As developers for tablets and smartphones we like to keep abreast of the latest mobile technology developments . This is a daily digest of mobile development and related technology news gathered from the BBC, the New York Times, New Scientist and the Globe and Mail to name a few. We scour the web for articles concerning, iPhone, iPad and android development, iOS and android operating systems as well as general articles on advances in mobile technology. We hope you find this useful and that it helps to keep you up to date with the latest technology developments.
Taylor Swift Helps Lucky Fan Pay Off Her Student Loans
Taylor Swift just took #taylurking to a whole new level of awesome.
Swift, who has a reputation for being super-generous with her fans, just helped one Swiftie pay her student loans.
Rebekah Bortniker made a video mashup showing Swift having a blast with all her friends and set it to the “Friends” theme song, “I’ll Be There For You.”
Swift noticed, and just like that, she was there for Bortniker. The singer sent her bodyguard to Bortniker’s home to deliver a FedEx box with the “Fed” crossed out and “SWIFT” written in.
Bortniker sent out images of the gifts on social media:
SOME PICTURES OF WHAT I GOT TODAY pic.twitter.com/9MiCM5QdiG
— Beks (@noitsbeks) January 13, 2015
The package included a watercolor — painted by Tay, of course.
“I really really really really hope you like it,” Swift wrote in a card inside the package. “I’m not a good painter but I think you’re so beautiful and positive, even though you’re dealing with the stress life brings, so I wanted to make you something.”
The package also included a Polaroid photo, a necklace with a note that said “was mine, now yours” and a “New York Is My Boyfriend” pouch. Attached to the the pouch was another note: “Rebekah, now you’re $1989 closer to paying off those student loans.”
The $1,989 is of course a reference to Swift’s smash album, “1989.”
THE REST OF MY GIFTS FROM TAYLOR pic.twitter.com/NJEItIIctI
— Beks (@noitsbeks) January 13, 2015
“I love the video you made of me and my friends and your text posts always crack me up or make me think,” Swift wrote in the card.
An excited Bortniker posted a video of her opening the package and wrote multiple thank-you messages on Tumblr, including this one:
I was so nervous I couldn’t even read the letter and totally butchered it. I was just in such shock that Taylor had taken her time to think about me and send me something. I still don’t think I’ve really processed it all, I feel like I’m just in this crazy dream. I couldn’t even form words when I opened everything, luckily my mom took a minute to thank Taylor for me.
Taylor, thank you, thank you, thank you. I know I’ve said it and I’ll probably say it a million more times because this means more to me than you could imagine, I love you!
“I love you so much,” Swift responded.
Bortniker’s Swift encounter led to sudden fame on social media. A licensing company even contacted Bortniker to see if she was interested in charging a fee to news organizations hoping to use the video.
Her response was priceless:
I just got a message from someone that words for a company that wants to licence my video and send it to blogs an stuff. No thanks.
— Beks (@noitsbeks) January 14, 2015
I have absolutely no interest in someone buying a video of me for them to make money off of it for Taylor’s generosity.
— Beks (@noitsbeks) January 14, 2015
So here’s her video, still free to all on YouTube:
“I’m exhausted and I need to sleep but I don’t want to sleep,” Bortniker wrote on Tumblr. “I just want to keep reading my card and staring at my painting and the Polaroid.”
A Mobile App to Save Our Lives
As I walked around the massive convention center at the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) last week in Las Vegas, I heard three words echoing in my head. These three words, “Make it practical,” have become something of a litmus test for me when it comes to technology innovation.
Each year so many of the exhibits at CES dazzle and delight the 200,000 attendees, but I’m a practical techie. I want to make sure that tech innovators are developing with a sense of purpose. Augmented reality video games are impressive and get points for their “wow factor,” but there is so much potential for tech innovation to improve our lives and the world around us. I find myself most impressed with the new technology that has true utility for us in our lives.
One thing that makes me happy is that I’ve noticed that each January at CES companies continue to build on previous innovations and find ways to use the technology in meaningful ways. A few years ago the few booths showcasing 3D printers simply created little plastic tchotchkes. In 2015, dozens of 3D printing companies were experimenting with ways these printers could revolutionize the medical industry. A handful of years ago at CES wearables were the big rage, but it took a few years to realize how these devices could make us healthier. The same is true with drones. The Internet of Everything is only impressive if it improves our environment. The technology of the future isn’t just technology that has utility; it is technology that has the power to save your life.
This was the conversation I found myself engrossed in with Omri Shor, the CEO of MediSafe. Omri, an Israeli man about to relocate his Israel-based company and his family to Boston, told me about the “aha moment” he had several years ago that led him to create his medication management platform. His insulin-dependent diabetic father couldn’t remember if he had taken his dose of insulin. He asked Omri if he recalled and he quickly answered, “No.” His response meant that he hadn’t remembered, but his father took it to mean that he hadn’t injected himself yet. He went ahead and took a second life-threatening dose of insulin and an emergency situation ensued. At that moment Omri recognized there must be a better way.
