nytimes.com - The battle for mobile software dominance revolves around two companies: Apple and Google. Now both giants are also going head-to-head in mobile payments, as they prepare to push deeper into digital wallets.
Google is set to unveil plans at its annual developer conference on Thursday for an overhaul of its mobile payment products, according to three people familiar with the situation, who spoke on the condition they not be named because the details are confidential.
Changes include a service called Android Pay that will let merchants accept credit card payments from inside their mobile apps and can be integrated with loyalty programs at retailers, the people said. Google Wallet, a mobile commerce app, will also be reintroduced as a peer-to-peer payments app that consumers can use to send money to each other directly from their debit accounts, they said.
A demonstration of Android Pay at the Google developer conference on Thursday.A Primer on Android Pay and Google WalletMAY 28, 2015
Whole Foods, the grocery chain, said it had processed more than 150,000 Apple Pay transactions since the service started.Apple Pay Gives Glimpse of Mainstream Appeal for Mobile PaymentsNOV. 14, 2014
LoopPay works on many Android smartphones, of which Samsung is one of the largest manufacturers.Samsung Buys LoopPay, a Competitor to Apple's Mobile WalletFEB. 18, 2015
Apple is preparing to announce details about enhancements to Apple Pay at its software conference next month. Those include a rewards program for the mobile wallet service, said two people briefed on the product.
The moves are the latest advances in mobile payments as several players jockey for an edge. With more consumers willing to make purchases using smartphones, companies are rushing to take the lead in the market, spurring eBay's PayPal to heavily market a suite of mobile apps, while start-ups like Square and Stripe expand their payments processing software to small and midsize businesses.
The stakes are also high for Apple and Google, which are entering mobile payments later than others in the industry. For Apple, mobile payments tie people more directly to its main product, the iPhone. For Google, payments are a hook to reel people into its ecosystem of services and another way to gain insight about consumers.
'They want to be as disruptive to payments as Amazon has been to retail," said Sucharita Mulpuru, a retail and payments analyst for Forrester Research. 'By being early they can shape the customer experience and expectations."
Anaik Weid, a Google spokeswoman, declined to comment, as did Laura Newell, an Apple spokeswoman.
The challenge for Apple and Google, along with rivals, is that the mobile wallet is generally a technology in search of a problem. Cash and credit cards are easy to use and accepted broadly worldwide. As a result, the mobile wallet is typically more of a supplementary service than a replacement.
Nonetheless, mobile payments are growing quickly. Forrester Research predicts they will balloon to $142 billion by 2019 in the United States, almost tripling from $52 billion in 2014.
Awareness of mobile payments has been stoked by Apple Pay, which Apple introduced last October. Apple has partnerships with dozens of American banks, allowing Apple Pay to work with most major credit cards. Some retailers, like Walgreens and Whole Foods, have said mobile wallet payments in their stores have grown significantly since the debut of Apple Pay.
But analysts have noted that a missing piece from Apple Pay was a rewards program to keep users returning to participating merchants. People familiar with Apple Pay said that next month, Apple will announce such a program offering perks to consumers who make purchases with the service, though they declined to reveal details.
Apple Pay remains limited. It is available only on the latest Apple mobile devices, and just a select number of retailers accept payments from the service, said Jan Dawson, an independent technology analyst for Jackdaw Research.
'Apple Pay has given it a really big shot in the arm, but even that is nascent," Mr. Dawson said. That leaves plenty of room for another company, like Google, to grab a slice of the market, he said.
Google's new Android Pay can also be used at brick-and-mortar stores in addition to letting merchants accept credit card payments from their mobile apps, said the people familiar with the company's plans. Consumers who use Android Pay for a purchase will also automatically add points to loyalty programs run by participating retailers, they said. The revamped Google Wallet will be available for Android and iOS devices, they added.
Google has had trouble getting a mobile wallet to catch on with consumers. In 2011, the company introduced Google Wallet, a way for customers to pay for purchases in stores with an Android phone. The project was riddled with problems; issuing banks and the large credit card networks were not on board, and mobile carriers hampered Google's efforts to support Google Wallet on Android phones.
