pcworld.com - French mobile operator Iliad has offered to buy T-Mobile US, the fourth-largest U.S. cellular carrier, in a bid that could complicate an offer reportedly in the works at Sprint.
Iliad confirmed on Wednesday that it has offered $15 billion in cash for 56.6 percent of T-Mobile. Its bid prices the whole company at $36.2 per share, a premium of 42 percent over T-Mobile's share price on Dec. 12, before speculation about a Sprint bid affected the price, Iliad said.
The bid has the support of Iliad's board and its founder and majority shareholder, Xavier Niel, the company said. Iliad said it will raise the cash through debt and equity and has the support of international banks to raise the debt.
Sprint, the third-largest U.S. carrier, has been preparing a bid for T-Mobile for months, according to published reports. Such an offer would probably face a cold reception by U.S. regulators because it would reduce the U.S. mobile market from four to three major competitors.
A takeover by Iliad would not cause that type of consolidation, a point that Iliad made in a press release confirming its interest in making a deal. T-Mobile US is majority owned by the German carrier Deutsche Telekom.
Iliad's bid could set off a bidding war that might raise the price for T-Mobile.
Iliad is a wired and wireless operator known in France for aggressive pricing and innovative plans. "T-Mobile US has successfully established a disruptive position, which in many ways, is similar to the one Iliad has built in France," the company said in its press release.

mobileworldlive.com - There are "more than a dozen vendors" that could take a top-five position in the smartphone charts in the next quarter, IDC said, with tough competition among the lower ranks.
According to the company, "emerging markets supported by local vendors" continued to act as the "main catalyst" for smartphone growth.
"As the death of the feature phone approaches more rapidly than before, it is the Chinese vendors that are ready to usher emerging market consumers into smartphones. The offer of smartphones at a much better value than the top global players but with a stronger build quality and larger scale than local competitors gives these vendors a precarious competitive advantage," said Melissa Chau, senior research manager with the company.
As a whole, the market grew by 23.1 per cent year-on-year, to reach 295.3 million shipments, a new single quarter record. The company expects the 300 million unit quarter to occur this year.
The Q2 2014 chart was led by Samsung, although it lost 7 per cent market share year-on-year, "despite having one of the largest smartphone portfolios of all OEMs". The company should "focus on building momentum in markets dominated by local brands", IDC said.
In second place was Apple, which has suffered from a traditional seasonal low ahead of the anticipated introduction of a new iPhone. The third quarter "could be a drought or a flood" depending on the timing of its next device release, the research firm noted.
Landing third spot was Huawei, with a "story centred on 4G LTE pick-up, particularly in China". Outside of its home market, larger volumes of its lower-cost Y series devices fuelled growth across most regions.
Another Chinese vendor, Lenovo, took fourth place, with a record quarter in its home market "despite tremendous pressure from local brands". Ahead of its anticipated acquisition of Motorola Mobility, Lenovo is already gaining traction outside of its home market, with the proportion of its shipments going to international buyers tripling year-on-year.
Fifth-placed LG saw its volumes driven by its mass-market L smartphones, such as L70, which "performed well in many markets including the US". The wider international rollout of its flagship G3 is also likely to drive volumes in the coming months.

mobileworldlive.com - The profound effect of mobile devices on traditional banking has hit home already but Raja Teh Maimunah - MD and CEO of leading Malaysian financial institution Hong Leong Islamic Bank - highlighted how it will also impact online transactions in the future.
"Most things will be done through mobile at least once you've opened an account and done your purchase. Your transactions after that will all be done via mobile, so I think in the next five to ten years there is a going to be a huge shift to mobile, leaving online behind", she told Mobile World Live.
Maimunah predicted branch banking will "look very different" in the future as a result of customers using their mobile devices for traditional services.
Given the forecasts that some have made for closures of physical branches, Maimunah might be considered an optimist given she thinks they will not disappear altogether.
Indeed, Hong Leong Islamic Bank has already taken steps to freshen up its branch network, in the face of digital and mobile competitors.
Like many of its peers, the Malaysian bank has created a digital sub-brand to better face nimble rivals. Its brand is called Mach.
And the bank has launched a flagship service which allows users to make P2P payments using only their mobile number. Banks in other markets around the service have launched similar services.

mobileworldlive.com - Samsung is backing open hardware and software platforms in the hope of encouraging the wider development of sensors, algorithms and data collection for health-based services.
The South Korean vendor has come up with an open hardware reference design called Simband, which it has demonstrated in the form of a wearable wristband.
It also showed off how an open software platform could pull together and display data from a number of sources.
The platforms are designed to attract entrepreneurs - and new thinking - to the health sector.
Samsung's own description for what the basic hardware platform can do was fairly typical - track measurements such as heart rate, respiratory rate and blood pressure.
In fairness, the company has shown an interest in the health sector for some time and has a string of partnerships and service announcements behind it.
And it is not the only handset vendor supposedly fascinated by health. Arch rival Apple is also thought to have studied the sector closely, although with no announcements made.
In addition to its Samsung Digital Health Initiative, the vendor unveiled the Samsung Digital Health Challenge - a $50 million investment fund for digital health startups.
"Samsung's Digital Health Initiative provides an exciting opportunity for the brightest minds in the technology world to come together to develop the products that will, for the first time, put individuals in the driver's seat in understanding their own health and wellness," said Young Sohn (pictured), president and chief strategy officer, device solutions, Samsung Electronics.

news.yahoo.com - Smartphones have effectively replaced a lot of the gadgets that we used to buy, including calculators, compasses, alarm clocks and dedicated GPS trackers. And now The Wall Street Journal reports that smartphones look poised to kill off another antiquated piece of technology - hotel key cards.
Per the Journal, Hilton is planning to implement technology that will let its guests use their smartphones to open up their hotel rooms starting next year. The new integration of smartphones as hotel keys is part of a $550 million investment that Hilton is making to make it easier for guests to use their smartphones not just to unlock their rooms but to pick out their rooms and to check in and out of hotels.
Hilton is going to start rolling out this technology to its facilities in 2015, with the goal of installing it at all of its 4,200 properties by the end of 2016. Hilton CEO Chris Nassetta tells the Journal that this move is all about "giving customers unprecedented choice and control at scale, and in the palm of their hands," and it could also have the side benefit of potentially attracting younger customers who are used to using their smartphones for just about everything as well.
No matter what, this is potentially great news for anyone who has left their hotel room without taking their key cards with them, especially since most of us just don't go anywhere without our smartphones anymore.

