Report: 330 million smartwatches will be sold worldwide by 2018
In a new report, research house ON World says sensor-laden and voice activated smartwatches will begin to steal users’ attention from their smartphones and will sell like hotcakes in the future.
ON World projects that by the end of 2018, 330 million smartwatches will have been shipped worldwide, up from less than 4 million in 2013.
The report projects that 700 million wearable tech devices of all classes will be shipped over the next five years for a global annual market worth $47.4 billion. Consumer wearables such as smartwatches, smart glasses, and personal sensors will surpass other sports/fitness gear in 2014 and make up two-thirds of the revenues in 2018, the report says.
Hardware will make up the majority of the revenues during this period but monitoring services, ON World predicts, but mobile apps and subscriptions will grow faster.
The firm also surveyed 1,000 online consumers and found that smartwatches are the wearable technology consumers say they would most likely purchase. ...
Consumers may be unrealistic about the price of smartwatches, especially ones that carry sensors for biometrics measurement onboard. ON World’s survey found that 40 percent would be willing to pay $99 or more for a smartwatch that had integrated blood pressure, heart rate, and activity tracking sensors, while only 8 percent would be willing to spend $299 or more.
See the full story here: http://venturebeat.com/2014/07/01/report-330-million-smartwatches-will-be-sold-worldwide-by-2018/
For Independence Day, 1,000 Free TV Antennas for Aereo Customers
This follows a controversial blog posted by company presidentRichard Schneider right after the court decision was announced titled, "Ding-Dong, Aereo Is Dead."
"Aereo," reads the blog post, "a non-moneymaking hobby backed by bloated investors is dead. Finally."
"Aereo investors say they have no plan B," says the blog post. "And we are so grateful for their arrogance, poor planning and illegal business model. We invite you to join us today in dancing on Aereo’s grave. Three cheers for free TV!"
Antennas Direct, a privately held company founded in 2003, sold about 600,000 antennas last year. It has seen sales rise about 80 percent during the first half of 2014, according to a company spokesman.
He attributes the sales rise to an increase in people either not subscribing to cable TV or replacing cable with a combination of over-the-air local stations and streaming services (that require only a broadband connection), such as Hulu, Netflix, Amazon and technology including Roku, Sling Media and Simple TV.
See the full story here: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/independence-day-1000-free-tv-716448
M-Go to Take Over Samsung’s Movie Business
M-Go and Samsung are partnering on a planned video streaming service to deliver movies and TV shows in the new Ultra High Definition format, which offers four times the resolution of high-definition video. It’s expected to debut later this year.
M-Go CEO John Batter said he negotiated with all of Hollywood’s major studios to allow the content that consumers bought through Samsung’s Media Hub to be added to their M-Go library at no additional charge.
Absent that agreement, all the movies consumers had purchased through Samsung’s Media Hub would have disappeared — the kind of black eye for digital purchases that studio executives hoped to avoid.
The Morality Of A/B Testing
In the end, an experiment with these intentions and risks may have deserved its own opt-in, which Facebook should consider offering in the future. No matter how you personally perceive the ethics, Facebook made a big mistake with how it framed the study and now the public is seriously angry.
But while Facebook has become the lighting rod, the issue of ethics in A/B testing is much bigger. If you believe toying with emotions is unethical, most major tech companies as well as those in other industries are guilty too.
At the very least, the tech companies should educate their data scientists and others designing A/B tests about the ethical research methods associated with having experiments approved by the IRB. Even if the tech companies don’t actually submit individual tests for review, just being aware of best practices could go a long way to keeping tests safe and compassionate.
Read the full story here: http://techcrunch.com/2014/06/29/ethics-in-a-data-driven-world/?ncid=tcdaily
Here Is The First Video On YouTube In Sixty Frames Per Second
During YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki‘s presentation at VidCon‘s Industry Day, she revealed a number of new developments that will be coming to the world’s largest video sharing site in the coming months. One of the new features Wojcicki announced is the ability to play videos in 48 and 60 frames per second, and we’ve already seen a few gorgeous-looking videos utilizing these high frame rates.
See the full story here: http://www.tubefilter.com/2014/06/27/youtube-sixty-frames-per-second-battlefield-hardline/
The Rise Of The “Social Professional” Network
[Philip Lelyveld comment; Why is this thought of as unusual. There have been professional societies for decades. This is just a faster turn-around enabler.]
The notion of a social network for every type of employee might be far-fetched, though. It’s not as if coffee baristas have a compelling need to join a network of other coffee baristas. Vertical professional networks are likely to be the most attractive to highly skilled knowledge workers. Think software engineers (GitHub), mechanical engineers (GrabCad), data scientists (Kaggle) and academics (Academia.edu and ResearchGate).
These networks are far from “niche.” GitHub has well over 6 million registered users and Academia.edu boasts more than 10 million users.
See the full story here: http://techcrunch.com/2014/06/28/the-rise-of-the-social-professional-networks/?ncid=tcdaily
BEHIND GE’S VISION FOR THE INDUSTRIAL INTERNET OF THINGS
[Philip Lelyveld comment: This is a really good article about the internet of things - really big things producing terabytes of data per day. Locomotives and rail networks. Jet engines and flight reliability. The four tech tools described in "How to make a freight train go express" are alternative implementations of tools used in Disney Parks to optimize ride performance, guest through-put, and guest experience. Very interesting stuff.]
An approaching third wave, enabled by data and analytics, does something new. It strikes an agreement between GE and a customer for a certain kind of outcome, rather than a certain kind of functionality. It's not only about measuring whether a jet engine is working up to its specifications, or about repairing it on time, but whether it's delivering, say, the agreed-upon amount of peak operational time. "We're getting to the point of selling thrust, not engines," says Brad Surak, a software manager for the company. "Or we're selling locomotion, not locomotives. And we guarantee that back to our customers. If an engine breaks down on a Southwest Airlines jet full of passengers sitting on a tarmac and they need to take passengers out of the plane and reroute it, we pay penalties to them because of it."
See the full story here: http://www.fastcompany.com/3031272/can-jeff-immelt-really-make-the-world-1-better