I definitely related to the story Omri told me. My father is also an insulin-dependent Diabetic and like Omri’s father, he is also very tech savvy. That makes it difficult to understand why these men use such a non-technical way to administer, monitor and maintain their medicine dosages. The entrepreneurial Israeli immediately got to work forming MediSafe with his brother to fix this worldwide problem.
MediSafe, which helps individuals become healthier, has become the leading global medication maintenance platform. Using a cloud-synced mobile management system, it really makes it easier for caregivers to give the support needed to help their loved ones get healthier. They have developed both iOS and Android apps for smartphones and tablets, with over 1.3 million mobile downloads to date.
The MediSafe mobile app will remind the patient when to take the medication (whether a pill capsule, liquid medicine or injection). Users can also update the app manually. The Med-Friend feature (family member or caregiver) is notified if the patient doesn’t check in, so they can offer a reminder. This is a great opportunity for parents, school nurses, nursing home attendants and camp counselors to be able to monitor a patient’s medication schedule. MediSafe will remind the patient to take the medcations, keep track of which pill they took and when, and then offer a reminder to refill the medication.
MediSafe’s mobile-first approach involves creating personalized interventions to the major causes of non-adherence — forgetfulness, lack of support, emotional distress, information overload, low engagement, and rising medication costs. Through its platform, the company is enabling tighter care coordination between patients, caregivers, physicians, and other providers. Just today it was announced that MediSafe has raised a $6 million Series A Round led by Pitango Venture Capital. Others participating in the round include 7wire ventures, as well as investors from previous rounds.
MediSafe will allocate the $6 million in new funding toward accelerating user growth in the U.S. market, where nearly half of Americans are prescribed at least one medication on a daily basis. The company will focus on expanding the suite of medication management solutions available, enhancing overall user experience within its mHealth apps, and accelerating market penetration, through a network of distribution, technology and data partnerships.
No matter how complex the health condition is — from diabetes to aggressive cancer treatments — MediSafe improves health and removes the stress of taking daily medications. It is truly an innovative technology with a real purpose. Hopefully other tech innovators will take notice and follow suit.
Tech Startup Funding in Midwest? Cincinnati Says No Problem
As 2015 gets underway there is no doubt that the startup sector is succeeding outside of Silicon Valley and the northeast region of the United States. Much of this growth and entrepreneur success is coming from the country’s heartland. The Midwest startup scene is hot. In the past I have written about the success of Kansas City and it not being flyover country anymore and how Kansas City is building America’s most entrepreneurial city. In addition to the success of Kansas City, a city to the east is proving that startups can be successful and receive funding to seed their founders biggest dreams. Cincinnati, take a bow.
Many individuals always think of the Rust Belt, the Reds or Skyline Chili when Cincinnati enters their minds. However, the words startup, technology and funding are creeping into the every day vocabulary in the Queen City. Cincinnati lays claim to a growing and vibrant startup ecosystem. Much of this success is due to what we are seeing across the United States with fewer barriers to entry, but the main part of Cincinnati’s success is due in large part to the venture funding access in the city.
CincyTech, is a public-private seed stage investor who has successfully been driving resources, talent and capital into technology startups in Southwest Ohio. Since 2007, CincyTech has invested over $25 million into 54 portfolio companies resulting in nearly $435 million in follow-on funding and $139 million in revenues. In 2014, a banner year for the group, CincyTech raised $227 million in investor capital. These companies employ around 670 people today and are projected to employ 1,400 by 2016.
Funding is thought by many individuals inside the startup community throughout the Midwest to be the missing component in most cities. Cincinnati is defying the naysayers and according to CincyTech’s analysis of data from CB Insights, a venture capital and angel capital database, Cincinnati had the second most startups funded at the seed stage in the Midwest, behind only Chicago between 2007 and 2013.
The money is available and many Midwestern cities such as Cincinnati have venture minded individuals with means to invest in entrepreneurship and startups, its just that many of these “money people” are just starting to connect with the ecosystem and the importance of young companies to the economy and a vibrant city. Angel funders and local venture capitalists are seeing more startups getting traction at an early stage thus making them even more viable and attractive to others in the Midwest and throughout the country.
In addition to CincyTech’s ongoing success, Cintrifuse, located in the heart of Downtown Cincinnati, connects the region’s high-potential, venture-backable startups to advice, talent, funding, and customers. Cintrifuse leverages the power of its network to serve more than 130 startup members and improve their chances of success. Cintrifuse not only provides resources, but it also has a fund of funds that operates to the tune of $57 million. Cintrifuse works with some of Cincinnati’s most prominent companies. Recently, we have seen corporate innovation and collaboration with the startup ecosystem working and trending throughout the country.
Silicon Valley Bank’s managing partner John Hoesley is taking notice of Cincinnati. “Ten years ago, the vast majority of coastal firms had no interest in investing outside of their backyard at all. There was the old adage that if I can’t drive to it, I’m not going to invest in it. Cincinnati is the market that’s probably been the most surprising to me. It has really come up fast,” says Hoesley.