wired.com - Square first came to fame with a credit card reader you could plug into your iPhone jack. But next year, the company's signature device will be on its way to obsolescence as the U.S transitions to a new kind of credit card that verifies purchases with an embedded computer chip.
In anticipation of this sweeping change in the way Americans pay, Square designers and engineers have been working on new hardware the company hopes will not only navigate that change, but make Square the first and best option for the millions of merchants who will need to make the switch.
The change happens in October 2015, when credit card companies will start cajoling merchants to accept cards that work via a more secure embedded chip rather than the classic-and classically easy to hack-stripe on the back of every card now. In what's being called the great "liability shift," the major card networks-Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover-say merchants who don't offer a way to accept the new chip-based cards, also known as EMV cards, by the deadline will be responsible for any fraud they suffer as a result, not the card companies.
'IT GIVES US THE OPPORTUNITY TO RUTHLESSLY EDIT WHAT THIS THING IS.'
The big challenge in making the shift is that every business that takes credit cards will need to buy new hardware capable of reading the new cards. Chip-card readers aren't new-EMV has been in use for years in Europe, Canada, Asia, and Latin America-but the transition in the U.S. gives Square a chance to make its reader the first many merchants in the world's largest economy see.
new-square-01
Square
"It gives us the opportunity to ruthlessly edit what this thing is," says Jesse Dorogusker, Square's head of hardware design, whose other credits include designing the Lightning plug connector for iPhones and iPads during his eight years at Apple. Last week, WIRED sat down with Dorogusker for an exclusive peek at Square's newest card reader, which will accept chip and stripe both.
While Square's earliest readers were mainly pitched to small businesses and individuals who didn't think accepting credit cards was within their reach, the EMV switchover gives the company a chance to convince businesses they should leapfrog more traditional terminals that read chips and embrace Square's distinctive minimalist approach. "The big scary 're-terminalization' moment that everyone is standing and staring at, we're going to make that easier for millions," Dorogusker says.
Cornering the Market
The push to develop its new reader came not just from next year's deadline but from existing customers asking Square what they needed to know about the change and whether the company could help. While the new chip-based cards are the same size and shape as the old magnetic strip version, the underlying technology is completely different. A stripe simply encodes the numbers already stamped on the front of the card. "Your card really plays no role but giving up its secrets," Dorogusker says.
A chip-based card, on the other hand, essentially contains a mini-computer that for now at least is much more tamper-proof than a stripe. The secret information they contain that identifies one card from another is tougher to steal, tougher to duplicate, and all together more difficult to manipulate, because each transaction amounts to what the company describes as a "unique impression" to encrypt each sale.
It's this heightened security that is motivating the credit card industry to push for the switch, and some big stores have already started. Target, for example, shamed by the 40 million card numbers stolen from its system, says that all its stores would be equipped to accept chip-based cards by early 2015, ahead of the deadline.
Goodbye to the Swipe
But that increased complexity also raised the design challenge for Square, starting with the form factor. Up until now, Square's card readers were designed for a single motion: the swipe. But chip-based cards don't work that way.
new-square-dipping
Square
The chips themselves are visibly located in the middle on the left end of the cards, and most readers use a slot that resembles a shorter version of an ATM for dipping in the entire end of the card. Also, unlike magnetic-stripe cards, chip cards stay in the reader for the duration of the transaction. A Square reader the width of an entire credit card-which is almost exactly the width of an iPhone 5s-would be unwieldy. So Square opted instead for a partial slot that takes just the upper left corner of the card, which keeps the new reader reasonably smaller than the phone, though significantly larger than its current swipe-only reader.
But Dorogusker and company also reckoned that a change in consumer behavior this momentous would hardly happen smoothly or right away. Merchants will likely have to be able to accept magnetic-stripe cards for years to come as the switchover plods along among cardholders and issuers. "In the U.S., I think it will be a transitional market for quite a long time," he says.
That's why the new Square reader also includes a track for swiping, separated from the chip slot by a thin piece of plastic. Fortunately for Dorogusker, he and his team had already put in the work to shrink the "head" needed to read a magnetic stripe down to the size of a child's fingernail. That left plenty of room for the rest of the internal components needed to make its mobile reader chip-ready.
Whatever Comes Across the Counter
One of the biggest pieces of internal gadgetry needed to accept chip-based cards is a battery. The cards themselves don't carry a power source. They rely on readers to power the chips, which are capable of exchanging much more data with credit card issuers across the network than simple identification information (Chip cards can be customized with different kinds of restrictions on how much can be spent and where, for example).
new-square-swiping
Square
So, the new Square reader comes equipped with a super-thin battery and a mini-USB port to charge it, a feature its stripe-only reader doesn't require. And manage that power, Dorogusker says, Square wrote the software to run the new reader from scratch. "The software is probably hardest to describe and the hardest to do." The onboard algorithms try to keep the reader powered long enough to go through a busy day of business without needing to be charged.
The software also works to get around the inherent slowness of chip-reading compared to stripe-swiping, and additional technology works to prevent tampering-the primary reason for the switch to chips.
The Missing PIN
The one major feature that will be missing from the new reader will be an additional layer of security from which the popular nickname for EMV comes: "chip and PIN." The most secure chip-based card systems also require a PIN instead of an easily forged signature to verify the identity of the cardholder. Dorogusker says that, in the U.S., card issuers aren't requiring PINs as part of the transition, so merchants who take Square will use a "chip and signature" system.
To be sure, a keypad for entering PINs would make the reader too large for use with smartphones. Though Dorogusker wouldn't speculate on PINs as a future option, it seems plausible that Square's Register app could offer a PIN-entry option, much as it allows cardholders to scribble their signatures on the touchscreen already.
Whatever future iterations have in store, Square appears to be prepared for the big switch coming in little more than a year. In the future, Dorogusker says he hopes to shrink down the chip-card reader to get closer to the current stripe-reader's size. But the most important thing, he says, is simply creating a way for Square to be there as soon as it's needed.
"The real reason we got on it early is that it was definitely coming, definitely complicated, and we don't totally control when it's coming," Dorogusker says. "This is really about making sure our merchants can accept whatever comes across the counter."

cnet.com - For better or for worse, these unconventional handsets' risky shapes, colors, and materials stand out among the crowd.
Phone makers use every trick in the book to differentiate their phones on store shelves, from bright colors to unusual proportions, textures, and materials. Here are five smartphones that turn heads for striking shapes, aggressive style, and distinct physical features that you just don't see every day.

mobiquityinc.com - Over the next four years, expect mobile revenue to increase more than 300 percent, according to a new report from Digi-Capital. By 2017, that amounts to $700 billion. The highest growth will be seen in the mobile-commerce sector, which will grow to around $516 billion, whereas consumer applications will pull in another $74 billion. To round off the list, enterprise mobility will reach around $53 billion, and the rest is divided between mobile ads and wearables.
During this time, Asia will be responsible for half the global growth, including a whopping $230 billion in mobile commerce. One area that will probably cool down is mobile games. For more data, you can check out the full report here.

embedded-m2m-solutions.tmcnet.com - While Android (News - Alert) might already be a popular platform for smartphones, a new report by VDC Research, "Android to Become M2M Platform of Choice DC," finds that it also has a lot of potential as an M2M platform.
"Android is a massively disruptive technology for the embedded technology vendor community. While there have always been many OS's to support the wide diversity of embedded and M2M applications, never has a new OS gained so much traction so quickly," said VDC vice president Chris Rommel.
The new report forecasts more than one million embedded developers working with Android in M2M applications by the end of 2015.
One major impetus for the growth of Android in M2M applications is the mobile OS's increasing focus on security. Developers are also becoming more familiar with the Android platform as a whole. The familiarity and increasing security have made Android a viable platform for embedded applications where it had been previously unthinkable.
Android is a modified version of Linux, which is already used extensively in back-end applications, including Web servers. It only makes sense that its open source nature would make it attractive to developers to take and customize to their own needs, since Linux is in itself a platform that many engineers are already familiar with.
ADC (News - Alert) sees that biggest applications for Android M2M solutions in automotive and automotive applications. Another major area, as befits Android's increasing focus on security, is in military applications.
The growth in embedded Android applications will pose a major threat to established companies, including Microsoft (News - Alert). ARM, which Android runs on, will also benefit from the growth of Android, with Intel playing catch-up. Legacy customers will want faster, cheaper and better solutions, and Android looks poised to deliver.
"We see significant Android-driven disruption ahead, with big winners and big losers. For the world's largest technology vendors, it's time to adjust or suffer what could be very serious consequences," Rommel said.

