Mobile Computing Is Just Getting Started

Mobile computers are spreading faster than any other consumer technology in history. In the United States, smartphones have even begun reaching the group of relative technophobes that consumer researchers call the “late majority.” About half of mobile-phone users now have one.

Wireless carriers make money at the greatest scale. Globally, 900 of them take in $1.3 trillion in revenue each year, about four times the combined revenue of Google, Apple, Microsoft, and Intel. Yet individual device makers, notably Apple, capture more profit. That company’s markets aren’t restricted to one network. Its products, by bringing personal computing to phones, have sharply increased their capabilities and value.

In 2007, the average wholesale price of a mobile phone was $120 and falling; analysts talked of market saturation because nearly everyone who could afford one had one. But since then, prices have leapt by 50 percent, and the revenue from all mobile handset sales has doubled.

Apps and services still account for the least amount of money in mobile computing. Mobile advertising brings in only $9 billion as yet. But here is where the most opportunities lie. Facebook has a monthly audience as large as any ever reached. And in January, it said for the first time that more of that audience was coming from mobile devices than from PCs.

Continue Reading at MIT Technology Review

Mobile Trends for 2013

Mobile, mobile and mobile. If someone asked you to describe the top three digital marketing trends for next year, that might be your answer. As 2012, the year of social media, draws to a close; it’s time to start planning for 2013. For marketers that will mean looking at ways to market through mobile.

Mobile marketing is nothing new. Most marketers have used some form of mobile strategy already. But as the technology becomes more and more advanced, the opportunities presented by mobile are getting a whole lot bigger. Up to now, mobile marketing was a nice addition to your digital marketing strategy; next year mobile will be the headline act for most marketers.

The growth in mobile web use and smart phone ownership has been mind-blowing. Last month mobile devices accounted for 10.3% of all web browsing. Look around your office, assuming everyone is online on desktops; how many people are you looking at? One tenth of that number are online via mobile devices while you read this, probably in the same building. Some of them are probably using both device types.

Mobile is huge and mobile devices are creating opportunities that marketers wouldn’t even have considered possible last year. So how will marketers leverage that mobile usage in 2013?

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Privacy and Data Management on Mobile Devices

More than half of app users have uninstalled or decided to not install an app due to concerns about personal information.

Many cell phone users take steps to manage, control, or protect the personal data on their mobile devices. In a new study by the Pew Internet Project of how cell phone users manage their mobile data, we asked about five specific behaviors in which cell phone owners might engage. Two of these activities were asked of the 43% of cell owners who download cell phone applications. Among this group, representing 38% of the adult population, we found that:

54% of app users have decided to not install a cell phone app when they discovered how much personal information they would need to share in order to use it

30% of app users have uninstalled an app that was already on their cell phone because they learned it was collecting personal information that they didn’t wish to share

Taken together, 57% of all app users have either uninstalled an app over concerns about having to share their personal information, or declined to install an app in the first place for similar reasons. 

Outside of some modest demographic differences, app users of all stripes are equally engaged in these aspects of personal information management. Owners of both Android and iPhone devices are also equally likely to delete (or avoid entirely) cell phone apps due to concerns over their personal information.

Download the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project Report

Graphene: A Cell Phone as Thin as Paper

You’ve probably never heard of graphene, a carbon-based material, but it might be stuffed into your pocket or wrapped around your wrist in the not-too-distant future.

According to the American Chemical Society, graphene is a “wonder material” 100 times stronger than steel and is so thin that a single ounce of it could to cover 28 football fields. It could also usher in a new era of ultra-slim and fully flexible gadgets.

Although graphene has been in the news before, A.C.S. said that it was now currently under development for use in flexible solar panels “that could be used to cover the outside surface of a building, in addition to the roof.” And as soon as these solar panels actually become a viable product, cell phones would be next up on the flexible list….

Continue at NYTIMES

Why Ads Are Imitating the Photos in Your Smartphone

Original article from the WSJ - Photo courtesy: Scott Schuman/The Sartorialst

As people spend less time looking at glossy magazine ads and TV commercials, lifestyle advertising is adopting the look and feel of the images consumers find most compelling—the ones they shoot themselves using smartphone cameras and then share on websites like Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest.

Burberry,  Coach and Tiffany are some of the fashion brands that have hired a famous street-style photographer to create digital ad campaigns that get shared on Facebook and YouTube and other websites.

Rent the Runway, the online dress-rental company, now features real women wearing its clothes, rather than models in product shots, on its Web home page.

Last year, clothing company Rebecca Minkoff published a print magazine ad composed of Instagram photos. Its “shoetography” campaign began with Ms. Minkoff posting Instagram photos she took of the shoes she was wearing. Shoe sales have spiked since the promotion launched, says company co-founder Uri Minkoff. Luscious glossy photography remains important for the label, though. “Our customer is downtown and uptown,” Mr. Minkoff says. “She is into reality, but romance too.”

Continue reading at the WSJ

Why passwords have never been weaker—and crackers have never been stronger

Thanks to real-world data, the keys to your digital kingdom are under assault.

The ancient art of password cracking has advanced further in the past five years than it did in the previous several decades combined. At the same time, the dangerous practice of password reuse has surged. The result: security provided by the average password in 2012 has never been weaker.

A new world

The average Web user maintains 25 separate accounts but uses just 6.5 passwords to protect them, according to a landmark study (PDF) from 2007. As the Gawker breach demonstrated, such password reuse, combined with the frequent use of e-mail addresses as user names, means that once hackers have plucked login credentials from one site, they often have the means to compromise dozens of other accounts, too….

Click here to read the entire article 

Nikon Coolpix S800 the Company’s First Android Camera

Having cameras move in the direction of phones and computers isn’t an idea unique to Nikon: Polaroid has already launched an Android-based camera, and Samsung and Panasonic are bothreportedly looking into the possibility.

If this report is actually true, then Nikon would be the first major manufacturer to jump headfirst into mobile computer-style cameras. They might be unveiling the camera on August 22nd, and if they do, it’ll be quite an attraction at Photokina in Germany next month.

Continue at Petapixel

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.

Section 230 says that operators of interactive computer services will not be treated as a publisher of information provided by third parties, such as individual Twitter users.

The law permits sites to monitor, censor or take down content posted by third-party users, said Jeffrey Hermes, a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University.

But according to Hermes, when the site becomes so involved in the process of third-party posts that it is considered to be “contributing to what is unlawful about the content,” it can face liability.

In other words, Section 230 protects Twitter if it merely corrects users’ spelling or cuts all tweets down to 120 characters. But if it changes the meaning of a post or compromises its contract with users, the Section 230 shield may not apply.

Reuters Analysis: Why Twitter apologized over NBC Olympics flap

Hackers Demonstrate a Rising Vulnerability of Smartphones

Hackers can steal photos, text messages, surf the Web and even make phone calls from your smartphone simply with the wave of a hand, researchers at the annual Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas said Wednesday.

Charlie Miller, a security researcher at Accuvant and serial smartphone hacker, demonstrated how easy it is for hackers to exploit near-field communication technology to take control of devices remotely. In front of a packed audience, he successfully hacked three smartphones using N.F.C.: a Samsung Nexus S, a Galaxy Nexus and a Nokia N9. In each case, he was able to access photos, send texts, browse the Internet and even make phone calls from the phones, without laying a finger on them.

Continue reading at NYTIMES

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