Times are changing and Cincinnati is proving that the Midwest as a startup ecosystem is flourishing and funding is available. Cincinnati is relevant in the startup world. Perhaps the Queen City needs a new motto, “Stay in town to build your business or come into town for the funding and make sure not to forget to eat the Skyline Chili.”
About the Author: Jason Grill is an attorney and the founder of JGrill Media. He is the co-founder of Sock 101 and the host of the Entrepreneur KC Show. Jason contributes regularly to national publications, radio and TV stations. Follow Jason on Twitter @JasonGrill, Facebook and Instagram.
Photo Credits: CincyTech
Disclosure: JGrill Media is a consultant of Violet Communications
British Hacker Linked To Attack On Pentagon Twitter Feed
WASHINGTON, Jan 13 (Reuters) – The “CyberCaliphate” hacking group that attacked a Twitter account belonging to the Pentagon on Monday was founded by a Briton who was once jailed for hacking the personal address book of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, according to government sources and private sector security experts.
U.S. and European government sources said investigators strongly believe that Junaid Hussain, 20, was the leader of CyberCaliphate, though they do not know if he was personally involved in hacking the Twitter and YouTube accounts of the U.S. Central Command, which oversees military operations in the Middle East.
Hussain could not be reached for comment.
In 2012, Hussain was jailed for six months for stealing Blair’s address book from an email account maintained by one of Blair’s advisors. Hussain pleaded guilty to putting details of the address book online and making hoax calls to a counter-terrorism hotline.
Hussain, who lived in Birmingham, England, moved to Syria sometime in the last two years, according to British media reports.
U.S. and European investigators said they are investigating whether Monday’s attack on the U.S. Central Command’s Twitter and YouTube accounts was launched from Syria, though they have not finished examining the technical evidence. The sources spoke on condition of anonymity.
Pentagon spokesman Army Colonel Steve Warren has called the cyberattack “inconvenient” but stressed that no sensitive or classified information was compromised by the hackers, who claimed to be sympathetic toward the Islamic State militant group being targeted in American bombing raids.
Investigators believe that Hussain was the main individual behind a Twitter account that operated under the pseudonym Abu Hussain al Britani, according to the sources. That account was linked to CyberCaliphate after the group last week claimed responsibility for hacking the Albuquerque Journal in New Mexico and WBOC, a Delaware television station. Neither the Albuquerque Journal nor WBOC responded to requests for comment.
The Abu Hussain al Britani account has been suspended as of Tuesday. One of the government sources said it was possible that other people besides Hussain used that account.
Alex Kassirer, an analyst with Flashpoint Global Partners, said Hussain led efforts by Islamic State to recruit “hackers for a CyberCaliphate.” Flashpoint Global Partners is a private company that monitors extremist Internet postings for government agencies and private clients.
She said the CyberCaliphate first surfaced when it published a “recruitment announcement” on Sept. 11, 2014.
According to Kassirer, Hussain’s British wife said on her Twitter account last week that her husband had been killed in a drone attack. U.S. and European security officials said there was no confirmation that Hussain was dead (Reporting By Mark Hosenball; Editing by Tiffany Wu)
VIDEO: The trucker modernising his industry
The driver hauling his industry into the digital age
Patch Tuesday Brings Fix for Google Exposed Security Flaw
Today is the 2nd Tuesday of the month and you know what that means: Patch Tuesday! Today’s fixes, eight in total, include several security fixes and improvements to Windows 8.1 including a fix for the security flaw that Google exposed two days ago. The updates are all available now and if you haven’t updated, run Windows Update to get them. The updates include are whole host of fixes to Windows and there is an optional update for .NET 4.1 as well in the updates. The most notable is the fix for the Windows flaw that Google expose two days ago. That revelation
The post Patch Tuesday Brings Fix for Google Exposed Security Flaw appeared first on Clinton Fitch.
SpaceX Continues to Deliver the Goods for America
Early Monday morning a SpaceX Dragon capsule docked with the International Space Station (ISS) in a successful commercial resupply mission. Elon Musk’s Hawthorne, California firm is now five for five on these missions, not counting two successful test flights. This demonstrated reliability is critically important for continued operation of the space station, which can no longer depend on the Space Shuttle’s massive cargo capacity.
ISS can also receive deliveries from Russia’s less dependable Progress vehicle as well as from the seldom-used Japanese Kounotori spacecraft. The other American option, Orbital Sciences’ Cygnus craft, made two successful flights to ISS before suffering a catastrophic failure last October when the Russian engine in its Antares launch vehicle exploded immediately after take off from its Virginia launch pad. Orbital has decided to replace that engine with a newer Russian model while its spacecraft hitches rides from United Launch Alliance’s, Russian powered Atlas V.
SpaceX also has an impressive half dozen commercial launches to its name and a manifest of launch orders from domestic and international clients stretching into the future. They’ve managed to do this the old fashioned way, by being cheaper, faster and more reliable.
