapping into its vast resources of customer data on iTunes. This should allow it to get more content (especially free content) available for download on all its devices.
“Given Apple’s affluent customers, its installed base of mobile devices and its dominant iTunes platform, the company is in a very good position to get the best information to advertisers and drive revenue,” Mr. Reitzes told clients.
His colleague Doug Anmuth (who covers Google) noted that industry estimates put the mobile advertising market at around US$600-million, growing to US$1.6-billion in 2013. Apple has sold about 48 million iPhones to date – not including iPod Touch units. Assuming 40 million devices are installed and each has the ability to generate $10 per year in advertising-related revenue, Mr. Reitzes said mobile ads could equate to a US$400-million revenue opportunity.
“Given millions of iPhones, iPods and iPads are set to sell in upcoming years; Apple could become a big player in the mobile advertising market quickly, practically having the power to re-create the market from scratch—with the ability to scale quickly just like it did with the App store.”
Photo: The Google Nexus One (L) smartphone and Apple iPhone (R) sit side by side. (PAUL J. RICHARDS/AFP/Getty Images)
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$1M for CardStar Loyalty App
Wade Roush wrote:
Canton, CT-based CardStar, which makes an application that consolidates consumer reward and loyalty card numbers on mobile phones, announced March 28 that it has raised $1 million in Series A venture funding. The lead funder was Mclean, VA-based Amplifier Ventures, with participation by Acta Wireless and LaunchCapital. CardStar received seed funding from Amplifier Ventures in 2009 as part of its business accelerator program; its app is available now for the Apple iPhone, and the company says versions for Android and BlackBerry devices are “coming soon.”
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Remainders – The Things We Didn’t Post: Dark Side Edition [Remainders]
In today’s Remainders: the Dark Side of the Force. Boingo tries to seduce you with $2 Wi-Fi access; Fake Steve Jobs runs into TV show trouble; College Humor espouses the Galactic Empire State of Mind, and more More »
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MaxLinear Scores Successful IPO, $321M V-Vehicle Loan Request Rejected, Genomatica Raises $15M in VC Funding, & More San Diego BizTech News
Bruce V. Bigelow wrote:
It’s been a while since San Diego’s high-tech community saw this much deal news in one week—and most of it was good news, too. We gathered it all in one place for you here.
—Investor demand helped boost Carlsbad, CA-based MaxLinear’s shares (NYSE:MXL) by 33 percent on their first day of trading, with volume of nearly 6.9 million shares. MaxLinear, which makes wireless semiconductors for receiving and processing television and video signals over a broadband wireless connection, got about $50 million of the almost $90 million raised in the initial offering of 6.4 million shares, which was priced at $14 per share.
—Connect, the San Diego nonprofit group for technology and entrepreneurship, found that 319 startups were launched in 2009, about 13 percent more than the 282 startups of 2008. The data point was just one part of a report on San Diego’s innovation economy that Connect released for the fourth quarter of 2009.
—The Department of Energy turned down an application for $321 million in loans submitted by San Diego-based V-Vehicle, a venture-backed startup automaker that planned to build a factory in Northeastern Louisiana. The V-Vehicle Co. sought funding under the DOE’s Advanced Vehicle Technology Loan Program for what it called …Next Page »
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Printable Nanotube RFID Tags Could Make Wireless Checkout Aisles a Reality [Supersupermarkets]
Wireless checkout is many a grocer’s dream. It’s like Amazon’s one-click shopping in the real world, maximizing efficiency for the customer and cutting costs for the supermarket. A new printable RFID tag could make it a reality. More »
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iPhone Video Apps Now Have to Be Sensitive to AT&T’s Fragile Network [IPhone Apps]
AT&T and Apple finally allowed iPhone apps to stream video over 3G, but now they’re enacting a new condition: To get approved, Justin.TV’s new iPhone app needed a low quality video stream to downgrade to during periods of network congestion. More »
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What Would Best Buy Do With Radio Shack? [Radio Shack]
The reports are swirling today that Radio Shack is “exploring strategic alternatives” for the company, the most intriguing of which is a possible merger with Best Buy. But what would that mean, exactly? More »
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From Tin Cans to Touchscreens: The 40 Most Important Phones in History [Phones]
With due respect to Alexander Graham Bell, he couldn’t possibly have known that his patent for “the method of, and apparatus for, transmitting vocal or other sounds telegraphically” would give birth to today’s smartphone. Here’s how we got there. More »
