Crazy For Tech - Gadgets,Cell Phones,Cameras » Cell Phones

Virgin Atlantic To Launch In-Flight Cell Phone Service

blogger — Mon, 14 May 2012 22:50:41 +0000

Having in-flight access to WiFi is quickly becoming a standard feature on modern airliners, but (thankfully) in-flight cell phone service for voice calls is still a rarity and even outlawed in some countries, including the United States. If you’re flying Virgin Atlantic between New York and London in the near future, though, chances are that at least a few of your fellow travelers will be happily chatting away on their cell phones while you’re riding the jetstream somewhere over the Atlantic. Later this month, Virgin Atlantic is launching its cell phone service on this route and plans to expand this service to ten more routes by the end of the year. Virgin Atlantic is teaming up with Telenor subsidiary AeroMobile to bring this service to its Airbus 330 planes. AeroMobile’s technology creates a small, low-powered cell network on the plane and then routes calls from the plane through a satellite network that relays the calls to the ground. This service, of course, won’t come cheap. International calls will start at $1.29 per minute and go up from there depending on where you are calling. Travelers will be able to make voice calls, send text messages and access data (but only over a slow GPRS connection). Because virtually any phone can connect to the in-flight cell network, Virgin recommends that flyers make sure their international roaming feature is turned off to avoid extra charges. As U.S. regulations forbid cell phone usage on commercial flights, the service won’t be available within 250 miles of U.S. airspace. Phones will also have to remain off during takeoff and landing. Given the already claustrophobic nature of air travel, the idea of having the guy in the seat next to me make his sales calls from the middle of the Atlantic doesn’t sound very appealing. Hopefully, the fact that this is still a pretty costly service means that most of these calls will be brief, however, and that most users will be courteous enough to just use text messages instead of making voice calls.

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Virgin Atlantic To Launch In-Flight Cell Phone Service

Assured Labor, The Mobile Job-Finding Network, Breaks Into Brazil

Achilles — Thu, 10 May 2012 21:02:49 +0000

Assured Labor , a mobile-centric job networking startup that was founded at MIT four years ago, is breaking into another Latin American market. The company is launching in Brazil with a localized service called TrabalhoJá . This adds to its reach in Mexico and Nicaragua. “Most of the job sites in Brazil charge job seekers, sometimes up to $50,” said Assured Labor’s CEO David Reich. “We’re totally free and job hunters don’t have to be extorted.” Assured Labor is a feature phone-based service that helps job seekers land work. The company targets workers that might only have cell phones and lack personal computers or a broadband connection. You can kind of think of it like a LinkedIn for the developing world. Workers often sign-up in Internet cafes and then the product texts them whenever there are relevant work opportunities that match their skills or what they’re looking for. The service also just started doing voice pre-screenings with candidates. That lets them answer some questions so that employers can vet them before bringing them in for interviews. Reich started working on the company while in business school at MIT. The company started with a pilot in Nicaragua and then expanded to Mexico. It now has about 250,000 candidates and 5,000 employers and earns revenue from employers, who pay to reach prospective candidates. The company has raised more than $1 million in funding from angels including former Skype chief executive and chairman Michael Van Swaiij, Kima Ventures and Nexus Venture Partners.

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Assured Labor, The Mobile Job-Finding Network, Breaks Into Brazil