websitemagazine.com - Mobility is one of those third platform technologies, which dictates the way enterprises function. As the competition is getting fierce, the need for being always on the go and be connected while on the go, arises.
Increased enterprise mobility enables employees to do their jobs better, without being bound by location constraints. Increased efficiency leads to increased productivity and hence increased revenues. However, it has also become imperative for organizations to manage enterprise mobility well, and be responsive to the changing technologies, evolving mobility requirements and the latest enterprise mobility trends.
TRENDS TO WATCH OUT FOR IN 2014
Experts say that the market for enterprise mobility will remain highly competitive in 2014. This competition will lead to availability of enhanced enterprise mobility management (EMM) with tremendous capabilities at relatively low costs. EMM tools will also evolve and hence the SaaS based delivery approach will gain prominence. The increased demand for better control over applications and enterprise data, will lead to more efforts and improvements in this direction.
SET BACK
The evolution and escalation of EMM technology is somehow impeded due to the lack of management API across mobile devices. While some Android devices do provide a large number of management APIs, the other device vendors are reluctant to offer the same, and are adopting a cautious and a rather slow approach.
CLOUD COMPUTING
Organizations are increasingly turning to cloud based technology. However, cloud computing provides the ubiquitous access to Internet, and this creates a complex mobility environment. It is therefore necessary for organizations to become security and cost conscious. There are three factors that demand attention,
1) Organizations need to deliver higher degree of connectivity and mobility without relying on the end users to manually select connectivity options.
2) Enterprise mobility management efforts should be directed at reducing access costs.
3) Cloud security should be implemented as an inherent part of the enterprise mobility strategy.
MOBILITY STRATEGIES - AREAS OF IMPROVEMENT
To develop improved mobility it is imperative to focus on improving identity and access management. Here, adaptive access control lies at the core. This includes tracking of user information such as location, behavioral patterns, etc., and using it to authenticate the identity of the user and also reduce the risk of unauthenticated use of mobility.
Now, commercial apps provide user experience of the highest order, however, the same kind of efforts have not been made in order to improve the user experience for B2E apps. It is now time to concentrate on this aspect. Developers should, and will focus on delivering higher user experience and making the enterprise applications more intuitive and user friendly.
POTENTIAL CHALLENGES
Enterprises are relying on WLAN's like never before, for mission critical communications. As a result network design, network management and problem identification and analysis becomes highly complex. Unfortunately, WLAN's are inundated with problems like insufficient coverage, below average performance, and lack of service for employee's personal devices.
Bring your own devices (BYOD) is a key revolution in enterprise client computing, and dealing with BYOD strategies poses as a big challenge. Addressing these challenges involves providing improved network capacity, managing bandwidth, differentiating the BYOD devices from enterprise devices, adding IP voice servicers and expanding site mobile access.
Implementing BYOD, makes workspace delivery, information security and device management all the more challenging. Now these challenges are unavoidable, but they must be addressed at any cost. IT teams should work in collaboration with the end users and the business managers across an enterprise, they should predict BYOD requirements in advance and create policies and take measures to fulfill them.

cio.com - Over the last several years, the popularity of smartphones, notebooks, and other handhelds has soared. While sales of mobile continue to rise, sales of traditional desktop PCs are in decline, with many industry analysts referring to this as a post-PC era.
The enterprise workforce expects the ability to work productively and securely share enterprise information from anywhere and at any time. Today's knowledge workers expect the ability to remain productive at all times and in all places, which requires instant access to data and functions, and seamless collaboration with colleagues and partners.
Mobile applications enable employees to make informed decisions and participate fully in business processes. Mobile computing is one of the few areas where consumers and employees are driving the usage of new technologies in the business world. But managing the mobile workforce requires transforming IT to enable secure, productive, and cost-effective mobile computing. Some of the steps to be taken to effectively transform the enterprise and manage the mobile workforce include:
Developing a mobile strategy and defining the processes that are to be "mobilized".
Supporting the secure connection of end devices to the corporate landscape based on mobile device management policies.
Provisioning mobile middleware to reduces the management activities for IT and enable different operating systems, apps and back-ends to be connected securely to one another
Implementing new mobile apps
Optimizing existing applications for mobile usage
T-Systems offers a standardized web platform for the simple administration of a wide range of mobile devices and operating systems that allows organizations to efficiently manage the mobile workforce. It enables companies to, for example, implement security updates, manage access rights to functions and apps, and in the case of loss or theft, remotely wipe device data. Organizations have the option of controlling their mobile device landscape in-house via a Web platform using Mobile Device Management, or outsourcing mobile device control using the Managed Workplace Services offering. This outsourced approach offers companies a secure and adjustable solution that makes digital workplaces available anywhere, at any time and on any device-and it also saves costs.
To make this possible, the workplaces are no longer on PCs that are installed in the offices but are kept centrally in a T-Systems data center. Employees access their usual desktop via a browser and the user interface is always the same, whether it is on a PC, laptop, smartphone, or tablet.
Companies can quickly and easily add new workplaces if required. Based on standard modules, the workplaces can be individually adapted. Authorized employees can order additional services by themselves via a self-service portal, thus saving on administrative costs. Since all the computing takes place in the cloud, companies also spend less on hardware, and can simpler and lower-cost devices to the mobile workforce.

insurancejournal.com - An agent's technological plate is so full it may seem impossible to decide where to start. Experts agree that embracing mobile needs to take top priority for two critical tasks: to mobile-optimize the agency website and streamline clients' access to various functions via smartphones.
"Agents must streamline their mobile technology, no question," says Ron Berg, executive director at ACT - Agents Council for Technology. "In fact, agents need to be in front of insurance buyers in their use of smartphones, not behind as they are now. It's not happening fast enough."
According to the Pew Internet Research Project, 58 percent of American adults own a smartphone and 34 percent go online mostly using their phones rather than using another device such as a desktop or laptop computer. Other studies confirm that mobile is more personal than a desktop or laptop - it's how people communicate today and it's more cost-effective in the long run.
Berg explains that some agents just add a carrier's mobile app to their website without understanding the consequences.
Agents need to be in front of insurance buyers in their use of smartphones, not behind as they are now.
"Let's say you're an agent who has mobile apps from four of the six carriers you represent. Unless you place all of a policyholder's business with one carrier, you're forcing the consumer to add multiple apps, which is confusing and takes extra time," Berg says. "Most damaging of all is the fact that it discourages consumers from going through agents at all."
"Agencies need to provide clients a single, mobile point of contact regardless of carrier and policy," says Kiki Johnson of GoInsuranceAgent.com. "It's critical for them to understand what apps can do for their clients and the benefits they can get in return, including greater retention and the ability to stay top-of-mind and relevant for the consumer 24/7."
Johnson adds that mobile is critical for three different audiences, all of which have different requirements: producers for their internal use, prospects who use smartphones to shop with, and clients who want to access their policies and perform critical functions such as creating a household inventory.
"Unfortunately, the vast majority of agents are not focused on utilizing, maximizing and investing in mobile," says Chris Paradiso of Connecticut-based Paradiso Insurance. "Half of our web traffic is from mobile devices. For agents, there are many resources to self-educate via articles, YouTube videos and conferences. I'd talk to fellow agents you trust and who have adopted these technologies to understand the best ways to achieve maximum ROI (return on investment)."
ACT's Berg also recommends that agents reach out to their carriers to determine what resources may be available, including training and co-op funds.
"Society is moving incredibly fast in the use of the smartphones and we, as agents, are not reacting fast enough in response," says Linda Rey of Rey Insurance, Sleepy Hollow, N.Y. Rey's agency has its own mobile app that accesses all policies and carriers - and the result has been a marked increase in retention.
"The fact is, mobile will dominate the marketplace," says Paradiso. "The consumer is used to many of these technologies outside of the insurance space. People hardly go to the bank any longer.
"ATMs and mobile banking have made the customer experience easy and painless. We are silly to not believe insurance will not follow that path of creating an easy-to-use system for real-time quoting, e-signatures and claims reporting, in addition to automated communications based on activities," Paradiso says.
This is the third of a series on the technology issues facing agents. The focus is on practical solutions on many fronts, including the customer experience, privacy and security.