Elon Musk’s unlikely startup leveraged existing resources by securing a good deal on a boarded up Northrup-Grumman production facility and hiring from California’s deep pool of aerospace talent. I’ve visited the SpaceX production facility many times over the years and watching it grow has been astoundingly impressive. There was a time when most of the activity in the massive factory was huddled in the corners and workers rode bicycles to get from one end of a mostly empty space to the other. In fact, they had the time and the space to film parts of Iron Man 2 inside that cavernous enclosure. Those days are long gone and you can hardly turn around in the factory without bumping into a spacecraft, rocket engine or one of the thousands of skilled SpaceX workers. The firm is expanding with operations in Texas, Florida and New Mexico and has hundreds of jobs openings posted. Approaching the space market like a consumer products business and building rockets on a rate of production rather than on a custom order basis, this all-American space company has been aggressively driving down costs in a way that even scares the Chinese.
The only truly American option for keeping American astronauts supplied is also the most likely candidate to save them from dependence on Russia for rides to the space station. The Dragon Version 2 is awaiting final tests from NASA to begin its taxi service under the agency’s ambitious Commercial Crew program. Ironically, the main reason that hasn’t already happened has been a NASA budget strangled by Congress and consumed by expensive payments to Russia. The other NASA candidate for the work, Boeing, has chosen to use the Russian powered Atlas V as its launch vehicle.
Meanwhile, SpaceX moves forward with each launch using an iterative development model, which recognizes that there are ideas which must be flight-tested, and some failures that must be tolerated. In that spirit, last week’s launch included an attempt to return the Falcon 9 first stage to a soft landing on a hundred meter robotic platform in the Atlantic Ocean. That added test, while in no way distracting from the NASA contracted mission, was not entirely successful. Despite successfully bringing the 14-story tall first stage down from a high altitude hypersonic flight to the tiny target platform, the stage apparently came in a bit fast and crashed on impact. Photos of the relatively undamaged platform suggest the event was not at all catastrophic.
SpaceX’s reason for trying this seemingly crazy stunt wasn’t to win an entry in the Guinness Book of World Records, but rather to disrupt the economics of spaceflight by moving launchers from an expendable model to a sustainable and reusable model. This innovation has the potential to reduce launch costs by an order of magnitude and literally to shift human history into a higher gear. SpaceX does this important work on the side while running a profitable business in a field littered with the bodies of previous market entrants.
Given Elon’s record at PayPal, Tesla and SpaceX, I would not bet against him succeeding the next time around, or the one after that. He and his whole team are to be congratulated for the work they do, the jobs they provide and the can-do attitude that keeps them experimenting. His growing success suggests we should all reconsider the dominant business paradigm that chases cost savings abroad, disconnects R&D from outsourced production, prioritizes short-term profits over long-term investments and places processes above personalities.
Greg Autry teaches technology entrepreneurship at The Lloyd Greif Center for Entrepreneurial Studies in the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California. He recently co-authored a report for the FAA Offices of Commercial Space Transportation entitled An Analysis of the Competitive Advantage of the United States of America in Commercial Human Orbital Spaceflight Markets. You can find him on Facebook.
VIDEO: What if you could print your next car?
Arizona-based Local Motors made car history recently when it became the first firm to 3D print a driveable car. The BBC’s Samira Hussain was given exclusive access behind the wheel.
Obama seeks to tighten cyber laws
US President Barack Obama unveils proposals to strengthen cyber security laws following a spate of attacks against high-profile US targets.
A Deep-Link Deep Dive: URX, Wildcard, Button, Deeplink.me Demo the Future of Mobile
I first heard about deep linking while building my own app, One Day Gym Pass, which lets you buy day passes to nearby gyms.
Ahead of the launch, I started thinking about how we were going to get users, and I came up with an idea: Wouldn’t it be cool if we partnered with fitness-tracking apps to acquire users?
Someone tracking their fitness near one of our gym partners could, theoretically, receive a notification or inline prompt to purchase a discounted day pass to a nearby gym through our service. I’d pay the fitness-tracking app for each user it sent over to my app, and — assuming we could track it properly — I’d give them a cut of the resulting sale.
I quickly learned that the infrastructure required for such a cross-app partnership is pretty tough to build, especially if I wanted to partner with multiple fitness-tracking apps. Thankfully a handful of companies has emerged in the past year or so aiming to create a connective tissue in the mobile economy that facilitates traffic and transactions between apps.
After reading a few John Battelle posts describing the imminent “quickening” in mobile, I became hooked on the idea of flattening the walls between apps.
So I created a group called Deeplink.NYC to get product people in New York talking about deep linking as a means of creating new opportunities and economies across mobile.
At our first meetup last month, four startups in the space — Deeplink, URX, Button and Wildcard — demoed their products to an audience of developers, designers and founders, followed by a panel moderated by Vera Tzoneva, who works on deep linking at Google.
Here are four takeaways from Deeplink.NYC’s first meetup. (Full disclosure: I decided to take a job at URX after the event.)
1) There’s no benefit to hoarding users.
Chris Maddern from Button drove this point home with a delightfully simple observation that seems to elude app developers who scoff at the idea of a partnership that sends their users into other apps. In commerce apps, he noted, there’s nothing to do when you’re done: “After I’ve got an Uber, my appetite for an Uber is fulfilled. I don’t need a second Uber five minutes later.”