Samsung Acquires Mobile Entertainment And Music Streaming Startup mSpot

blogger — Thu, 10 May 2012 01:09:18 +0000

Samsung Electronics has acquired mobile entertainment startup mSpot , according to a release issued today. Financial terms were not disclosed, but previous reports point to an acquisition price of $8.8 million. mSpot let users stream and watch full-length movies on their mobile phones and on the web . The company had struck deals with Sony, Disney, Paramount, NBC/Universal, Lionsgate, Warner, Image Entertainment, and Screen Media Ventures to stream full-length movie rentals to users’ PCs and cell phones, allowing you to switch between both devices as you pick up and leave off throughout a movie. mSPot also offered a cloud-based music service, which let you upload your music to the cloud, and stream this content from a multitude of devices, ranging from PCs, Macs, to the iPhone, iPad and Android. Last year the company launched a Pandora-like radio-service for personal music collections. It was tough for mSpot to compete with the likes of Apple, Amazon and others in the music, movie and film streaming world so the exit is probably best for the startup. mSpot raised $2.3 million in funding from Trinity Ventures. Samsung says mSpot’s technology will be used to provide an “entertainment experience of music, video and radio services for users of Samsung devices, while extending mSpot’s cloud and streaming solutions to a broader base of global entertainment fans…mSpot’s entertainment services will be a key integrated offering on newly announced Samsung mobile devices.” The acquisition includes technology, assets and human resources under mSpot.

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Samsung Acquires Mobile Entertainment And Music Streaming Startup mSpot

The Era Of The Porn Superstar Might Be Coming (Hah!) To A End

bestcbstore — Mon, 07 May 2012 04:00:41 +0000

The Internet is a lot like the American Dream. It’s this huge opportunity for anyone who wants to make something of themselves — a nearly ubiquitous platform to showcase skills and talents. Yet, it is so incredibly saturated with people trying to do exactly the same thing that the opportunity gets smaller and smaller, shrinking to the size of a pin point as more people hop online. Countless industries have seen this saturation play a role in who rises to the top, and who fizzles out as one of the millions of never-will-be stars. And porn isn’t exempt from this rule. A new poll taken by XBIZ , “the adult entertainment industry’s leading social network”, shows that less than half of the respondents polled (47 percent) believe there will be another mainstream porn superstar, like Jenna Jameson. Meanwhile, 27 percent say that the era of the porn superstar is over thanks to the Internet, with the other 27 percent saying that only moderate success can be achieved by porn performers. It makes sense. Think about how many people have actually made it big from YouTube, compared to the number of people who have tried. It’s the exact reason why startups like TalentSplash are working to offer a platform for hopeful talent to showcase their skills. Granted, I don’t watch as much porn as say, John Biggs , but I can’t think of really any porn superstars outside of Jameson. The real end of the porn superstar may be due to the democratization of porn production. With cheap video cameras and editing equipment, anyone can give it a shot. It’s not that porn is any less popular. It’s likely much more so. But attention is now divided across thousands of demi-stars with their own websites and Twitter accounts. While the Jenna Jameson’s of old might have made just a dollar or so per sale of a big studio porn movie they’re featured in, today’s demi-stars could rake in the same revenue by keeping most of $30 monthly site subscription fees from their hardcore (pun intended) fans. Up and comers (hah!) like Bree Olson and Sasha Grey (who left the porn biz altogether last year) seem to have achieved modest success through utilizing their Facebook and Twitter followings. But will that eventually amount to Jenna Jameson level success? The results of the XBIZ poll are a tad optimistic considering the landscape. It reminds me a bit of forthcoming iPhone rumors: “It’ll support holographs!” “It will fly!” All of that is just wishful thinking, and certain industry top dogs seem to share in that hopeful optimism. CEO and co-chair of Vivid Entertainment Steven Hirsch believes that “there absolutely will be another superstar as big as Jenna. How she gets there remains to be seen but it certainly will happen.” Digital Playground co-founder Joone shares the sentiment. “I think there will always be porn superstars,” said Joone. “The fans are always looking for that next ‘it’ girl. It’s all about the right girl with the right company behind her to let the world know.” Even the more realistic responses are speckled with a hint of hopeful naivety. Hustler founder Larry Flynt claims that “the days of the porn superstar will return when the quality of the movies being produced are improved.” Still other big names in the adult entertainment biz see things differently. Jenna Jameson’s long time co-star Ron Jeremy has a fittingly cocky response: There’s so many things that I did that are almost impossible to follow. The work I’ve done outside of porn has dwarfed what I’ve done in porn. There are other people who have done good work in the same arenas, but keep in mind it gets tougher and tougher as so many medias get involved, between computers and cell phones and DVDs and pay-per-view and video-on-demand. There will not be another Jenna Jameson any time soon. It could happen, but I wouldn’t stake my life on it. Kayden Kross, another award-winning adult entertainer, seems to have a grasp on reality: I think when Jenna Jameson became Jenna Jameson, no one had become Jenna Jameson yet. It was still very taboo to be a porn star and she really made that a more mainstream thing. Then there were others that came up, not to her level, but came up around that time. And now, it’s just like anyone can be a porn star. It’s over-saturated. It’s interesting to see how different answers from industry executives and former performers are. The performers know the perils of making it big as talent, whereas the executives are likely desperate to bank on an up-and-coming star as big as a Jenna Jameson. Only time will tell if the porn industry can adapt to our almost entirely digital lifestyles. The camera industry failed , publishing is struggling big time , and both the music and movie industries are holding on to their traditional business models with cold, lifeless fingers. But the question isn’t whether or not the “talent” exists. The question is whether or not we want another “it” girl. Jenna was great, but is she any better than having millions of free (and paid) titillating vids to enjoy over a bit of spit and Kleenex?