With its revitalized payments push, Google now is working closely with credit card networks, card-issuing banks and payments processors, said the people familiar with the situation. Retailers, too, are more eager to accept mobile payments products that work with their loyalty programs in order to gain insight into customer shopping habits.
Google has the opportunity to offer its Android payment service to a broad swath of handsets by different manufacturers, while Apple's payment service is exclusive to its device owners. Yet Google will not be able to control its payment system as tightly as Apple, which could create room for the Android service to break down, Mr. Dawson said.
Another potential headache for Google is Samsung, the world's largest handset maker and the top seller of Android devices. The South Korean manufacturer acquired LoopPay, another mobile wallet competitor, this year. That offering could divide Samsung smartphone users who may have to choose between Google's wallet and Samsung's LoopPay product.
Still, Google and Apple offer something that few others can: Hardware, software and an insatiable desire to win.
'Google and Apple have deep pockets and the appetite to invest," said Ms. Mulpuru of Forrester Research. 'They may create something that is a lasting disruption."

timesofindia.indiatimes.com - It's Google I/O time again, the time of year when the internet giant holds its annual developers' conference in San Francisco, showing off the cool stuff its army of engineers have been working on for the past 12 months.
The event, which will take place on May 28-29, draws thousands of attendees, all eager to hear from Google's top brass - CEO Larry Page gave an impassioned and much-discussed talk about the state of the tech industry in 2013 - learn about the latest products, and get their hands on the free swag that Google typically doles out (last year, attendees got two free Android Wear smartwatches).
Google hasn't said who will be speaking at this year's event, though it's a safe bet that senior vice president Sundar Pichai, recently promoted to be Google's head of products, will be leading the show. And while Google hasn't discussed which products will get the spotlight, we've put together a likely list.
Android M
The star of the show is likely to be Google's Android operating system, especially if Google unveils the next version of the software, dubbed Android M.
(Android versions are named in alphabetical order, with the current L version more commonly known as Android Lollipop. M could stand for any dessert - our bet is on Marshmallow, Milk Shake, or Mentos.)
Buzzfeed reported it could include a fingerprint unlocking feature, which could allow Android smartphones to match the iPhone capability that allows users to unlock the phone just by putting a finger on a special sensor.
The new Android could also provide users with more control over the personal information that individual apps access, enhanced support for voice commands, and built-in support for one-tap mobile payments through a new Android Pay feature, according to press reports.
Google could fold some of the new features into an update to the existing Lollipop version of Android rather than launching the brand new M version. A reference to Android M was spotted in the description of a session on the Google I/O calendar, but was promptly removed after news reports spread.
Hello Brillo
The Internet of Things is a goofy name, but as a technology trend it's hot right now. The idea is that PCs and smartphones are not the only things that should connect to the internet. Your fridge, washing machine, car, and even the lights in your bathroom could all be so much better if they were hooked up to a network so they could exchange data and be controlled remotely.
Google wants to help define this new interconnected world. Google purchased Nest, the maker of smart home appliances for $3.2 billion last year.
But according to The Information, Google has another Internet of Things play up its sleeve called Brillo. Basically Brillo would provide a common platform for electronic devices to interconnect. The technology will be especially well-suited for low-powered electronic devices that don't have a screen, according to The Information.
Competition to control the emerging Internet of Things is going to be tough: Apple, Microsoft, and Samsung are all working on technology too.
Mystery bluetooth device - Glass 2.0 or something else?
Google likes to take the wraps off new gadgets at I/O. Some turn out to be big hits, such as the $200 Nexus 7 tablet launched in 2012.
Others, not so much. Witness the orb-shaped Q streaming media player, unveiled with great fanfare at the same 2012 conference, and then killed before ever landing on store shelves.
Glass is another interesting example: Google unveiled the device with an over-the-top skydiver/BMX bike sequence at I/O in 2012. But Glass never caught on with the general public and in January, Google halted sales of the consumer version of Glass, noting that it was time for a "strategy reset."
So what's this year's surprise gadget?
One tantalizing clue can be found in an April filing that Google made with the US Federal Communications Commission. The filing is for a product identified only as "A4R-CAP1" and refers to a "Smart BLE device," which means a smart Bluetooth low-energy device. Most of the information in the filing is redacted.
