Tag Archive for Nokia

| September 27, 2011
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Tablets Info

Tablets Info Morgan Stanley predicts (PDF) that by the end of 2020 10 billion mobile internet devices will be in use, up from 2 billion today. They also say that enterprise adoption is more widespread than expected. Two-thirds of the CIOs surveyed expect either to buy tablets for some of their employees or allow employee-owned tablets on their networks within one year. The investment house also says that tablets will be viewed as content creation devices. They found 20% of tablet owners use the device to create or edit files regularly. and believe the rate of introduction of new mobile applications and faster processors could increase these figures over time.

People Have No Clue How To Use iPad Apps

ConfusediPad readers are skimming and can’t remember what they’ve read according to Nielsen Norman Group, BussinessInsider points out the report which finds that many big-name iPad apps are too difficult to use, and should abide by one standard for gestures, tapping, etc.

Nielsen gave 16 study participants access to the NPR app, the Flipboard app, The Daily app, and the Amazon app, among others for two months, to see how they reacted and what they attempted to swipe, pinch, and tap.

According to Nielsen, most consumers are confused because every app has a different navigation scheme, and looks different than their website counterparts. People had a lot of trouble in specific situations, because from one app to another, performing simple tasks like search, scrolling, or shopping, can be completely different.

In the midst of all their hard findings, Nielsen makes suggestions for app-makers to make their apps more intuitive and ergonomic for users. Nielsen suggests:

  • Always have a back button.
  • Content should look the same in portrait or landscape navigation.
  • Apps should take less than 20 seconds to download initial content.
  • Stick to a solid format for your website and tablet app.

Fring 4-way Group Video Chat Lands on iPad 2

fringThere is now a good reason for iPad 2 owners to use their front and rear cameras. AppScout says that Fring is the first app that brings group video chat to the Apple (AAPL) iPad 2.

Fring is a competitor to Skype and Qik that offers free 1-1 video chat over smartphones, but with the added bonus of free cross-platform 4-way live video chat. You can chat over Wi-Fi, 3G or 4G. AppScout predicts this feature makes Fring a force to be reckoned with. Instead of waiting on its competitors to bring video chat to the iPad, Fring stepped up to deliver group video chat to the iPad. AppScout states that for now is the ONLY iPad-specific video chat app.

All the same, features that are available for iPhone, iPod Touch, Google’s (GOOG) Android, and Nokia (NOK) devices are available on the iPad as well. Additional features include FringOut that lets you call ANY phone number using low-cost Fring credits.

USB Hub Allows Simultaneous Syncing of 49 iPads

Datamation Systems has released a desktop station that allows simultaneous syncing for up to 49 Apple (AAPL) iPads or other USB devices. The DS-IP-49-SYNC changes the way information is managed and distributed. The device acts as a fully powered USB hub for 49 devices. Using a Mac, it can sync with iTunes or other software capable of addressing USB devices. The system will work with Microsoft (MSFT) Windows, Linux, and Mac computers but could have some software limitations with a non-Mac host.

The device is a syncing device that will provide a “trickle charge” for iPads, not as a fast-charge device. A single station in a tech center or IT department can quickly sync 49 devices which permit more practical centralized management control in technology deployments and maintenance. (rb- Something that Apple still does not get)

Foxconn Exported 48 Billion From Shenzhen In 2010

Foxconn Technology Group ChinaTechNews reports that Foxconn Technology Group (2038) says that in 2010, the company’s export value from its Shenzhen processing and trade enterprise reached $48 billion, a year-on-year increase of 50%.

According to ChinaTechNews nearly half of the world’s top branded computers are made by Foxconn. The company also makes the mobile phone for Nokia (NOK) and Motorola (GOOG); it makes PlayStations, laptops, and LCD TVs for Sony (SNE); and it makes iPods, iPhones, and iPads for Apple (AAPL).

The article goes on to say that the Foxconn Shenzhen Longhua campus has become the manufacturing base for the latest technology products, including smartphones and tablet computers; and the volume and speed of shipments from this plant influence the prices in the global IT market.

Foxconn boasted new technology breakthroughs during the past year. In 2010, Foxconn applied for 16,000 global patents and 7,000 were approved; and it applied for 6,000 patents on Chinese mainland and nearly 3,000 got approved. (rb- And still the idiots politicians in Washington are still messing around with another budget extension.)

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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.

Category: Tablet computing | Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
| July 28, 2011
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Tablet Notes

Tablet NotesTablet adoption is reportedly outpacing the take-up rates of smartphones, computers, mp3 players, or game consoles. Adoption is underway in a variety of sectors beyond the consumer segment, into retail, industrial, education and business. The demands for mobility and real-time access to data are driving the tablet market.  Sales are expected to exceed 147 million by 2015.

Microsoft: It’s Not Too Late To Win In Tablets

Microsoft logoThe financial geniuses at Citi (C) that brought us the housing bubble also believe that Microsoft (MSFT) can still win the tablets wars. The BusinessInsider cites a report by Citi that says despite being late into the market Microsoft can become “#2 behind iPad” for these reasons:

Tablets are too expensive – Citi notes gadgets need to fall below $300 before they really take off. Until they reach that cost, Microsoft has time to reach people who haven’t jumped on the iPad bandwagon.