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The Era Of The Porn Superstar Might Be Coming (Hah!) To A End

Samsung Is The New King Of Mobile

A D M I N — Tue, 01 May 2012 23:38:09 +0000

Sammy is now the big kahuna of cell phones. Today’s Juniper Research and comScore reports indicated that Samsung kicked Apple from the top spot in regards to smartphones. IDC also released a report today indicating the same thing while noting that Samsung kicked Nokia from the top of total phone shipments. This comes just days after another analyst firm questioned Nokia’s current title as reigning king. Samsung happened to be at the right place at the right time — but only because the company positioned itself properly. Five years ago, Nokia was the world’s dominant cell phone maker. It held a commanding slice of the pie. Profits were soaring on the wings of cheap devices. RIM was nearly as dominant in its smartphone arena. It was hip to have a crackberry addiction. Then things began to change. Now, five years later, both companies are in nearly equally precarious positions, priming the companies for utter failure or rise-from-the-ashes success. While Nokia and RIM fell from grace, Samsung and Apple rose to the top. Apple had the benefit of being new to the space. Samsung had the tougher task of retooling its existing line to keep pace with new devices from Apple and HTC. But now, after just a few quarters of neck-to-neck racing, Samsung overtook Apple to become the largest smartphone vendor and overtook Nokia to be the largest vendor overall. Samsung had a blockbuster first part of the year. It shipped a whopping 42 million smartphones, and per IDC’s research is the only Android vendor on an upswing. The rest of the players are seeing a steady decline in shipments. Samsung’s Galaxy line of smartphones are Android’s only bright spot right now. RIM is also on the decline. The once-king of smartphones dropped more market share during the first part of 2012 and only accounted for 6.8% of the smartphone shipments in the first quarter of 2012. However, while I still believe RIM can turn things around, the Canadian-based company is in a very tough spot after failing to innovate fast enough to compete with iOS and Android. BlackBerry 10 is a great start. Nokia and RIM’s decline was caused by sheer arrogance . The two companies rested on their respective successes. Failure to innovate and sell existing supporters on changes is a recipe for disaster. Instead of following the market toward high-end devices, both companies dove headfirst toward the low-end, leading the race downmarket. Samsung went the other way. The Korean company followed Apple upmarket. In fact, they may have followed a bit too closely. Remember the never-ending patent battle over the striking similarities between Galaxy smartphones and Apple’s iPhone? The first line of Galaxy S smartphones were haphazard at best, but they set the stage for the fantastic Galaxy S II line. Now, as Samsung is the new king of mobile, the third generation is set to launch within the coming weeks. Samsung is succeeding because it kept moving. The mobile phone wars are far from over. Apple and Samsung will continue to fight it out. The Samsung Galaxy S III will launch this month but the iPhone 5 (or whatever it’s to be called) is coming soon as well. These reports also indicate that other smartphone vendors, being Android supporters or not, are seeing steady declines in shipments. It might soon be a two dog race.