But one detail that bloggers have homed in on is the description of the device's e-label. Some noted that the description for accessing the table - users swipe left-to-right and bottom-to-top to access certain information - sounded a lot like the way Glass is used, theorizing that this could be the first sighting of Glass 2.0.
Business Insider recently reported that the Glass team now appears to be working on traditional eyewear as well as "other related devices." So the mystery Bluetooth device could be one of various potential new products created by the Glass team.
Or, given that Google also has initiatives in TV, virtual reality and other gadgets, A4R-CAP1 could be something else entirely.
Virtual Reality
Google made waves last year with its Cardboard virtual reality headset. As the name suggests, the product is actually a just cardboard shell that houses a user's smartphone. With special software on the phone, the cardboard-smartphone combo becomes a makeshift VR headset. It's a simple trick that gave Google a foot in the emerging VR market, which could become increasingly important for gaming, entertainment and even shopping.
But with Facebook's Oculus now set to release its Oculus VR headset in 2016 and Microsoft pushing forward with HoloLens, Google may decide it needs to make a bigger push into virtual reality. A Wall Street Journal report in March said Google is working on a special version of Android for virtual reality.
Cars
Google and Apple both have their sights set on the ultimate mobile device: The automobile.
Google's Android Auto had its coming out party at last year's I/O, with partnership announcements with carmakers and demos showcasing its capabilities. Android Auto currently requires that a driver plug their Android smartphone into the car to access all the features, but Google also wants to embed Android directly into the car. The Google I/O calendar has a couple of developer sessions focused on the car, such as "Designing for Driving" and "Getting your app on the road with Android Auto."
Android Wear
The battle for the wrist is now underway, with Apple's recently released Watch challenging the first crop of smartwatches based on Google's Android Wear.
The Android Wear watches, which began shipping last summer, have not made a huge splash in the market and Apple's entry into the business means the pressure will be on Google to jumpstart its wearables effort. New hardware partners, better battery life and enhancements to the Google Fit health-tracking software are among the expected improvements, according to some reports.
Another interesting theory is that Google could make a version of Google Now, its personal assistant technology, for Apple's Watch.
Photo sharing, minus the Plus A new online photo sharing and storage service may be in the offing, according to a recent report in Bloomberg. The new service would apparently be separate from Google+, the struggling social network that has until now served as the hub for many of Google's photo sharing and storage features.
In fact, Google+ has been something of a question mark since the group's boss Vic Gundotra left the company in 2014. In March, Google's Bradley Horowitz announced that he was leading Google's "photos and streams products." The launch of a standalone photo service will raise more questions about the future of Google+.
We'll be at the show on Thursday - the first keynote kicks off at 9:30 am local time (PT) - and Friday, so check back then to see all the news.

terragotech.com - There are more than 2 billion smartphones in use today, and that number is expected to jump to 6 billion by the end of the decade, according to the GSMA (Groupe Speciale Mobile Association).
The Geospatial Intelligence industry sees 6 billion potential users of Global Positioning System technology, sharing notes, photos, videos and project updates among team members and with headquarters, driving commercial customers, water management, municipal and emergency services and a growing list of organizations that are finding reasons to invest in GPS because they are finding more ways to use it.
Six billion ways to manage projects, tasks and locations from a central point; 6 billion ways for crew members to track each other.
Six billion reasons to say goodbye to the concept of a proprietary device that may cost as much as $10,000 and require specialized training to update your GIS.
Those devices had their day, but with the development and widespread dissemination and use of Smartphones and Android devices, beginning with the mobile revolution in 2007, the sun has set on that day. Since then, the geospatial industry has recognized the potential offered by the devices and has focused its innovation and technological development toward helping customers realize their potential.
That innovation has been spurred by the establishment of cloud networks and web-based mapping services, by the improved efficiency of the mobile devices and their servers, by increased capability for real-time data exchange and resultant dialog they offer, and by customers demanding alternatives to single-use devices.