As a result, for commerce-based apps, there’s no real benefit to keeping users in your app forever, though there is a benefit to directing them elsewhere after they complete a purchase. For one, it extends the functionality of your product. Say you’re a restaurant-reservations service: Shouldn’t your users be able to book a ride to the restaurant from within your app? Secondly, you can receive referral pay from partner apps each time you send them a new user.
2) There’s a fatal flaw of deep links (and cards).
Wildcard reiterated this fact as one of deep linking’s shortcomings: If a user doesn’t have an app installed, and you deep-link them into that app, then they’re either sent to the mobile Web or to an app store’s download page. Bouncing someone from app to Web is a poor user experience, and sending them to an app store’s download page is totally removed from the user’s intent: “I don’t want to download another app; I just want to buy those shoes.”
Wildcard’s answer: cards. Cards let developers “share little native snip-its of their apps” so users can start experiencing the app without having to install it, which is a great solution for purely content-based apps (and developers should be pushing hard for standards and common tools to show content natively across contexts). But what about commerce-based apps?
Due to privacy concerns, Apple prohibits passing payment information via cards across contexts. So I still have to download another app (or check out on the mobile Web) to buy those shoes. Listen, I’m just trying to get these shoes back to my house so I can wear them.
3) There’s a difference between an ad and a feature.
Here’s a common reaction to the growing popularity of inter-app experiences: “So now advertisers are going to be polluting mobile with ads as they’ve done on the Web. Great.”
But early-use cases show that many of the app-to-app experiences facilitated by deep linking are far from banner ads. Instead, they’re more like product features.
For example, being able to book a ride from within a restaurant-reservations app like Resy: ad or feature?
Or being able to listen to music from within a fitness-tracking app like Fitocracy: ad or feature?
Or being able buy a concert ticket while listening to a band’s music in an app like Spotify: ad or feature?
4) There’s one-to-one, and then there’s one-to-many.
Where things really start to get interesting is the one-to-many cross-app partnerships. For instance, if you’re a sports-news app seeking a cross-app partnership with a ticketing engine so that your readers can buy tickets without leaving your app, why limit your app to the offerings in just one ticketing engine?
What if that ticketing engine shuts down or its tickets become unreasonably priced? Instead, why not show results in your app sourced from multiple ticketing services, such as Stubhub, SeatGeek and Ticketmaster? How would you then choose to rank those results within your app?
Check out Deeplink.NYC to see slides from the demos and sign up for the next meetup.
Obama To Push For Broadband Competition
WASHINGTON, Jan 13 (Reuters) – President Barack Obama will call on Wednesday for an end to laws that thwart competition among broadband service providers and urge the Federal Communications Commission to help put a stop to them, the White House said on Tuesday.
“What we’re calling on the FCC to do is to ensure that all states have a playing field that allows for a vibrant and competitive market for communications services,” White House economic adviser Jeff Zients told reporters on a conference call.
The FCC is an independent agency.
Obama will raise the topic during a trip to Cedar Falls, Iowa, on Wednesday as he rolls out themes for his upcoming State of the Union address.
The White House said laws in 19 states had hurt broadband access. Obama will press for an end to regulations that “limit the range of options available to communities to spur expanded local broadband infrastructure, including ownership of networks,” it said in a statement.
Zients said the administration wanted to make clear that it opposed state laws that prevent new entrants from entering the broadband market.
In addition, the Department of Agriculture will announce it is accepting applications for $40 million to $50 million in loans available for broadband, Zients said.
Obama will discuss steps in his State of the Union address to help give more Americans access to speedy and affordable broadband. He is traveling to Iowa to showcase a town where competition in the field is thriving. (Reporting by Jeff Mason; Editing by Peter Cooney)
Has the Future-Proof Future Arrived?
Thinner, faster, brighter, smarter, autonomous and over the top. Who could ask for more? CES delivered, as we expected, significant advances in screens, chips and the application of artificial and networked intelligence to our devices, appliances, automobiles and homes. It also delivered the strongest signals so far that the unbundling of media distribution was at a tipping point.
CES 2015 just may have illustrated, for the first time, both the future relationship between humanity and technology AND the proximity of that future to the present. In turn, this represents the realization of real-time connected consumer experience. The overwhelming sense is that the things we have talked about for years have either arrived or are at least visible choices as we plan our connected lives.
Imagine you were building a new house today. You would lay the foundations. In those foundations, alongside water and power, you would include fiber to carry enough data (the third utility), allowing everything from massive and cheap storage to 8K streaming and the wireless connection of a host of intelligent devices. Having done that, you would add a router that would replace almost every wire in your current home, and in doing so, allow for faster and fear-free replacement of hardware that is plummeting in price quickly enough to insulate you from buyer’s remorse and the need to attack drywall every time a new or better device took your fancy.
That’s a good thing; 4K is here. 12 million units were shipped, mostly to Asia in 2014, and Japan expects the 2020 Olympics to be an 8k experience. By the time we get there, we make be enjoying OLED and Quantum Dot displays for less than $20 per screen inch and the (virtual) reality of Oculus Rift and retina image delivery from Avegant Glyph.
