Archive for the ‘Industry’ Category
Friday, March 8th, 2013
Tom Truong, Product Manager
I was surprised by one device maker at MWC last week. I hadn’t found them in the exhibit halls the first day, but inadvertently found them leaving one exhibit hall for another.
It was the Sony booth.
A year ago, none of their smartphones, tablets, or even consumer products excited me. The blogosphere didn’t exactly find much of a differentiator in Sony’s Xperia Android-based devices. Their tablets had the characteristic Android 4.0 lagged performance and the industrial design was supposed to be something like a thick plastic version of a folded open book.
This year has been refreshingly different. A different industrial design was also afoot. Sony can now boast one of the thinnest designs, with one more twist: water proofing and even some quick liquid immersion. Thanks to improved hardware and an Android OS that is now buttery smooth, performance was snappy and felt similar to an iPad.
I’m not a fan of the little plastic covers, but this was one sexy tablet to behold and to use. I’ll go back to the waterproofing though–I think this is evidence of innovation and leadership. While I love Apple products, their recent approach to water hazards was to make a sticker that turned red upon water detection to deny warranty claims.
Sony claims you can even dunk the device and operate under water. How does this work? I went digging a bit and ran into a company at MWC called P2i. I’m not sure whether Sony is using P2i, and the P2i rep wouldn’t confirm it, but here’s how it works on their website:
The P2i technology employs plasma enhanced vapor deposition processing to apply an ultrathin polymer layer onto all surfaces of a product. The process takes place under low pressure within a vacuum chamber at room temperature. The coating is introduced as a vapor and ionized. This allows for the development of the polymer layer, which forms a covalent bond with the product’s surface, making it extremely durable.
This technology doesn’t leave the device oily feeling, nor does it add any bulk to the device. At the P2I booth, they demonstrated this technology on a number of materials, including paper tissue. Check out what happens to water leaked onto a treated piece of regular tissue paper.
You can imagine the possibilities for devices–these are everyday companions to us, and now I’m excited about all the beach and water photos one would be able to take with this technology.
Want to hear about my top 10 list at Mobile World Congress? It’s coming soon!
An amazing technology at MWC13 – P2i >>
Tuesday, March 5th, 2013
Tom Truong, Product Manager
Walking all the exhibit halls and seeing the miniature cities raised for meeting centers left the impression that mobile is going to become even more interwoven in our daily lives. I’m going to recap the tech highlights of Mobile World Congress, but first I’d like to share some takeaways from the conference as a whole.
Every company wants a mobile play
And why shouldn’t they? That’s where their customers are. Here at MWC, the immediate impact of this idea can be seen in the effort and resources put forth by companies to seize the market and mindshare. Well-established companies and startups alike see mobile as a land grab opportunity to dominate and be relevant in the immediate and near future.
Here is one of many “hospitality” suites that built out like town centers at MWC. Amdocs would like to curb the support costs of smart devices with their on-device agents.
eBay states that $400 is spent every second on eBay Mobile. Shopping on mobile is going to be huge.
AirWatch managed one of the largest exhibit booths by also incorporating room for their partners.
Visa looks as much a technology company as a financial institution.
It’s about proliferation, not consolidation
As far as mobile ecosystems go, Android and iOS aren’t going to budge from their number one and two spots any time soon. The majority of smartphones and tablets today are ARM-based and it’s a good probability that the chipsets are from Qualcomm or Nvidia. Got a device from Samsung or Apple? You’re far from alone, across the planet.
However the atmosphere and evidence of everything here at MWC suggests that these footholds are transient. Microsoft, Blackberry, Intel, LG, and plenty others are gearing up for round two.
Mozilla just launched FireFox OS to compete in the low to mid-end mobile market. The OS was mostly fluid on the Telefonica devices, and seemed to be very solid for the target market.
Huawei’s expanding beyond the low-end market with some impressive devices like Ascend P2–a gorgeous screen and a 13MP camera!
From ultrabooks to a new emphasis on mobile, Intel is heavily promoting their Android-based device capabilities such as battery life and graphics performance.
Samsung continues its Windows 8 tablet foray with the Ativ Smart PC. I loaded the iPass Open Mobile client on it, ran our speed test, and wow, Wi-Fi here was blisteringly fast!
On the whole, innovation felt iterative, not disruptive at this MWC
While I’m sure I missed a few announcements, there didn’t seem to be anything disruptive in technology this year. New devices are typically slab-styled and made of plastic and glass. Display technologies now crammed with more pixels into bigger screens. Android is being introduced into more consumer electronics.
Device manufacturers seemed desperate to find a hook with consumers this time around. To wit:
Samsung: more screen sizes, advance the stylus, more CPU cores
Huawei: higher end devices, better screens
HTC: better sound, less intrusive homescreen branding
ZTE: more camera megapixels, higher end devices
Sharp: dual screens, thin design
Motorola: kevlar material, Intel inside
LG: Qslide multitasking, better screens
There were good advancements at this year’s MWC, but again it seemed iterative. I’m still waiting for new battery technologies that take us from single day use to week long use in the same form factor. Don’t get me wrong, by no means was it a boring MWC. There were a few standouts. I’ll get to those shortly. Stay tuned.