Field Force Is Already Trained
Those customers also want more people able to take advantage of GPS capabilities on their jobs, and they don't want those people losing valuable time to excessive training sessions. Now that they understand what GIS can do for them and see how it can be designed for use with little training for field forces, they want the next step: devices their employees are already familiar with, because many of them already consider iPhones and Android devices as much a part of their daily lives as lunch.
Two-thirds of those workers in the United States are using their phones to access the Internet, and half of them download applications, according to the Pew Research Center. Increasingly, those applications are location-based, using GPS to find addresses, restaurants, hiking trails, weather conditions and other venues, while at the same time training the user to work in a world in which location and time have assumed a growing importance.
The geospatial industry has given businesses the ability to adapt to change more quickly and efficiently, with adaptable workflows that can cope with real-world conditions.
In many ways, GPS customers want what the military already has.
"Mobile apps will allow us to achieve what we always wanted to achieve: Every soldier is a sensor," said John Timar, vice president of global business development at TerraGo in a recent editorial whitepaper for C4ISR & Networks. "Everyone will be carrying a way to communicate, whether it's an individual soldier or a squad leader who collects all of the information. Either way you have hundreds of thousands of people out there taking pictures and recording video. That is going to be tremendous amount of information."
BYOD and ROI: Links to Productivity and Profit
That's information from a system that customers know contributes to the bottom line. Those customers are tying the expense of GIS progress to their Return-on-Investment and like what they see. What's not to like when you see a $1.5 million annual savings from a 100-person field force using iPhones and/or Android devices equipped with photo and video capability, Internet access and standard interfaces?
Customers also like the flexibility the iPhone and Android devices offer, which is why the workers buy them in the first place.
The operative acronym these days is BYOD: Bring Your Own Device. More than 1.5 billion around the world can do that, with 6 billion on the horizon. Those devices are no longer just for ordering lunch or finding out what you need to bring home from the store. The geospatial industry is finding that they're also for reading and writing the information workers need to do their jobs economically and well.
Research by the Aberdeen Group indicates that BYOD programs produce employees who are 5 percent more productive.
Dave Basil is vice president, Product Development at TerraGo Technologies. He has more than 20 years of experience in the development of cutting-edge technology in enterprise software, cloud-based security, aviation and satellite-based navigation and surveillance solution areas.

techcrunch.com - Apple's Maps navigation technology still lags behind Google Maps. Nearly twice as many iPhone owners prefer to get directions and look up addresses on the Google version, compared to Apple's native Maps app, according to recent ComScore numbers.
But it seems Apple is making moves to improve those usage numbers. The global tech giant confirmed earlier today that it bought the high-precision navigation service Coherent Navigation and that the team from Coherent Navigation would join the Apple Maps team.
Apple has not divulged when it bought Coherent Navigation, or for how much, but the LinkedIn page of Paul G. Lego, Coherent Navigation's CEO shows he's been working for Apple for the last 5 months.
"Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time," the company told TechCrunch in a statement, "and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans."
The move is part of a series of mapping technology acquisitions to help improve its mapping technology in the last few years. Apple snapped up mapping startups BroadMap, Embark and HopStop.com in 2013.

cnet.com - The moment your phone reads "No service," Google Maps suddenly drops out. That is, unless you've saved your maps for offline access. With this feature, you can store large map areas for guidance, even when you're stuck without reception.
The process is identical on both iOS and Android. Before we dive into the process, take a moment to visit the App Store on your iOS device, or the Play store on your Android device and check for any available updates for Google Maps.
The process to save offline Google Maps on iOS.
After verifying you have the latest version, launch Google Maps on your respective device and search for the area you'd like to save for offline access.
Google Maps will then show the area you search for, with the name being displayed along the bottom of the screen. Tap on the name.
Next, tap on the three-dot icon in the top-right corner of your screen.
Select Save offline map.
You'll then be tasked adjusting the area to be saved via panning and zooming around, making sure to pay attention to the size limit alert along the top of the screen. If the mapped area is deemed to large, you'll need to zoom in and repeat the process for the area left out. Once you're happy, tap on Save and give the offline map a name.
To access your saved maps, slide you the menu draw and select My Places from the list of options. Scroll to the bottom of the page, where you should find any offline maps still stored on your device.