business2community.com - In today's fast paced competitive business environment, implementing mobility in your business is no longer a "nice to have option" - but an absolute necessity. And if you are a mid market company aspiring to grow into the big league, Enterprise Mobility is surely a key driver for growth that you cannot afford to ignore.
Top 5 Reasons Why Mid Market Companies Should Get "Mobile" Now! image Enterprise Mobility
Let us take a brief look at the top 5 reasons that clearly make the decision to go "mobile" almost a no-brainer:
Acquire new customers:
Equip the sales teams with not just information on your products and services - but let them manage the sales pipeline - all while they are moving from customer to customer. Mobility can also make it easy for the salespersons to capture orders at the field - ensuring a higher close rates
Grow the revenue per customer:
Mobility is a great driver for loyalty programs - be it keeping track of purchases, offering customized location based promotions or using mobile commerce to accelerate order processing and revenue recognition.
Keep your Customers Satisfied:
"Customer is always right" - is no longer considered to be the ideal foundation while striving to offer superior customer service. Instead, empowering employees with sufficient tools and decision making skills - to serve the customers better works far more efficiently. Mobility can play a key role in ensuring that the employees have the right information at the right place on the device they have access to - in order to take the right decisions to support customers fully. Mobility also could be a medium to implement effective self-service for customers.
Keep Costs Down:
Using technologies like location tracking, geofencing etc, one can maximize salesperson and field service effectiveness - bring cost of sales as well as cost of service down. Mobile point of sales as well as m-commerce can drastically bring down the cost of sales while improving on cash flows that will reflect very well in your balance sheets.
Tracking your Business:
As business owners, one needs to be informed on the progress of the business in terms of defined parameters. These should take the form of real time or near real time dashboards being made available on mobile devices, rather than as static planned or canned reports. Here again, Mobility can help business leaders be constantly in touch the reality of the state of the business - and take informed action as required.
Top 5 Reasons Why Mid Market Companies Should Get "Mobile" Now! image MobileBI 300x194
The benefits and the extent of such benefits that a particular company can derive out of adopting Enterprise Mobility will differ from one to another - based on the industry vertical they belong to, current levels of automation, the size of the company, the business model etc.
But one thing is certain, the benefits are "real" and they are available NOW... The decision whether or not to get on the bandwagon should be a no-brainer for any mid market company.

mddionline.com - Apple has been granted a patent for a wearable device that shows some of the company's ambitions for the iWatch.
Let's face it, Google, Samsung, and whoever else can release as many as they want, but consumers' heads won't really turn until they hear one name attached to a smartwatch - Apple.
Apple's patent documents refer to a device called "iTime"
As first reported by Web site AppleInsider, Apple was granted a patent today for a wrist-worn electronic device that looks to be the basis of the highly-anticipated "iWatch." The patent documents, filed in 2011, detail a wearable device that looks comparable to a wrist-worn version of the iPod and features a touchscreen interface, audio and video capabilities, as well as alerts for phone calls, text messages, and social media updates. The documents also suggest a device capable of integrating GPS, a heart rate monitor, accelerometer, and haptic feedback as well as the ability to remotely control other devices such as music players and recognize hand gestures and movements. Wearers could wave their hands to reject a phone call, for example.
Given the patent filing is over three years old, it's not surprising to see the iWatch patent proposing some of the same functionalities seen in already-released products like Samsung's Galaxy Gear.
The patent documents also say the device can be integrated into a "personal wireless environment" and communicate with other devices including a wearer's personal computer and mobile phone, a plan which falls readily in line with new products and services Apple has already revealed this year. At its annual developer's conference Apple unveiled its own mobile health app - Health - and HealthKit, its foray into digital health that Apple says will become a hub for all of your mHealth data and allow data to be shared across different applications and devices. The company already has some major names in healthcare onboard with HealthKit, including the Mayo Clinic. Providing digital health services in a wrist-worn form factor, one that is more convenient and unobtrusive than any smartphone, seems only like a logical step.
Apple's patent documents envision the iWatch as part of a personal ecosystem of wireless devices.
Apple hasn't released any details regarding the actual functionality of its iWatch. The official product announcement should confirm just how serious the company's commitment to digital health is in this regard. Earlier this month, Qmed reported that Apple has hired several employees from medical sensor company C8 MediSensors and has " spent a lot of time working on the technology for gathering data through skin..."
Given Apple's tradition of keeping its systems and software relatively closed off (ever tried changing the battery on your iPod or iPhone?) it is doubtful the iWatch will employ the sort of open, modular functionality that Samsung is currently developing for its upcoming Simband. However, Apple has been noted to encourage app development and has even gone as far as creating a new programming language - Swift- to lower the barrier to entry for aspiring developers. Depending on the final functionalities of the iWatch, users could see third party developers creating plethora of health and fitness apps for the device, just as they have done with the iPhone.
Apple is reported to have begun mass production of the iWatch this month with an eye on an official release in time for the 2014 holiday season or early 2015.

mobileworldlive.com - Microsoft announced a new entry-level addition to its Windows Phone-powered Lumia device range in the shape of the €85 Lumia 530, following its decision to shelve the Nokia X line which competed at a similar price point.
The device is also a successor to the popular Lumia 520, which was previously identified as the subject of "strong customer demand".
In Microsoft's most recent results call, it was revealed that sales of Lumia devices were being driven by lower cost devices, such as the 500 and 600 series.
But the device is still more expensive than many entry-level Android devices, meaning that it will not be able to win entry-level buyers on price alone.
Lumia 520 has a 4-inch FWVGA display, a 5MP camera, and 4GB of onboard storage with microSD expansion slot.
It is powered by a 1.2GHz quadcore Snapdragon processor, with 512MB of RAM, and has HSPA connectivity.
There are signs it has been built to a price: it has no front-facing camera, for example.
And there are even some areas where it compares poorly with the Lumia 520: the earlier device had 8GB of onboard storage and supported 720p video capture (compared with FWVGA for the Lumia 530).
The recently announced X2, powered by a version of Android integrated with Microsoft's online services, still beats Lumia 520 in some areas, including a front-facing camera "for Skype video calls and selfies".
Availability is expected in August 2014. It will be available in both single- and dual-SIM versions, and will come with changeable shells.