The consumer is a clear winner here, but the content creators are winners also. The cinema exhibitor industry may well be a big loser as in-home experiences become far superior and the makers of content shift their distribution windows in which “at home” first runs are the most profitable route to market.
Your new home won’t just be a place of shelter, movie theater and healthcare hub, but instead, another node on your personal operating system that understands everything from your blood pressure to the freshness of your food, the energy you use and need. It will be the charging station for your car which you may or not ever drive yourself, but will be another node from which you set the dials of other experiences.
As ever, GroupM Global Chairman Irwin Gotlieb found a way of reducing it to a sentence: “The short term challenge for automotive technology is to avoid distracting the driver, until such time as technology has advanced to the point when there is no driver to distract.”
That same vehicle will have intelligence of its own and also future-proof itself through remotely updatable software that ensures it keeps pace and stays integrated with the rest of your personal cloud managed through a single peripheral, your smartphone.
That cloud will be the core element of your new unbundled media experience. You may own or store content, but you won’t be at the mercy of the carriage choices of your infrastructure company. Instead, you’ll be the specifier of your own menu of à la carte and over-the-top delivered content. You will pay for sure, but you will get what you pay for and nothing else. Precision decisions for all of us.
Perhaps the most encouraging news of all is that a new generation of standards is emerging. IOS (Apple), Android (Google) and Tizen (Linux open source) are beginning to appear in every imaginable device allowing phones, displays and vehicles to share a common language. Another key element of future-proofing.
Of course, CES showed us “new new” things (who can resist a self-balancing skateboard from IO Hawk?) as well as iterations of old new things, but the overwhelming impression this time was that CES was for us, not just Marty Mcfly or the Jetsons.
A final observation on CES itself: 2015 also illustrated that the focus of technology “announcements” continues. As automotive uses CES to expand its footprint beyond the car shows, others, including Motorola, have abandoned CES for Mobile World Congress and the imaging industry has begun to focus on Photokina and its 180,000 attendees in Cologne. Travel plans for Cologne, Barcelona and Vegas for 2016 are in progress.
@robnorman with many thanks to Irwin Gotlieb, Mike Dowd and Cary Tilds.
A Beginner's Guide to Social Media, Blogging, and Branding
Today, many people blog. Whether about life experiences, cooking recipes, DIY projects for the home, or wedding inspirations, blogging can take form of anything you want to share your knowledge about. Six years ago, my New Year’s Eve resolution was to write more and to stick to a plan. Always finding a release through writing, I wanted to capture my insight on things I was passionate about. Throughout the years, many people have asked me for recommendations on how they should start. Should they keep their social media separate from personal and private? How should they market themselves? Blogging is really simple, but can be complicated if you don’t build your foundation right! After reading Huffington Post writer Kelsey Ngyugen’s fashion blogging tips I was inspired to write important tips for any blog. Take these tips into consideration and start writing!
Start Slow
The worst thing you can do for your reputation as a blogger is set high goals and not be able to complete them. That not only makes you disappointed, but your readership will slow down because of your inconsistency. Stick to a smaller goal like writing once a month or a week, and a specific day of the week always offers new content.
Choosing the Right Blogging Platforms
Your blogging platform should depend on your comfort or ease of technology. Websites such as On Blast Blog or WordPress offer tutorials and are user friendly for beginners, while hosting platforms are bare bones and may need coding. If you want to potentially have writers blogging on the site as well, make sure the site offers additional logins. Do your research!
Keep Your Branding Strong
Once you choose your topic, make sure you are staying in brand with your ideas and your social media posts. Your readers will follow your word and your site because of what they like to read. If you change your branding and reflect other views, the inconsistencies will cause you to lose readers and your credibility.
Reputation is Key
If you’re thinking about getting into blogging seriously, you may want to search yourself, and clear any incriminating or “non brand” information. In other words, if you are writing a wholesome mommy blog, your Spring Break ’99 photos have to go. If you are unsure of how to go about doing this, companies such as Reputation Rhino manage your online reputation for you and eliminate anything that you don’t want online. If your blog becomes popular, cleaning up before comes in handy!
Stick to Your Passion
With so many bloggers out there, sticking to your passion and what you are most knowledgable about will keep you interested and relevant. If you spread yourself too thin, your work won’t be as credible. Do you like to cook? Do you want to talk about the latest or most coveted exotic cars? Do you want to build furniture out of palettes? Think about what you love, what you’re good at, or what you want to try. There are so many of us that want to try new things, and getting a personal take on that experiment is always a fun concept.
Take all of these tips into consideration, and build your blog slowly. A house built on sand isn’t the most sound, and neither is a blog spread too thin! Do what you love and stick to it. My best advice is to keep on learning and trying. The worst thing that can happen is you learned something new and you broadened your horizons! Most of all, don’t expect to be paid instantly for what you do. If you do, you’re doing it for the wrong reason.
US trial of Silk Road 'owner' begins
The trial of Ross Ulbricht, the alleged creator and operator of the Silk Road underground illegal market, has opened in New York.