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Samsung Is The New King Of Mobile

TheWhoot Co-Founders On Taking The Flakiness Out Of Social Planning

kram412 — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 20:05:12 +0000

Back in the day, before the cell phone, people had to be where they said they’d be. There was no such thing as flaking out, and if you did, you were just a bad person. But these days, even when we make a firm commitment, the convenience of cell phones makes it really easy to flake out at the last second. But co-founders Ryan Coyne and Will Quartner think that going out and having fun with your friends shouldn’t have to be so difficult, and thus was born TheWhoot. TheWhoot is a social planning app, available on web , iOS , and Android , that lets people choose from four simple categories to outline their nightly plans and coordinate within their social circle. You may be working, staying in, relaxing out, or partying, and once you detail your general idea for the evening, you’ll instantly get access to what all your friends are doing. It’s not like a Facebook Event, in that all plans are tossed out at 5am and new plans begin each day. The service is all about tonight, which is the first step in removing the flakes. With Facebook Events, the party next week might sound really awesome now, but it may not sound so great on the night of, after a long day’s work and a headache. Another feature available with TheWhoot is the ability to Ping. You have five Pings per night, and it allows you to reach out to users who haven’t posted their plans tonight to see what they’re up to tonight. The cool part is that you post Pings anonymously, so if you happen to be the kid who’s always trying to wrangle a group together, you don’t have to be embarrassed that you’re hitting people up all the time. New features will be added over the course of the next month, along with new forms of monetization for TheWhoot including in-app purchases to increase the Ping limit, and social analytics, which will allow users to get a feel for what the night will be like on a large scale. Think how many girls are going out tonight, or how many of your friends are relaxing as opposed to partying on a Thursday. Social planning is a tough space to tackle, but I’m excited about what TheWhoot has done thus far. Perhaps we won’t all be so flaky anymore, or maybe that’s just dreaming. Only time, and TheWhoot’s new social analytics, can tell.

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TheWhoot Co-Founders On Taking The Flakiness Out Of Social Planning

Google: Mobile And Video Research Drive In-Store Cell Phone Purchases

admin2 — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 21:28:57 +0000

Curious how consumers are making decisions regarding which cell phone to buy? Google teamed up with Compete on a study examining how the online consumer shops for a wireless device and we have the results of the survey and study exclusively. Google and Compete tracked consumers online and searching patterns, analyzed the behavior of those purchasing cell phones by tracking their behavior backward from the point of purchase, and surveyed buyers as well. Some of the results aren’t necessarily groundbreaking, it is interesting to see what factors drive in-store purchases. For example, Google says that 72% of mobile researchers purchased their phone in store (vs. 55% of non-mobile researchers). Watching video reviews and features on phones also helps drive purchases— 39% of shoppers used video while researching; 77% watched for more than 10 minutes. And 63% of wireless shoppers use search portals throughout purchase process. After viewing smartphone product videos, 64% became interested in specific smartphone models, 44% were introduced to smartphone brands not previously considered and 36% heard about the smartphone product for the first time. Network reliability, cost of data plans and the actual phone itself all topped consumers’ most important considerations when buying a cell phone. For the most part, upgrades and the want for the latest gadget tend to drive purchases, with 48 percent of phone buyers available for an upgrade and 31 percent purchasing because they wanted the latest phone. Basically, 45 percent of cell phone sales were completed in-store but online research heavily influences decision-making, says Google. And users tend to research for around 3 weeks before making a purchase. More than half of shoppers visited five sites for research, and were mostly considering two different devices when making a purchasing decision. In terms of advertising, TV ads lead to the highest recall among smartphone shoppers, followed by online ads, email advertisements and search engine listings. When examining online resources exclusively, reseller websites, online reviews, search engines and social networks all drove purchases. Kyle Keogh, Google’s tech industry director, tell us that while carriers account for a big portion of visits for research, users tend to buy their phones elsewhere. Essentially, carriers need to do a better job with closing sales, especially online.