marketwatch.com - Enterprises leverage IT as more data intensive mobile applications migrate over to tablets
The use of smartphones and laptops is widespread among enterprises, with nearly three out of every four organizations issuing corporate-owned laptops (74 percent) and smartphones (71 percent) to their workforces. Tablets, on the other hand, are issued by only half (47 percent) the surveyed enterprises; however, these devices are expected to bridge this gap over the next three years, as many of the more data-intensive mobile applications migrate over to the tablets.
New analysis from Frost & Sullivan ( http://www.wireless.frost.com [ http://www.frost.com/prod/servlet/svcg.pag/ITMW ]), The Future of Mobile Devices from a Customer Perspective--United States and Europe, finds that by 2016, the use of smartphones is expected to decrease from the current levels of 66 percent to 58 percent, while tablets are expected to increase from 49 percent to 56 percent.
Interestingly, while almost 60 percent of organizations allow personal devices to be connected to the corporate network, only four out of ten IT decision makers report that their company has a formal bring your own device (BYOD) policy in place.
"Approximately 58 percent of large enterprises have a formal BYOD policy, while only 20 percent of small businesses have a standardized policy," said Frost & Sullivan Research Analyst Karolina Olszewska. "The most common method of enforcing BYOD policies is through network technology solutions at 67 percent, followed by mobile device management at 61 percent."
The enterprise mobile device landscape is rapidly changing, evidenced by the surprising emergence of Android as the most common (56 percent) mobile operating system supported for organization-owned devices. This is followed by iOS (41 percent), Windows Mobile (30 percent) and BlackBerry (28 percent).
While the banking, finance and insurance sector has been the most prominent user of smart phones for business purposes among the verticals surveyed in 2013, in the tablet segment, manufacturing took top honours.
"Overall, 62 percent of the workforce is traditional, working at office locations. Mobile workers account for 22 percent and remote workers the remaining 16 percent," noted Olszewska. "Although this trend is not expected to change drastically within the next three years, the number of in-office workers is expected to decrease, while remote and mobile workers are expected to increase, signifying greater opportunities for smartphone and tablet makers."
If you are interested in more information on this study, please send an email to Edyta Grabowska, Corporate Communications, at edyta.grabowska@frost.com [mailto:edyta.grabowska@frost.com].
Future of Mobile Devices from a Customer Perspective--United States and Europe is part of the Mobile & Wireless Communications Growth Partnership Service program. Frost & Sullivan's related studies include: South African Data Centre Market, Unified Communications and Collaboration (UC&C) in the Cloud in Latin America, Analytics on a Transformation Path - From a 'Good-to-Have' to a 'Must -Have Solution' and UK Leads Cellular M2M Connections Growth in Europe. All studies included in subscriptions provide detailed market opportunities and industry trends evaluated following extensive interviews with market participants.
About Frost & Sullivan
Frost & Sullivan, the Growth Partnership Company, works in collaboration with clients to leverage visionary innovation that addresses the global challenges and related growth opportunities that will make or break today's market participants.
Our "Growth Partnership" supports clients by addressing these opportunities and incorporating two key elements driving visionary innovation: The Integrated Value Proposition and The Partnership Infrastructure.
For more than 50 years, we have been developing growth strategies for the global 1000, emerging businesses, the public sector and the investment community. Is your organization prepared for the next profound wave of industry convergence, disruptive technologies, increasing competitive intensity, Mega Trends, breakthrough best practices, changing customer dynamics and emerging economies?

bizcommunity.com - About 40% of companies are investing in mobile technologies across their business and consider mobility as a key part of their business strategy, according to Accenture Mobility Report 2014.
The report says digital technologies have considerable potential to transform the ways in which companies create revenue and drive profits via innovative strategies, products, processes and experiences.
The study was conducted through an online survey of senior executives in December and January. A total of 1,475 executives completed surveys. Respondents' represented 10 sectors in 14 countries, including SA. The report was released last week, as SA was applauded for maintaining 70th position in the World Economic Forum's Global Information Technology Report (GITR) 2014. The GITR, sponsored by Cisco, measures the capacity of 148 economies to use ICT for growth and economic and social transformation.
According to the report, SA's ranking in the Networked Readiness Index is second only to Mauritius in the sub-Saharan Africa region.
Now the Accenture report says given that mobility is a key enabler of the digital business, it is not surprising that mobility has been an area of focus among companies of all types.
"Indeed, four in 10 companies indicated they have aggressively pursued and invested in mobile technologies across their business and consider mobility a key part of their business strategy," says the survey. "Importantly, mobility is close to the chief executive's heart in 35% of companies, where the CEO plays a role in mobility strategy development, according to the report.
All roads lead to digital
PwC Technology Industry Leader for Southern Africa Johan Potgieter said last week: "Today all roads lead to digital. From business strategy to execution, digital technology has become the foundation for everything we do."
He said despite many firms laying claim to being a digital organisation, only a minority (20%) are truly there. Cisco SA Managing Director Alpheus Mangale said: "SA's increase in Internet access is leading to many important innovations that provide more and better services, such as financial services, that were previously unavailable. ICTs are a key source of new opportunities to foster innovation and boost economic and social prosperity, for both advanced and emerging economies."
The Accenture Mobility Report cautions that most companies have not made substantial progress toward the mobility priorities that are important to their business.
It further says another common shortcoming relates to determining where and how mobility can have the greatest effect.
Eight in 10 respondents said their organisation has no formal process for identifying, evaluating, and prioritising ways mobility can benefit their business.
Accenture's mobility study was designed to explore how companies are applying digital technologies, especially mobility, to help improve various aspects of their business.

zdnet.com - Today's restructuring at Microsoft included layoffs of 18,000 people and one platform.
In separate memos, CEO Satya Nadella and Executive Vice President Stephen Elop made it abundantly clear it was also giving a pink slip to the forked version of Android it inherited with Nokia's devices division.
That's a surprise move to some observers, who had bet on the proposition that Microsoft was going to give up on Windows Phone and go all in with Android. They can now tear up those losing tickets.

engadget.com - "OK Google." The phrase is slowly working its way across Google's mobile and web services, but the touchless control is about to get even better for many Android users. Previously limited to just the homescreen on Android 4.4 KitKat devices and anywhere on the Moto X (thanks to its always-on listening chip), the voice-activated command will soon be enabled on any screen, including the lockscreen, on your smartphone or tablet. That's not all, either: Google's also including a new Audio History feature that learns the sound of your voice to increase the accuracy of your searches.
The features come as part of an update to the Google Search app, which is currently rolling out slowly to devices following Google's I/O keynote. Google is making the feature available on a phone-by-phone basis, meaning that even if you are able to grab the relevant app file, you still might not be able to use it. If you are eligible, however, all you have to do is navigate to your Google Now settings and enable the options inside the "OK Google Detection" menu.

finchannel.com - The FINANCIAL -- Digital is starting to transform how consumers pony up cash for their everyday purchases. And for consumers using mobile payment technology, digital is already the norm. In fact, 40 percent of mobile wallet users say they use mobile methods as their primary mode of payment, according to Nielsen's Q2 2014 Mobile Wallet Report.
So who are mobile payment users? Men and women are almost just as likely to use these digital services: 47 percent and 53 percent, respectively. Mobile users age 18-34 account for the majority of users (55%) and 35 percent are age 35-54. Interestingly, mobile payment users span all income levels, with the highest usage among those making less than $50,000 (32%) and more than $100,000 (29%).
Bye, Bye Wallets... New Ways to Pay
If variety is the spice of life, the digital payment landscape is on par with Cajun jambalaya. With innovative payment methods like PayPal, Google Wallet, Passbook, MasterCard PayPass and a host of others, the choices are plentiful. And when it comes to check-out, bar codes and quick response (QR) codes, which consumers simply display on their device so cashiers can scan them, are the most popular mobile payment methods among smartphone payers (45%). Thirty-seven percent of smartphone payers tap their device on a payment reader using near-field communication (NFC), such as Google Wallet or Isis. Twenty-nine percent of smartphone payers scan the bar code or QR code using the device's camera, according to the Nielsen Company.
Easing Social Awkwardness
Mobile payment options are doing more than easing the way we pay for goods and services. In fact, peer-to-peer payment methods are helping relieve socially awkward situations that arise when groups of friends are out and faced with a large restaurant or bar tab. After enjoying a delicious meal and having fun with friends, 71 percent of peer-to-peer payment app users said that using these types of payment options reduces tension around splitting the bill. Seventy-three percent of consumers said they like the convenience of not having to split checks or find an ATM. With a simple click on their smartphones, the deed is done. Almost half (49%) of those who use peer-to-peer payment apps report doing so while dining.
Rewards are Key to Consumer Engagement
Since 40 percent of mobile wallet users are utilizing mobile wallets as their primary form of payment, how do marketers convert the remaining 60 percent? Consumers agreed (69%) that they'd convert to mobile payment methods if merchants were to offer discounts specific to purchases made via mobile wallet. Also driving their decision would be if the reward programs that they are currently enrolled in would honor mobile transactions, and if rewards programs and mobile wallet could be integrated to redeem points immediately (69%), according to the Nielsen Company.