Keep in mind that any saved maps will only remain on your device for 30 days. Presumably, after that the app will purge a saved map to clear up space on your device.

mobileworldlive.com - Uber has submitted a bid of up to $3 billion for HERE, Nokia's mapping business, according to the New York Times (NYT), in competition with a host of other companies interested in acquiring the business. These include Facebook, Apple, Samsung, Alibaba, Tencent, Yahoo, Baidu, a consortium of German car manufacturers, and a US private equity firm. Reports have previously estimated that HERE would fetch in the region of 2 billion euros ($2.2 billion) in a sale, although some analysts said this valuation is on the low side given the mapping business' strategic value to a wide array of companies. The NYT report said the German carmakers are allied with Baidu in a joint bid (previous reports have referenced them as separate bidders). If Uber is successful in the acquisition it would have access to a fully established digital mapping business which could help improve services like Uber Pool, which uses geospatial mapping to match riders with drivers. Uber is already boosting its mapping efforts. Last month, it acquired a mapping software company called deCarta, its Advanced Technologies Center is working on mapping and autonomous vehicle technology and sources say it has been hiring mapping software engineers as well. However, car manufacturers working on autonomous vehicles may yet outbid Uber, not wanting to become too reliant on HERE's competitor Google Maps, as Google is developing such vehicles itself. Google Maps has 10 times more smartphone users than HERE, but the latter leads the way in automobile mapping, with over 80 per cent global market share for navigation systems that are built into cars. Earlier this week, Facebook struck a deal with Nokia to use HERE for some of its mobile mapping and is testing it in the Android version of standalone apps such as Instagram and Messenger, as well as the mobile web version of Facebook itself. HERE's most recent quarterly numbers showed strong revenue growth. In Q1 2015 the business saw net sales jump by 25 per cent.

usnews.com - Google's influential search engine has hit a tipping point in technology's shift to smartphones. More search requests are now being made on mobile devices than on personal computers in the U.S. and many other parts of the world.
The milestone announced at a digital advertising conference Tuesday serves as another reminder of how dramatically online behavior has changed since 2007. That's when Apple released the first iPhone, leading to a wave of similar devices that have made it easier for people to stay connected to the Internet wherever they go.
The upheaval has rocked PC makers and other tech companies such as Microsoft with businesses tied to sales of desktop and laptop computers. Google has been able to adapt better than most companies, partly because its search engine and other services are embedded in the popular Android mobile operating system, but it hasn't been totally unscathed.
Google's average ad prices have been declining for the past three-and-half years, partly because marketers so far have been unwilling to pay as much for the commercial message displayed on the smaller screens of smartphones. The company, though, says mobile ad prices have been steadily climbing and will continue to do so as marketers recognize the value of being able to connect with prospective customers at the precise moment that they are looking for someplace to eat, or comparing products on a smartphone while standing in a store.
"The future of mobile is now," says Jerry Dischler, a Google Inc. vice president in charge of the company's "AdWords" service for creating online marketing campaigns.
Besides in the U.S., Google's mobile search requests are outstripping requests in nine other countries. Japan is the only other country that Google is identifying.
The Mountain View, California, company isn't specifying just how many mobile search requests it is getting. Google processes more than 100 billion search requests worldwide each month, including queries on PCs.
As part of the mobile transition, Google last month overhauled its search-recommendation system to favor websites that are easier to read and load on smartphones. That change, known as "Mobilegeddon," prodded millions of websites to make changes to ensure they work well on smartphones to avoid being demoted in Google's search results.
Google also has been introducing advertising formats that tend to work better on mobile devices. For instance, rooms can now be booked within hotel ads, and car ads can now be swiped across a screen to make it easier to comparison shop.
In addition to announcing the milestone in mobile search, Google also introduced on Tuesday a service for comparing mortgage rates in the U.S. The mortgage product expands upon a similar service for auto insurance policies that Google unveiled in California in March. Google is adding three more states - Texas, Illinois and Pennsylvania - to the auto insurance service.

eurekalert.org - Researchers in the Cockrell School of Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin have developed a centimeter-accurate GPS-based positioning system that could revolutionize geolocation on virtual reality headsets, cellphones and other technologies, making global positioning and orientation far more precise than what is currently available on a mobile device.