Leak details 'Companion' iPhone app for Apple Watch
A new report claims to have exposed the contents of the official iPhone app for the Apple Watch. Said to be dubbed “Companion” within Apple, the app manages Watch apps and device settings, in addition to handling the Bluetooth pairing process. Users can, for instance, organize the layout of apps on their Watch’s homescreen via a simulated version of that interface.
VIDEO: Obama: Cyber threats 'urgent danger'
US President Barack Obama says the US Centcomm hack shows how much more work there is to do on cybersecurity.
What Social Media Has Taught Me About Distance and Human Behavior
This is going to make me sound old. I know this, because even thinking it makes me feel old. But when I was a kid, the Internet did not exist. Well, maybe it did, but it was a luxury nobody I knew in suburban New Jersey had access to. In fourth grade, I remember being introduced to a computer for the first time, and being forced to create a Father’s Day card in Microsoft Word. The printer was this magical, omnificent mechanism. A titanic leap forward from the typewriter I fiddled with at home. I had no way of knowing the technological revolution that was about to explode around me.
But it wasn’t moving quite swiftly enough to save my friendship with my classmate Justin. Because a couple of years later, while we were in junior high school, his family was moving to Indiana, and even I was smart enough to figure out that that was too far away to get bussed to my school. I remember walking up to him at his locker on his final day before the move, reaching out my hand to shake his. As an 11-year-old, I had no idea how to express sorrow to another 11-year-old. But I was unequivocally sad. Astonishing to think that, only a few short years later, Justin would’ve been a mere keystroke away.
As I tip-toed into adolescence, I was completely overwhelmed by a suite of products that would later morph into this thing called social media. Be it AOL Instant Messaging, chat rooms, or the almighty email, nobody ever felt far away, no matter their zip code. It was a monstrous communication shift for not only my group of friends, but the over-arching society. In the years since, I’ve become aware (sometimes painfully) of the effects that this shift has had on all of us.
With that said… some of them rage-inducing, some heartwarming, others somewhere in the middle… here are the things I’ve learned from my many years living the social media lifestyle…
It’s never, ever okay to call someone fat or ugly. Unless, of course, you disagree with their politics or favorite sports team.
This is the lowest of low-hanging fruit, to hurl insults at someone’s most obvious physical flaw. And it’s completely void of creativity, decency… and most of all, effort. Say what you will about Governor Chris Christie. Call him out on his educational policies. But tell a fat joke to make your point, and your argument means as much as mine when I was 11.
People would rather go to the lengths of purchasing an item called a selfie stick than ask the stranger next to them to take a photo.
It’s ironic that some folks use a platform known as “social media” to post photos of themselves sitting alone at a dinner table, with a plate of chicken marsala.
A LOT of sports fans still view calling someone “gay” as a terrible insult.
This was the norm when I was a fourth grader, before any of us knew better. Calling someone “gay” or “fag” was the harshest insult we could think to shout at someone for merely bumping into us in the hallway. Its connotation being that you were beneath others. As a man, I know better than that. Some don’t.
I am a massive football fan. So, I often find myself reading NFL articles, perusing the array of memes scattered throughout the comment thread. And I cringe when I see things like “Romo is a homo!” If that’s the best you can do, I fear for your offspring.
There are a ton of creative, talented people within your social circle.
Not everyone knows exactly how to harness it, but whether it be a video they created, a witty Photoshopping, or a clever play on words, I can’t read a single comment thread on Facebook without coming across something I wish I’d come up with myself.
If a cause is worth their time, people will rally behind it.
The social network is a mighty, mighty thing. From something as critical as raising funds for a child with cancer to the sharing of a powerful blog post, if people feel strongly about something, they will pass on the word. As much as I’ve been disgusted by the hate that is spattered across social media, I am also heartened to see it being used for exactly the purpose it should be: to bring people together to share, help, and enlighten.
Plenty of people still think I care which song from The Eagles they are.
Seriously, not a single soul cares which character from Spongebob that Buzzfeed thinks you are. Totally cool if you take this test to find out on your own, but sharing daily results with your entire network is obscenely unnecessary and excessive. By the way, care to guess which of the Chipmunks I am? Simon, of course. I guess it’s the glasses and general i-dotting.
We, as a collective society need the distraction that social media provides.
Okay, maybe we don’t need it. But as a parent, I certainly appreciate the ability to escape to my Twitter feed during a bottle feeding when I can’t watch the football game, or to scan the comments friends made on a photo I posted to Facebook earlier in the day. Don’t get me wrong; it should come with a warning label. Some of us let social media take over our lives, creating silent dinner tables and this absurd mission for every social gathering to only be as strong as the Instagram photo it yielded. But at its essence, the technology that hovers an arm’s length away is a monstrously powerful tool to be used to connect, laugh, and learn.
Last year, I was signed onto Facebook if for no other reason than to occupy my brain during a random lunch hour alone. The list of “People You May Know” populated, which at that point was something I zipped past like I would a street vendor holding a fluorescent flyer. But that day, I decided to engage in the time-suck. Three people in, I saw my old classmate Justin. He wasn’t 11 anymore. He had a family. Reconnecting with someone I only knew as a child was surreal. As if we had been living on two separate islands and finally, a bridge was built between the two. We became “friends,” exchanged emails. It was a cool moment, and for me, a prime example of the most crucial component of social media: to make the distance between us irrelevant. And this is important — no matter which Eagles song you are.