business2community.com - A lot can change in eight years, especially when we're talking about technology. Since the National Institute of Standards and Technology released NIST 800-88 in 2006, it has been the only official United States standard for data destruction, replacing the outdated DoD three-pass standard. But that was 2006, and data storage trends have evolved quite a bit since then. Most significantly, solid state drives (SSDs) and mobile devices like phones and tablets that make use of Flash SSDs have become ubiquitous in the workplace.
The most recent updates to the NIST 800-88 standard reflects the use of these devices and the need for a reliable process for destroying the data on them. If your company deals with sensitive information of any type, whether it's medical records, financial data, employee or customer personal data, or intellectual property, you need to be aware of these changes.
In late 2013, the first revision of NIST 800-88 was published. Although it is still technically a draft, it is the accepted industry standard for hard drive and media sanitization. What follows is an overview of some of the major revisions to NIST 800-88. It includes important new best practices for sanitizing both mobile devices and SSDs.
Sections 2.3 and 2.4
These sections deal directly with the standards for sanitizing solid state drives. As the cost of SSDs has declined, and their capabilities have expanded, an increasing number of businesses are using them for data storage. Unfortunately, as discussed in one of our recent white papers, the specifications of these devices make conventional magnetic data destruction strategies ineffective

business2community.com - Revenues in the enterprise mobility market are predicted to grow two times as fast as the consumer market spanning over the next five years, according to an estimate by ABI research.
They predict that revenues could grow to $340 billion by 2017.
The estimate includes revenues generated by several features offered on smart phones and devices, including voice messaging, headset data plans, mobile broadband and enterprise apps as well as others.
According to ABI, mobile operators, device makers, IT people and platform supplies should be targeting that growth market as the consumer market slows down.
Currently, enterprise market revenues represent over 30% of the mobile services market.
Smart phone penetration is also estimated to grow by 90% in North America and Europe, and in other developing regions, even ones with low smart phone penetration, revenues are expected to grow.
ABI analyst Dan Shey advises that mobile operators offer innovative packing and pricing. So that employees can find apps ready to use at work that are enterprise-ready. He also suggests that smart phone markers should have a portfolio of enterprise-ready devices, including ones with security features and preloaded apps, which will make it easier for small business to equip themselves with up to date mobile technology. He also notes that IT and platform suppliers should form partnerships, which would help them to better serve the growing enterprise mobility management services market.
The conclusion is that the enterprise market is growing fast and revenues will reflect that. Companies should get on board quickly to take advantage of the upswing.

midsizeinsider.com - Bring your own device (BYOD) policies are increasingly necessary as more companies encourage the use of tablets and other mobile devices in the workplace. According to a new survey, more companies can establish sound security policies. As midsize firms continue to increase their mobility footprint, this option will become a necessity for IT professionals to mandate.
Future of Mobile
More than 70 percent of firms surveyed for a recent Frost & Sullivan report, titled "The Future of Mobile Devices from a Customer Perspective" and featured at eWeek, issued laptops and smartphones to their employees. Almost half of the companies issued tablets, and that figure is expected to grow over the next few years as more business-intensive tablet apps are developed. Banking, finance and insurance firms were found to use mobile solutions the most. Meanwhile, manufacturing verticals took the lead among tablet users.
The findings also revealed that the number of mobile workers is on the rise. They now account for nearly 40 percent of the workforce, which opens the door for even more reliance on mobile solutions in the workplace. The survey also found that 40 percent of IT leaders are pushing BYOD policies to secure corporate data.
Increased Dependency
Frost & Sullivan's findings show that mobility is on the rise and there are no signs that it will slow down. As more employees become dependent on mobile devices and networks, it will be up to IT professionals to ensure corporate data is secured. Cyber crime will remain a concern among all firms, especially smaller ones that simply do not have the resources to recover from a breach or that could lose precious time, manpower and money in the process.
IT managers have the option to work with security vendors that can help them assess the new frontiers of mobility and determine which tools should be in place to prevent future disasters. Solutions like mobile device management and authentication controls are just a few options to explore, for example. With more workers using their devices to check corporate email, use business apps and retrieve corporate data, firms are thinking about the consequences to convenience.
Safeguards in Place
Midsize companies from every industry are under the most pressure to remain competitive, and that is why they are supporting the use of mobile devices in the workplace. Yet, security safeguards need to be in place to support this growing part of the IT infrastructure. BYOD policies - along with other security solutions that close up vulnerabilities and manage endpoints - are the key to keeping corporate data as safe as possible from growing threats.

businessinsider.com - Microsoft announced Thursday it will abandon Android in a new line of Nokia phones that launched this spring.
The Nokia X line of phones, which launched before Nokia was officially acquired by Microsoft, ran a modified version of Android packed with Microsoft services like Outlook, Bing, and Skype instead of the Google services that come with most Android phones.
The move was highly controversial at the time because everyone knew Nokia was about to become part of Microsoft, and Microsoft is all about the Windows Phone platform. One Microsoft source told Business Insider at the time that Nokia's decision to use Android was "embarrassing."
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said in a memo to employees Thursday that the Nokia X smartphones will shift to Windows Phone instead of Android. The announcement was part of Nadella's plan to eliminate up to 18,000 jobs, most of them from Nokia.

mobilecommercepress.com - Wearable technology may be in a state of infancy, but the market is maturing at a rapid pace. The demand for wearable devices is on the rise and many people are expressing their eagerness to purchasing upcoming products from companies like Google. This demand has been highlighted by the recent launch of Amazon's Wearable Technology Store in the United Kingdom. The store has shown that many people have an interest in wearable devices, even though a relatively small number of these devices are currently available to them.

triblive.com - Shoppers' desires for newer smartphones and tablets are expected to help drive consumer electronics revenues to all-time highs this year.
Total industry revenue, which is based on sales of products to retailers, is projected to hit $211.3 billion in 2014, a 2 percent increase over 2013, the Consumer Electronics Association said Tuesday.
Revenue is expected to hit $214 billion in 2015, a 1.2 percent increase, according to the group's new U.S. Consumer Electronics Sales and Forecasts report.
Sales of mobile-connected devices, especially smartphones and tablets, will make up the biggest chunk - 35.1 percent - of total consumer electronics industry revenue.
Shipments of smartphones are projected to top 163 million in 2014, an 8 percent increase, while smartphone revenues reach an estimated $46 billion, up 7 percent. Tablet shipments and revenues are slowing - not only nationally, but globally - but are still projected to top 80 million units, up 4 percent, and $25.6 billion, a 3 percent decline.