Android tablets are not very good – Citi believes that Android tablets won’t take off like Google’s (GOOG) Android Smartphones.

Android faces legal challenges – Android tablet makers are already facing a bunch of intellectual property suits from Apple (AAPL), Nokia (NOK), Oracle (ORCL), and Microsoft. Citi thinks Microsoft is hoping for royalties of $7.50 to $12.50 per unit. That would erase some of the cost-advantage of shipping Android.

Apps – Microsoft has an army of 6 million .NET developers who could start developing touch-optimized apps for Windows tablets. Plus, Citi says Microsoft can make Office an exclusive for its tablet and exploit its Xbox business to offer exclusive big-ticket games.

Enterprise – IT departments already know how to deploy, update, and push apps out to Windows PCs, so a Windows-based tablet should be easier to deal with than other tablets. Microsoft will also probably make Office an exclusive to its tablets and could create a technology where a tablet can “extend” a PC by giving them access to locally stored files. Citi does note that the “bring your own device” trend might favor the iPad instead, but this trend is still in the early days and not proven.

Citi predicts that about 75 million tablets will ship in 2013 and that Microsoft will have a “meaningful share” of those.

GigaTrust Brings Enterprise Rights Management To Apple’s iPhone And iPad

GigaTrust logoGigaTrust, a publisher of Enterprise Rights Management (ERM) content protection software that enhances and extend Microsoft (MSFT) Active Directory Rights Management Services (AD RMS) announced the release of the GigaTrust for iPhone and iPad mobile devices. The product consists of a client and “Mobility Server” that enables persistent content protection for the Apple (AAPL) iPhone and iPad equivalent to that provided by GigaTrust for the Research In Motion’s (RIMM) BlackBerry smartphone and Windows Desktop according to DarkReading.

Reportedly GigaTrust for iPhone and iPad protects content at rest, in transit, and in use, allowing users to securely deliver and persistently protect emails while they are being read on the device. Additionally, iPhone and iPad users can apply GigaTrust protection to outgoing emails and email responses.

Mobile Security: The Great Misconception

Smartphone securityResearch from Kaspersky Lab shows that many users feel more secure using mobile devices than PCs to surf the Internet and that most consider the risk of losing personal data higher on computers than on their mobile devices. The report noted by ITnewsLink says there has been a recent increase in the number of attacks on mobile operating systems like Google’s (GOOG) Android and Apple’s (AAPL) iOS, and experts expect to see considerably more in the future. Despite this, users in the Kaspersky Lab survey feel more secure accessing the Internet via a mobile device.

In the survey, users consider the risk of losing personal data lower on a mobile device than on a PC – despite the fact that around a fifth of all smartphone users has already experienced the loss or theft of a mobile device. The majority of users reported they store personal data, such as photos, emails or contact details, on their mobiles. Around one-third also save login information, such as PIN codes or passwords, for services on their mobile devices, demonstrating a large gap between secure reality and user perception

Next! Turns Your iPad into a Real Productivity Tool

Leftturn Labs logoAppScout says Next! For iPad is proof that the iPad can do work The app is a getting-things-done (GTD) styled app that will help keep your projects organized, keep your tasks from overwhelming you, and keep you moving towards your goal.

Next! can help you organize your to-dos and projects. AppScout says it doesn’t have the same features as a project management suite like Microsoft Project, it’s perfect for those projects that are essentially a long series of tasks to be completed with due dates and dependencies for each of them.

You can take notes, store documents relevant to your project, and tag items that you want to review with others, all from your iPad. Next! will even serve as a light document management system, giving you a central place for all of your project-associated documents, images, and files that you’ll need to refer to as you do the work.

Since the app follows the GTD philosophy it allows you to create action lists based on when the tasks will be completed as opposed to an arbitrary priority list. Your tasks can be adjusted as they get nearer or come into focus. You also get overall project status and health bars that show how far you’ve progressed towards completing your tasks and how closely you’re tracking to your schedule.

Next! is available in the iTunes App Store for the introductory price of $9.99.

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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.

Category: Tablet computing | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
| August 14, 2009
Comments Off on Nokia Tries Wireless Electricity

Nokia Tries Wireless Electricity

Nokia Tries Wireless ElectricityIf someday the researchers at Nokia (NOK), are right you will be able to use wireless electricity to charge your mobile. Putting your cell phone in standby mode may no longer cause the dreaded vampire power. Vampire power is often described as pointlessly wasting electricity with little benefit other than a small red light and instant start-up.

Nokia logoAccording to an article in the UK’s Guardian, Nokia is developing a mobile phone charging system that is able to power itself on nothing more than ambient radiowaves that constantly surround us. The Guardian article points out that radiowaves power the old crystal radio sets and modern radio frequency identification (RFID) tags.

Nokia claims that its system is able to scavenge enough ambient electromagnetic radiation emitted from Wi-Fi transmitters, cell-phone antennas, TV towers, and other sources miles away to run a cell phone. Individually the energy available in each of these signals is minute, but by harvesting radio waves across a range of frequencies it all adds up, said Markku Rouvala, one of the researchers who developed the device at the Nokia Research Center in Cambridge, UK.

