Strategic Inflection Points
Huawei may sell its 5G technology to a Western buyer – Piece offering
A Stunning Development in the Global Smartphone Industry Source: Huawei may sell its 5G technology…
Virtual Reality
Integration of AI, IoT and Big Data: The Intelligent Assistant
Five years ago, I wrote a post on this blog disparaging the state of the Internet of Things/home automation market as a “Tower of Proprietary Babble.” Vendors of many different home and industrial product offerings were literally speaking different languages, making their products inoperable with other complementary products from other vendors. The market was being constrained by its immaturity and a failure to grasp the importance of open standards. A 2017 Verizon report concluded that “an absence of industry-wide standards…represented greater than 50% of executives concerns about IoT. Today I can report that finally, the solutions and technologies are beginning to come together, albeit still slowly.
China
Updating My Smartphone Market Analysis: The Market Is At A Strategic Inflection Point
NOTE: My original post, originally published in January 2013, continues to be one of the most viewed on the site. Android and Apple have enjoyed an estimated 98% market share between the two, and many of my earlier projections regarding this market appear to have been borne out. However, the smartphone market has now matured to the point that it is at a strategic inflection point which has major implications for the future of this market and the major competitors. The rapid maturation of the smartphone market should have been foreseen: the rise of domestic Chinese competition combined with the predictable end of the Western consumer fascination with “the next smartphone”
Near field communication
Big Data, Cloud, Smart Mobile And Even AR Morph Into One Mind Boggling Thing
IEEE Talk: Integrated Big Data, The Cloud, & Smart Mobile: Actually One Big Thing by David…
Smart meter
The Internet of Things: The Promise Versus the Tower of Hacked Babbling Things
The term “Internet of Things” (IoT) is being loosely tossed around in the media. But…
Industry Standards
Everything You Need to Know About Google's Fi Wireless Service
As some may already know, Google is launching its Fi mobile phone service in the United States, and with aggressive expansion plans, hopefully, into Canada and Europe. Google has partnered with Sprint and T-Mobile in the United States. But the intriguing aspect of this new business is Google’s intent to offload phone service to WiFi wherever possible. This prospect has been looming in the wings for awhile, with the talk of true Metro-scale WiFi using VHF white space, and Google’s innovative experiments with “Loon Balloon,” (see my earlier post), and with low orbiting satellite WiFi coverage. Whether these risky and expensive experiments will materialize is another question. However, the prospect of wider area, stronger signal metro WiFi continues to move forward. Google’s hybrid approach using both mobile service frequencies and WiFi to provide full mobile voice and data service is beginning to sound very interesting.
Flash trading
The internet of everything–annihilating time and space
An excellent discussion of the deeper social implications of the Internet of Everything. Perhaps difficult for some to grasp, but consistent with many other futurists’ views. The current world of MOOC’s in online education, for example, may only be a brief waypoint on the journey to anytime, everywhere education.
Industry Standards
Much Better Battery Technology As A Big Idea
Recently there have been a number of reports that Apple’s release of its new operating system, iO7, had caused unexpected problems for battery life in most older iPhones. Another way of saying this, is what a mobile phone salesman at The Waterfront, in downtown Vancouver said to me, “Everybody wants there phones to do too much stuff!” His comment came after I had bought one of the new external batter boosters for my smartphone. An entirely new accessory market has opened up, selling extended battery life for you phone, when you are not able to use your charger. This is not a real or long term solution. As many of my students know, battery life and heat dissipation on the microchips are among the most important areas of technology research today. It is also worth noting that this problem has also led to advances in the Universal Serial Bus (USB) architecture which are also likely to help address the problem of power and energy efficiency technology devices..
Near field communication
Wireless networks aren't ready for the smartphone revolution
Uh oh! Expect to see the cost of wireless data skyrocket In addition to Ericsson’s…
Silicon Valley Culture
The Incredible CardMunch for Android Mystery: Market Stolen by CamCard
Over a year ago now someone on the UBC campus, who was thinking of developing an app, told me about this cool application for capturing cards into your contacts by photographing them on your smart phone. It was Cardmunch. It turned out that the application was only available on the iPhone at that time, but as luck would have it, the company had just been acquired by LinkedIn. Voila! It would obviously only be a few months at most before I could obtain it for my Samsung Android smart phone, right? Wrong. That was over a year ago.