arstechnica.com - Our full Android Wear hardware and software reviews won't run until next week, but now that we've spent a couple of days with Samsung's Gear Live and LG's G Watch we have a better idea of how these watches are going to look and act.
One thing about both of them sticks out: their software behaves pretty much the same way no matter which device you have. There are small differences that Google has outlined here, but interacting with each watch is exactly the same, and digging down into the settings shows that they're both running the exact same Android versions and build numbers. This would be unusual for Android phones or tablets, which generally come with OEM-controlled UI skins, hardware and software flourishes, and pre-installed apps.
Talking with Google engineering director David Burke confirmed that all of the new Android initiatives announced at the keynote this week-Android Wear, Android Auto, and Android TV-will have user interfaces and underlying software that is controlled by Google, not by the OEMs.
"The UI is more part of the product in this case," Burke said to Ars of Android TV in particular. "We want to just have a very consistent user experience, so if you have one TV in one room and another TV in another room and they both say Android TV, we want them to work the same and look the same... The device manufacturers can brand it, and they might have services that they want to include with it, but otherwise it should be the same."
Burke also told us that Google would be able to manage software updates for these various products directly. With Android TV, the goal is to make those updates automatic and seamless, "more like Chrome on the desktop," and the plan is to do the same for Android Wear and Auto. A little over a year after Sundar Pichai took over as the head of Android, his influence on the operating system's direction is obvious.
For Android enthusiasts and others who prefer Google's (increasingly confident and distinct) aesthetic vision for the operating system, this is good news. You'll be able to pay more attention to picking the hardware you want, without having to worry about oddball software choices. The flipside of this is that the Wear, Auto, and TV components probably won't be things that people can download source code for and build on top of. If you want to build an Android watch or a set-top box of your own design, you'll have to do what Samsung did with the first Galaxy Gear or what Amazon did with the Fire TV-take the standard Android Open Source Project code and do all the UI work and form-factor-specific optimization yourself.

money.cnn.com - The world of connected devices is growing every day, and Google wants to be the company to guide you through it.
That's the takeaway from the search giant's annual I/O developer conference, which wrapped up on Thursday in San Francisco. The gathering was a showcase for versions of the company's Android software adapted for cars, televisions and wearable tech.
Nothing Google unveiled this week qualifies as groundbreaking (except perhaps for its cardboard virtual-reality goggles). The smartwatch- and car-focused software essentially save you the trouble of taking your smartphone out of your pocket, while Android TV doesn't appear much different than existing platforms from Apple (AAPL, Tech30), Roku and Amazon (AMZN, Tech30).
But what was noteworthy about the announcements this week is the scale of Google's ambition.
Google essentially wants to unify the user experience across all connected devices. That means allowing you to respond to text messages via your watch, order pizza from your TV, control your home from your car, and accomplish it all via a common voice-command interface that remembers your appointments and preferences.
Speaking during a breakout session at the conference, Android TV manager Chris McKillop encouraged developers to think of the project not as a distinct platform, but simply "a new form factor for Android" -- just one part of a broader constellation of Android-powered devices.
It's a shrewd strategy. As Internet-enabled products become more commonplace, we're not going to want to manage a huge variety of accounts. It's more convenient to have a common digital identity that moves with you across devices. The company that provides that single software identify is poised to reap massive rewards.
Google made what seemed like an admission of defeat earlier this year when it announced that it was selling its Motorola Mobility smartphone unit to Lenovo for for $2.9 billion, after acquiring the business for $12.5 billion in May 2012. But with its "Android everywhere" strategy, it doesn't need to make devices itself; it's better off working with as many hardware manufacturers as possible to ensure that its software is ubiquitous.
Apple's vision for its iOS software is similarly ambitious -- the company already has a success with Apple TV, it announced plans for health- and home-focused software earlier this month, and it's reportedly working on its own smartwatch. But Google's greater willingness to partner with hardware makers may give Android the advantage in the emerging connected device market.
That dynamic has already played out in the smartphone and tablet markets, where Android now dominates because Google hasn't forced phone buyers to stick with one line of devices the way Apple does with the iPhone.
Samsung (SSNLF) and LG released smartwatches this week running Android Wear, with one due out from Motorola later this year. Android TV-enabled products are pending from companies including Sharp, Sony and Asus, and over 40 automakers have signed on to carry Android Auto.
Google is also well-positioned to be the primary entry point to the world of connected devices, given the wealth of data it already has on people who uses free services like Gmail and Google Docs.
Data collection is the name of the game for the company, whether it's in the home (see its $3.2 billion purchase earlier this year of smart appliance maker Nest Labs) or in outer space (this month's $500 million acquisition of satellite start-up Skybox Imaging). The more data it collects, the more fully it can adapt its software to individual users' needs.
Of course, whether you want to give a single company the power to track your sleep, monitor your communications, recommend TV shows, track your location and and access your finances is another question. But if you do, Google's ready for the job.

mashable.com - We'll see Google cars on the road a lot sooner than expected - they just won't be driving themselves.
Google unveiled Android Auto on Wednesday, a new version of the company's operating system built specifically for car dashboard displays.
The new software links to the driver's Android device, then uses the dashboard monitor as an interface for drivers and passengers to operate familiar apps and features such as Maps, Spotify, and voice calls. The driver can control the screen using touch; there's also a voice recognition button on the car's steering wheel.
"In many ways, our cars keep us connected to the physical world around us," Patrick Brady, Director of Android Engineering, said at Wednesday's Google I/O keynote, "but they remain disconnected from our other devices in our digital lives."
The push into auto-focused software makes a lot of sense for Google. Americans spend more than 25 minutes each way on average driving to and from work. That's a lot of time to be away from your always-on mobile device.
Brady claims that 25% of accidents in the United States are caused by gadget use behind the wheel. Android Auto requires the user to plug their device into the car, and then go hands-free - a safer solution than looking down at your phone to pull up directions or make a call.
The connection isn't wireless, which is somewhat surprising considering the prevalence of Bluetooth technology. But the physical connection does two things. It forces drivers to put their phones down, and it also creates a more reliable connection between phone and automobile.
Once the phone is plugged in, a home screen pops up on the dashboard. The screen features five main tabs, such as Google Maps and Google Play Music.
With Maps, users can tap the button on the screen or steering wheel, say their destination out loud, and the software will automatically determine the best route and begin the navigation process. This automation limits the need to fumble with buttons on the screen, a Google spokesperson told Mashable.
With music, Google's default player is Google Play Music, but the software supports other popular music apps like Spotify and Pandora, too. Drivers can tap the voice recognition button on the steering wheel and say a command - such as "Play Katy Perry on Spotify" - to pull up their music on the go.