Nokia’s device uses a wide-band antenna and two very simple passive circuits. The design of the antenna and the receiver circuit makes it possible to pick up frequencies from 500 megahertz to 10 gigahertz and convert the electromagnetic waves into an electrical current. The second circuit is designed to feed this current to the battery to recharge it.

“Even if you are only getting microwatts (mW), you can still harvest energy, provided your circuit is not using more power than it’s receiving,” Rouvala told Technology Review. So far the researchers have been able to harvest up to 5 mW. Their next goal is to get in excess of 20 mW, enough power to keep a phone in standby mode indefinitely. but not enough to actually use the phone to make or receive a call the researcher says.  Rouvala says that his group is working towards a prototype that could harvest up to 50 mW of power, enough to slowly recharge a switched-off phone.

Earlier this year, Joshua Smith at Intel and Alanson Sample at the University of Washington, in Seattle, developed a temperature-and-humidity sensor that draws its power from the signal emitted by a 1.0-megawatt TV antenna 4.1 kilometers away. This only involved generating 60 mW.  Smith says that 50 mW could need around 1,000 strong signals and that an antenna capable of picking up such a range of frequencies would cause efficiency losses along the way.

Harry Ostaffe, head of marketing for Pittsburgh-based company Powercast, which sells a system for recharging sensors from about 15 meters away with a dedicated radio signal told Technology Review, “To get 50 milliwatts seems like a lot.”

If Nokia’s claims stand up, then it could push energy harvesting into mainstream consumer devices and improve their environmental footprint. Steve Beeby, an engineer and physicist at the University of Southampton, U.K., who has researched harvesting vibrational energy, adds, “If they can get 50 milliwatts out of ambient RF, that would put me out of business.” He says that the potential could be huge because MP3 players typically use only about 100 milliwatts of power and spend most of their time in lower-power mode.

According to Technology Review. Nokia is being cagey with the details of the project, but Rouvala is confident about its future: “I would say it is possible to put this into a product within three to four years.” Ultimately, though, he says that Nokia plans to use the technology in conjunction with other energy-harvesting approaches, such as solar cells embedded into the outer casing of the handset.

rb-

As I have chronicled in the past and here, wireless power is a good solution looking for a way to be implemented. Wireless power has now hit the Gartner “Hype-Cycle.” According to the July 2009 Gartner Hype-Cycle, Wireless Power has just entered the “Peak of Inflated Expectations” zone and is still 5-10 years from mainstream adoption. 

This technology holds many benefits to the environment (less wasted electricity) and user convenience (how many proprietary power adapters do you have?), it is yet to be seen if consumer demand can overcome the inertia of the status quo and the power of big money lobbying by the coal, nuclear and utilities. Right now my money is on the money.

 

Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.

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| July 9, 2008
Comments Off on Only 3% of Mobile Phones Recycled

Only 3% of Mobile Phones Recycled

Only 3% of Mobile Phones RecycledA survey released by Finland based mobile phone maker Nokia has that one of the main reasons why so few people recycle their mobile phones. Most people simply don’t know that it is possible to recycle mobile phones. Even if they were aware that a mobile could be recycled, did not know how to go about doing this.

  • Two thirds said they did not know how to recycle an unwanted mobile device
  • A majority (71%) were unaware of where to recycle an unwanted mobile device.
  • Globally, half of those surveyed didn’t know phones could be recycled, with awareness lowest in India at 17% and Indonesia at 29%, and highest in the UK at 80% and 66% in Finland and Sweden.

Nokia also found some other interesting factoids about our mobile phones recycling habits.

  • On average consumers have owned around five phones.
  • Only 3% of people recycle their mobile phones.
  • Three out of every four people indicated that they don’t even think about recycling their devices
  • Nearly half of the respondents were unaware that it is even possible to recycle their mobile phones.
  • The majority of retired phones, 44%, are kept at homes never used again.
  • One quarter of users are passing on their old phones to friends or family
  • Sixteen percent of people are selling their used devices particularly in emerging markets.
  • Remarkably only 4%, of retired mobile devices are being thrown into landfill.

Markus Terho, Director of Environmental Affairs, Markets, at Nokia said, “If each of the three billion people globally owning mobiles brought back just one unused device we could save 240,000 tons of raw materials and reduce greenhouse gases to the same effect as taking 4 million cars off the road.”

Up to 80% of any Nokia device is recyclable and precious materials within it can be reused to help make new products. Mr. Terho said, “Using the best recycling technology nothing is wasted. Between 65 – 80 per cent of a Nokia device can be recycled. Plastics that can’t be recycled are burnt to provide energy for the recycling process, and other materials are ground up into chips and used as construction materials or for building roads. In this way nothing has to go to landfill.”

Nokia has collection points for unwanted mobile devices in 85 countries around the world, the largest voluntary scheme in the mobile industry. People can drop off their old devices at Nokia stores and almost 5,000 Nokia Care Centers. To find their nearest take back point people can visit ecoATM.

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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him at LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.

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