The Lumia 900 Becomes Amazon’s Best Selling Phone, Topping The RAZR MAXX And Galaxy Nexus

admin2 — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 19:15:18 +0000

And we’re off! Even though the Nokia Lumia 900 launched yesterday and was largely unavailable thanks to the Easter Bunny, the phone quickly skyrocketed to the top of Amazon’s best sellers list. The phone hovered around the 5th spot yesterday but jumped to the first and second spot today with the black version preferred over the cyan edition. This puts the Nokia’s large Windows Phone over top of Android’s star players, the Droid RAZR MAXX and Galaxy Nexus. Part of the instant popularity likely comes from Amazon’s price of $50 with a two-year service plan. That’s $50 less than AT&T’s price and $150 less than the previously most popular phone from Amazon, the Droid RAZR MAXX. The other factor could be that for some reason AT&T and Nokia launched the phone in the US on Easter Sunday. Brian X. Chen of of the NYT’s Bits blog found most NYC-based AT&T stores and resellers were understandably closed, making the phone rather difficult to find in person. Launching a pivotal phone on a Sunday is strange but launching it on a major national holiday is downright idiotic. Amazon has long been friendly to Windows Phone. Out of the top 100 best rated cell phones , the top three are slightly older Windows Phones with Verizon’s HTC Trophy occupying the top spot. Judging by the Lumia 900′s current high rating, Nokia’s Windows Phone could soon join the rest of the family on that list as well.

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The Lumia 900 Becomes Amazon’s Best Selling Phone, Topping The RAZR MAXX And Galaxy Nexus

Kodak Shutters Digital Camera Business In Favor Of Licensing, Photo Printing

kram412 — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 20:47:49 +0000

Consider today the end of an era for one of the most iconic brands in the imaging industry. While their bankruptcy protection filing from last month signaled the need for some drastic action, it’s still a bit of a shock to see Kodak announce that they are putting all of their digital cameras, camcorders, and picture frames out to pasture . When all is said and done, Kodak expects annual operating savings of around $100 million, but the bigger loss is going to be that of a cultural icon. Kodak will still exist, sure, but primarily as a purveyor of desktop printers as well as online and retail photo printing services. The company is also looking to expand its brand licensing program in order to bring in some much-needed revenue, but their consumer imaging division is shaping up to be a shell of its former self. The phase out process is set to begin during the first half of this year, and Kodak has reached out to their retail partners in order to make sure their last remaining customers aren’t left in the lurch when it comes to support and warranties. Kodak CMO Pradeep Jotwani notes that the company has been scaling back their efforts in the digital imaging space in order to focus on more lucrative aspects of their business. It’s a understandable move for Kodak to make — the company has been on the ropes for quite some time now, with slumping camera sales and some high profile departures only adding fuel to the fire. Even so, the loss of a once-dominant player in the industry stands as a reminder to competitors that staying nimble and innovative is the key to survival. Consider the blurring lines between cell phones and cameras. Kodak dipped their toes into the water by lending their name and optics to the Motorola MOTOZINE, but never really pursued the space further. Now, a study from the NPD Group points at smartphone camera use supplanting the need for a standalone camera, and a timely gamble back then could have made for smoother seas these past few years.