Feel free to email me at jdeprospero@gmail.com or follow me on Twitter @JoeDeProspero.
Local Businesses Need Software WITH Service – Not SaaS
As we put an old year behind us and start fresh with a new one, I want to talk about an issue that touches on the very core of local business’ ability to successfully employ digital marketing technology, or, for that matter, any software.
In 2015, I believe we will see Software with Service take hold over the traditional Software as a Service (SaaS) technology model. This new model – aimed at time-starved local businesses – acknowledges that the do-it-yourself approach to integrating technology into local business is failing far too many organizations. It recognizes that local businesses really need both state-of-the-art technology and expert service.
There is ample evidence to show that despite being surrounded by technology at home and work, local business owners and employees still find it challenging to install and implement much of the software and hardware needed to help run their organizations. In fact, a recent study found that 64 percent of small business owners feel “overwhelmed” when it comes to technology and nearly 60 percent said there are “insufficient resources” available to help them.
There are many very valid reasons that a SaaS model isn’t the best fit for most local business owners. Local business owners and employees wear multiple hats – and it’s not likely any of those hats say CIO or IT on them. Implementing new technology, working out the kinks, and troubleshooting problems when they arise is very time-consuming and often frustrating. If an organization simply doesn’t have the cycles to work through those details and nuances, the software meant to help their business suddenly becomes an impediment. And if the installation and troubleshooting “support” offered with the software is a link, chat room or online FAQ, business owners can become stymied and discouraged.
Software WITH service doesn’t just overcome these challenges – it never creates them to begin with. Through partnership, proactive and regular communications, and anticipatory support, Software with Service creates a foundation for ongoing success. It calls for service providers to support business owners throughout software set-up, installation and troubleshooting. It helps guarantee that software is being employed to its fullest potential by having these providers work hand-in-hand with businesses to define goals and objectives and implement software to achieve those goals.
Rather than waiting for a problem to occur, service providers that offer Software with Service use their product and industry sector knowledge to anticipate issues and help local businesses avoid them. They provide tips and advice to help businesses implement tools properly from the start and check in regularly to ensure things are running smoothly.
Software with Service is also built on the premise that service providers have an obligation to work with customers even at the pre-sale stages to ensure they are laying the groundwork for a positive experience. Far too often, local businesses are sold products that aren’t appropriate for their needs or that won’t help them achieve their goals. Software with Service providers explain how their product will support the businesses’ needs – without all the technical jargon – what problems it solves and how it differs from competitive offerings. This knowledge benefits local businesses and service providers by ensuring that the product is a fit for the business and will help it achieve success. A happy customer is a source of continued business and referrals.
SaaS certainly has its place – and will continue to help a large swath of the business market – but for a host of reasons it’s just not the right approach for most local businesses. While there will always be a subset of small businesses that are very tech savvy, the fact remains that even if they have the knowledge, the vast majority of local business owners simply don’t have the time to implement their own software. That’s why I think 2015 will be the year that Software with Service becomes a preferred model for local businesses.
Why 2014 Was a Groundbreaking Year in Digital Health
2014 was the most exciting year in digital health since 2000, when the human genome was cloned. In February 2001, The Human Genome Project and Craig Venter’s Celera Genomics published the hallmark event. What followed was over a decade of glimmers of the potential for personalized medicine and new insights into disease, but also realistic mitigations in expectations, as is wont to happen in health care.
There is every indication that the next decade will be different — there will be an acceleration in innovation and development of devices to assess our healthy and ailing selves. What happened in 2014? A huge increase in funding and corporate investment in digital health technology (e.g., mobile, social media, genetics and big data), and massive growth in the accessible population, and the amount of open data:
Funding in digital health startups, tracked by an accelerator Rock Health since 2011, has grown steadily at double digit growth until this past year, when records were shattered with 4.1B in funding, more than double the 2013 amount.
Almost every major consumer technology company announced a large health initiative, notably Google, Apple, and Samsung.
Electronic health record and sensors were positioned to join or actually entered the “Internet of Things”. The partnership between Apple and Epic alone could reach 20 percent of patients entering a health care system in the U.S. An estimated 10M activity monitor units were sold in 2014 and phones became personal health monitors with the release of Apple’s HealthKit and Google’s Google Fit.
Lastly, the number of large data sets that opened in health care and the tools to analyze them came of age in 2014. For example, the FDA launched openFDA in June 2014, which made it easier to analyze data about adverse events, drug and medical device recalls, prescription and over the counter product labeling, and to access open source code for analyzing this data.
What does this mean for our health? Funding will help drive innovation, and greater connectivity between patients and the people and systems that deliver their care will help drive efficiencies. Both of these will enable developers to more easily amass huge data sets to advance personalized diagnosis and treatment, and support efforts to prevent disease.
Innovation. The last five years have been a “wild