The researchers' new system could allow unmanned aerial vehicles to deliver packages to a specific spot on a consumer's back porch, enable collision avoidance technologies on cars and allow virtual reality (VR) headsets to be used outdoors. The researchers' new centimeter-accurate GPS coupled with a smartphone camera could be used to quickly build a globally referenced 3-D map of one's surroundings that would greatly expand the radius of a VR game. Currently, VR does not use GPS, which limits its use to indoors and usually a two- to three-foot radius.
"Imagine games where, rather than sit in front of a monitor and play, you are in your backyard actually running around with other players," said Todd Humphreys, assistant professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics and lead researcher. "To be able to do this type of outdoor, multiplayer virtual reality game, you need highly accurate position and orientation that is tied to a global reference frame."
Humphreys and his team in the Radionavigation Lab have built a low-cost system that reduces location errors from the size of a large car to the size of a nickel -- a more than 100 times increase in accuracy. Humphreys collaborated with Professor Robert W. Heath from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and graduate students on the new technology, which they describe in a recent issue of GPS World.
Centimeter-accurate positioning systems are already used in geology, surveying and mapping, but the survey-grade antennas these systems employ are too large and costly for use in mobile devices. The breakthrough by Humphreys and his team is a powerful and sensitive software-defined GPS receiver that can extract centimeter accuracies from the inexpensive antennas found in mobile devices -- such precise measurements were not previously possible. The researchers anticipate that their software's ability to leverage low-cost antennas will reduce the overall cost of centimeter accuracy, making it economically feasible for mobile devices.
Humphreys and his team have spent six years building a specialized receiver, called GRID, to extract so-called carrier phase measurements from low-cost antennas. GRID currently operates outside the phone, but it will eventually run on the phone's internal processor.
To further develop this technology, Humphreys and his students recently co-founded a startup, called Radiosense. Humphreys and his team are working with Samsung to develop a snap-on accessory that will tell smartphones, tablets and virtual reality headsets their precise position and orientation.
The researchers designed their system to deliver precise position and orientation information -- how one's head rotates or tilts -- to less than one degree of measurement accuracy. This level of accuracy could enhance VR environments that are based on real-world settings, as well as improve other applications, including visualization and 3-D mapping.
Additionally, the researchers believe their technology could make a significant difference in people's daily lives, including transportation, where centimeter-accurate GPS could lead to better vehicle-to-vehicle communication technology.
"If your car knows in real time the precise position and velocity of an approaching car that is blocked from view by other traffic, your car can plan ahead to avoid a collision," Humphreys said.

gadgets.ndtv.com - Google has expanded Ok Google voice search and actions to include select third-party apps. The search engine giant has announced that it is currently piloting custom voice actions with select partners and will soon open for more.
Confirming the news, Android Developers Google+ post said, "Today, we launched our first set of partners for custom Google voice actions on Android. We're currently piloting custom voice actions with a select group of partners, but we plan to open it up more widely in the future - and we'd love to hear your ideas for actions you'd like to implement."
Some of the select third-party apps currently supporting custom Ok Google voice actions include Flixster, Instacart, NPR One, Shazam, TripAdvisor, TuneIn Radio, Walmart, Wink, and Zillow.
The select third-party apps currently available to use with "Ok Google" voice search were listed on a Support page with the voice search command for each app.
Flixster: "Show me Inception on Flixster."
Instacart: "Show instacart availability."
Lincoln: "Start my Lincoln MKZ."
NPR One: "Listen to NPR."
Realtor.com: "Show rentals near me on Realtor."
Shazam: "Shazam this song."
TripAdvisor: "Show attractions near me on TripAdvisor."
Trulia: "Show homes for sale in Boston on Trulia."
TuneIn Radio: "Open TuneIn in car mode."
Walmart: "Scan my receipt on Walmart."
Wink: "Activate home mode on Wink."
Zillow: "Show me open houses nearby on Zillow.
The "Ok Google" feature support for select third-party apps is still only its its pilot stage, and apart from the small number of supported apps, there are also a limited number of voice commands for each.