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Kodak Shutters Digital Camera Business In Favor Of Licensing, Photo Printing

mHealth: Remote Patient Monitoring Is On The Rise, With Smartphones Leading The Way

ACMAir — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 16:23:46 +0000

Last month, we took a look at some of the ways mobile technology is transforming the health industry. While there are many factors affecting this transformation, like artificial intelligence, big data, 3-D printing, social health networks, and remote communications, to name a few (check out Josh’s post on this here ), unsurprisingly, change is coming at the hands of the growing ubiquity of cell phones, smartphones, and mobile devices. Early last year, PEW Research was already reporting that 17 percent of mobile phone users were using their devices to look up health and medical information, and Juniper recently estimated that 44 million health apps were downloaded in 2011. In turn, the amount and availability of health data is exploding in tandem with the growing adoption of health and medical apps and devices, thanks to the increasingly wearable and user-friendly devices that use smart sensors to capture and transmit a variety biometric data. Electronic medical records (EMRs) are being made available on mobile devices — e ven Kaiser Permanente is getting in on the digital revolution . The mHealth industry is growing fast. According to Research2guidance ‘s calculations, the size of the mHealth app market will nearly double in 2012 to $1.3 billion, up from $718 million in 2011. (I discussed the volatility of these statistics, the still-changing definitions of mHealth and mHealth technology, and conflicting reporting on these numbers here .) While these numbers can sometimes be misleading, the mHealth sector is not only going to continue to expand, its profitability is going to skyrocket. This is because, in juxtaposition with the $7 trillion global healthcare market, the mHealth market remains incipient. Healthcare companies, startups, and beyond are just beginning to tap into the potential of mobile technology, both in terms of quantified self devices, which bring healthcare in the clinic home, the mobility of data and communication channels. Companies are beginning to spend more and more on research and development, the big kahunas of the medical world are starting to release real, functional mobile apps, and consumer-facing medical devices are just starting to see real market penetration. On the other side of the table, doctors and health care professionals have begun to adopt mobile devices in droves, not only using these devices to manage their schedules (and workflow) as they move about the hospital or their practices, but to consult with patients, receive realtime alerts, and we’re already starting to see them being used for research and diagnostics. To this point, it’s no wonder that we’re also seeing a blossoming market for so-called “healthcare peripherals.” As smartphone processors become more powerful, a growing number of patients will be monitored by mobile networks. A recent report by Juniper on the mHealth sector estimated that 3 million patients will be monitored on those networks over the course of the next four years. In turn, Juniper expects that remote patient monitoring — by way of using the smartphone as a hub, — will significantly lower the cost of mHealth services, because it will create a reduced need for costly, tailored devices. In terms of which sectors are out in front, the Juniper report said that the monitoring of cardiac outpatients has become increasingly popular, “as insurance reimbursement in the U.S. market plays a key role.” Next, one can expect to see remote monitoring playing an increasingly central role in the management and ongoing treatment of chronic diseases, specifically of diabetes and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disorder. ( Omada Health recently raised a seed round from some notable angel investors to take on diabetes with behavior science and web and mobile technology. Gloocose is also doing some cool things here as well .) It’s these types of affordable patient monitoring services that can help intervene in unhealthy lifestyles, get (and keep) us in shape, as well as monitoring at risk and aging segments of the population. By doing so, they will help reduce the drain that legacy systems, over-medication, and more cause on the entire system, cutting costs across the board. Of course, the U.S. FDA plans to regulate mobile health products, which can be a good thing, as it could potentially open up the market and kickstart innovation. However, the FDA has not yet released its guidelines on what devices and services will require approval before being served up to the public. The FDA must ramp up its education and ensure that it avoids subjecting basic consumer-facing health apps to years of waiting for approval, regulations, and red tape. It will be a tricky balance to find, but the FDA could really open the floodgates. If they play it right, it could be a boon for the mHealth market. Furthermore, Juniper’s report also points out that developing markets are going to continue to benefit from SMS-based education programs and app-based healthcare services, like mobile ultrasound. And, as I mentioned before, electronic health records are still in the process of gaining traction, though there’s still a long way to go. Expect EMRs to become an increasingly important part of mHealth services. Go long on EMRs. For more, check out Juniper’s release here . Image excerpt from mHealthWatch

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mHealth: Remote Patient Monitoring Is On The Rise, With Smartphones Leading The Way