Mobile World Congress 2013 Takeaways >>
Thursday, February 28th, 2013
Karen Ambrose Hickey, Editor
There’s still time! To participate in our survey regarding international data roaming.
Here are some early results about international Wi-Fi roaming services: how valuable they might be and how they might change data usage.
Chart 1: The majority (over 60%) view International Wi-Fi Roaming as valuable.
Chart 2: Even while subscribed to an International 3G Data plan, consumers still opt for Wi-Fi as the first choice where it becomes available.
Please provide your input to our survey and you will be entered to win a new iPad.
Early results on international Wi-Fi roaming survey >>
Wednesday, February 27th, 2013
Tom Truong, Product Manager
Dear Wi-Fi,
I’m sorry I ever doubted you. Please take me back.
With undying devotion,
Tom
It all started with a little SMS.
“Tu saldo es inferior a 2eur.” I understood after a bit of a double take: I had less than 2 euros on my mobile account.
Well, I certainly felt less than content when I got this notice a few hours after buying a prepaid sim here in Barcelona. The brochure had advertised 1 cent a minute to the US, so I figured 10 euros would be enough for a couple days of text and voice calls back home.
Back I went to the cellular store and the guy there shrugged his shoulders and said something vaguely about the fact that he “only activates these for different companies and sometimes it’s more expensive…” I’m paraphrasing generously here. He wouldn’t look at the account detail to explain how I used up $10 of credit with only a few texts and a handful of quick calls, and told me to take it up with the operator. “The speak English yes!” he assured me. After 5 mins of trying to find the English option, I gave up there and went to go create an account so I could better understand the relationship with my new mobile operator.
I had a bit more luck with the operator’s web portal–they offered English right on the first page, but kept defaulting back to Spanish every time I clicked on something. There was something about a tarifa, mi tarifa, that sounded promising…oh look what I found: listado de llamadas:
So up to the point where I thought buying a local sim would be even better than Google Voice and VOIP over Wi-Fi, I didn’t realize things could get so pricey without mobile data in the picture. There was probably some kind of fine print in the prepaid terms about how they’d charge me, but I’m pretty sure my lesson was cheap compared to others.
$1 for a single SMS
$2.50 for 3 misplaced calls
You can see how $10 was a drop in the ocean when you’re roaming internationally. What led me to even go down the prepaid sim route was the thought that perhaps someone couldn’t reach me in real time as I roamed with Wi-Fi. I’ve previously mentioned the decent iPass Wi-Fi coverage here in Barcelona—the next couple days have been even better because my phones started auto-connecting on their own to networks I’d visited, including a few free ones that I manually connected to previously.
So I think Wi-Fi might have forgiven me my temporary indiscretion. Earlier today, when I took a walk near the Museum of Art, I naturally took a few photos, and guess what showed up? More iPass networks.
So check out the moment I was able to share with my friends back home. Pretty amazing, right?
Part 1 of 2 parts…
Dear Wi-Fi…[part 1 of 2] >>
Tuesday, February 26th, 2013
Tom Truong, Product Manager
Remember when I had a hard time choosing which tablet to bring with me to MWC 2013? Well Samsung just made it even harder with their just announced Galaxy Note 8”. How is it different from the recent Galaxy Note II? I got a hands-on this morning at the Samsung booth and here are my initial impressions. While the original Note had a solid “oomph” and weight for a phone, the Note 8 seems to be a bit too light for a tablet–the plasticky feel is even more pronounced with the wider bezel design. Other phone makers are going for a ‘right to the edge’ screen, so the Galaxy Note 8 feels like a bit of a step backwards in design. What do you think?
On the other hand, the software and hardware on this device are definitely improved from the original Note–the S pen finally works the way a real pen should (no lag, no need to hold the pen at a special angle) and it feels natural to the jot down notes, diagram some ideas–all very slick. Still a bit awkward is how one is supposed to use the S Pen. There are about 8 or 9 apps to showcase the S Pen–I was able to jot notes, edit photos, annotate, and share. Some of the apps are more of a novelty, and my general sense is that it feels like it should just be a single notepad app that prioritizes basic functions and lets users discover more advanced capabilities intuitively and on their own.
So how did I fare with my device selection on the first day of MWC? I decided to bring a small, yet manly, hand bag which stored my iPad Mini, Galaxy Note, some biz cards, and a portable 4000 mAh battery. I pictured myself getting to a table somewhere to take notes and write another post.
WRONG.
Mobile World Congress is a behemoth of a conference with some local news stations estimating the crowd to be about 100K people. My iPhone was great at my hotel where I had iPass Wi-Fi roaming (wasn’t subjected to the free guest access that was limited to 256Kbps and 100MB transfer), but at MWC, I had to go to specific places to get on the conference supplied Wi-Fi. This meant taking my devices in and out a lot–so I pretty much left my tablet in my bag the whole day. Both smartphones were very useful for the intermittent connectivity, and I especially liked how my Android was able to smoothly transition between the prepaid sim I bought and the Skype/Talkatone app whenever I had Wi-Fi.
In retrospect, I would have kept things super light and just brought one smartphone for the first day. With decent iPass coverage in Barcelona and Wi-Fi at the event itself, I had enough connectivity to schedule meetings, send emails, and keep in touch throughout the day.
Striking the right balance with mobile devices (Galaxy Note 8) >>