computerworld.com - Forget about the dorkiness of Google Glass, those dreams of "Jetsons"-like smart homes, and nightmares of invasions by Google robots. At its I/O conference this week, Google instead laid out its Android-everywhere ambitions and delivered a rich trove for developers.
Like Apple at WWDC eschewing mention of a new iPhone, iWatch, or iTV, Google I/O lacked many of the expected "wow" factor items. As Forrester analyst Jeffrey Hammond told Computerworld, "If you look at the stuff they didn't say anything about, it's the more 'whiz bang' stuff. They talked about new SDKs instead of the things that will change people's lives," such as robots, drones, satellites, or Internet-delivering balloons.
What Google delivered was a smorgasbord of Android innovation, new services, and APIs designed to make mobile and desktop experiences more similar and extend the reach of Google's platform to your wrist, your car, and your TV. Wired says, "Android is becoming contextually aware, flowing from place to place with you, and taking advantage of any input you throw at it -- be it your voice aimed at a device on your wrist, a button on your steering wheel, your mouse on your laptop, or a gaming control on your TV."
Foremost, Google unveiled the Android L developer preview, which -- with some 5,000 new APIs -- is the first major retooling of the OS's UI since Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. Android L (dessert-themed guesses for its final name range from Licorice to Lollipop to Lemon Meringue Pie) sports a visual redesign with minimalistic new Android buttons and a shift from square to round icons. This new unified look, which Google calls "material design," will be rolled out across all Google's platforms, including Chrome OS. With Android L, developers will be able to "create a design for one device and easily port it to others with different screen sizes."
Android L also supports 64-bit processing, bringing Android to parity with Apple's iOS 7, and it runs exclusively on the much faster Android RunTime (ART), rather than the Dalvik virtual machine that has been the subject of legal battles between Oracle and Google. In addition to supporting ahead-of-time and just-in-time compilation and interpreted code, ART "offers improved memory efficiency and supports ARM, x86, and MIPS hardware. Back-end compilers were optimized, resulting in a two-fold performance improvement over the previous Dalvik virtual machine.... [and] applications inherit Art's performance improvement without developers having to make any code changes," according to InfoWorld's Paul Krill.
To further improve performance, L offers the Android Extension Pack with tessellation, geometry shaders, compute shaders, and advanced adaptive scalable texture compression. "Quite literally, this is PC gaming graphics in your pocket," said Dave Burke, senior director of engineering for Android at Google.
Android wasn't the only Google stalwart getting a makeover. The company has been criticized for not making enough improvements to its Docs office cloud suite over the years. Now QuickOffice, which Google bought two years ago, has been merged into Docs, giving users native capabilities to open and edit Microsoft Office files created with Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Other enhancements include the availability of the Slides presentation app for creating PowerPoint-like presentations on Android or iOS devices, and improved support for tracking changes when working collaboratively.
In response to growing pressure from Microsoft Office 365, Google also launched a premium edition of Apps. Essentially Apps for Business with an extra set of features, Drive for Work removes the 30GB-per-user storage ceiling and adds IT management abilities such as control over which users can install the Drive desktop sync client and a more granular audit for tracking users' actions on Drive. The Vault email archiving and compliance tool is now included with Drive for Work and covers all files stored in Drive, not just emails.
Google also quietly released a new set of Gmail APIs at I/O, in what the Wall Street Journal calls "a first step toward turning Gmail into a platform for developers who want to leverage the contents of users' email for productivity and other applications." The idea is not a new one -- Microsoft announced a similar move in March -- but with the Gmail API Google hopes to make it easier than with the commonly used but complex IMAP email standard for developers to build apps that leverage hundreds of millions of Gmail users. Google said users with privacy concerns will be able to opt in and authorize each app to access their Gmail accounts.
"This could be one of the biggest app platforms out there because all the data is there and all the users are there," said Aleem Mawani, a former product manager at Google and co-founder of startup Streak, which has built a customer-relationship-management application for Gmail. However, ZDnet's Ed Bott cautions: "Moving away from reliance on IMAP for interoperability is probably in the better interests of everyone who uses the Internet. But moving to a completely proprietary standard as Google is doing with Gmail is problematic as well."
If all that weren't enough for developers to absorb, Google rolled out new tools designed to help them improve how their apps are running on Google's hosted services. Cloud Monitoring, Cloud Trace, and Cloud Debugger can, for example, help developers determine why a program on a Google service is running slowly or a database returning a large number of errors.
The preshow buzz for Google I/O came nowhere near the pre-WWDC hype, but the depth and breadth of Google's announcements were impressive. InfoWorld's Galen Gruman says, "In terms of ambition, Google is promising to do in one year what Apple promised to do in two years. And Google's reach is a bit broader than Apple's." It's a compelling vision -- if it comes together.
This article, "Developers rejoice: Android innovation rules at Google I/O," was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Get the first word on what the important tech news really means with the InfoWorld Tech Watch blog. For the latest business technology news, follow InfoWorld.com on Twitter.

computerworld.com - Pichai said the new Android Work features will be available on devices from Dell, Huawei, HTC, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, Samsung, Sony, LG, Motorola and Asus.
The dual-persona capability in Android may push Apple to respond, some analysts predicted.
As more workers buy Android phones and other devices to use at work, IT shops have started using tools from dozens of small and large enterprise mobility management (EMM) and enterprise application management (EAM) vendors as they set up policies and procedures to protect vital corporate data.
Google, in its video, makes it clear that registered EMM software providers will be able modify their software using Google APIs to accommodate Android Work policies and can add their own features to their EMM software.
"Registered EMM providers can offer secure authentication to enterprise servers, control access to enterprise apps and can set policies to restrict what the user can do within the work profile," says the video's narrator, Android project manager James Kelly. "On the device itself, Google Play will securely provision apps within the Android Work profile."
Kelly adds: "The IT admin has fine-grain controls to make apps available to individual employees, groups or to the whole company."
For personal Android devices that employees bring to work, Google has created an app called Device Policy Client that IT admins can use to create a secure Android Work profile to keep work apps and data separate from personal apps and data, he explains. To access the work profile, BYOD users will be required to provide credentials that are approved by the IT admin. However, users will be able to launch a single unified interface that shows both personal and work apps and allows both "notification" and "recent" alerts to appear from either the work or personal profile in a flip card-file style on a single display view.
In cases where the company owns the device, Android Work provides a simple provisioning step that sets up the enterprise as the device owner. "A device owner is a special type of device admin that cannot be deactivated. The company has full control of the device, including data and apps," Kelly says in the video.
Google has also created new Android Work APIs called Profile Owner and Device Owner. Profile Owner is a special type of device administrator tool that cannot be modified by the device's primary user. Device Owner, the more powerful of the two, includes a "superset" of IT controls that can control all aspects of a device's operation, including whether Wi-Fi access is allowed.
In existing EMM approaches, profiles can be set up for different work groups that are granted access to specific apps. So one group might have access to accounting and financial apps, for instance, while another can access legal or marketing apps.
Kelly assured Android app developers that most of their apps won't need to be altered to run in an Android Work setting.

engadget.com - Samsung's Gear Live and LG's G Watch have already been manhandled today at Google I/O 2014, and now it's time to do the same to the third inaugural Android Wear device, the Moto 360. We've already heard much about the watch's unique circular design and have gotten some sneak peeks at the various watch faces that are coming to take advantage of it. Today, however, I finally got my mitts on one, and I can assure you it's as well put together in person as the press shots have shown previously.
The Moto 360 strikes a stunning pose on your wrist, particularly in its stainless steel (as opposed to black) garb. Fit and finish of the devices we saw was top notch. The chamfered edges of both the glass covering the screen and that metal housing lend it a luxurious look and feel, and the thick, split leather strap is premium, too. We thought it odd that the company chose to have the glass extend beyond the watch's metal housing, when the trend in mobile screens is for there to be zero gap between the surface of the glass and the pixels beneath them.
So, we asked Lior Ron, Motorola's wearable products lead, why his watch design went the other way. He informed us that it's a "nod to the premium watch aesthetic" he wanted to achieve with the 360, as many regular watches have chamfered glass, too. That bit of design flair has the added benefit of showing off the circular display to the fullest -- looking closely reveals that pixels are packed from edge to edge, no cutting corners.
For now, that's really all we can tell you about the 360 -- that it's a beautiful and sizable smartwatch. Like LG and Samsung, Motorola had the 360 running a demo mode of Android Wear, so we couldn't get a feel for how the watch actually will work. That said, Motorola's on its way to proving that sometimes, it's not hip to be a square.

bbc.com - Google has announced the first smartwatches powered by its Android Wear operating system are now available for pre-order.
The LG G Watch and Samsung Gear Live - both featuring rectangular screens - mark an attempt to standardise the way Android wearable devices function.
Google said that Motorola's circular Moto 360 would not be released until "later this summer".
Analysts say the move to a unified approach could drive sales.
"The problem with smartwatches so far has been that the sector hasn't quite decided what it wants to be - is it a phone on your wrist or an accessory device," Steffen Sorrell, from the Juniper Research consultancy, told the BBC.
"Once you introduce Android Wear, it will hopefully provide a more focused case for what the devices are capable of. And that's a direction that could invigorate the market."
LG said the G Watch costs $229/£159 and would initially be made available to 12 countries including the US, UK, France, Germany and Japan. It is due to ship on 4 July.
Samsung said the Gear Live would cost $199/£169 and ship on 7 July.
Both will require the owner to have a phone running Android 4.3 or above.