Posts Tagged Android
How BlackBerry is riding iOS and Android to power its comeback | ZDNet
Posted by Michael B. Calyn in Technology on May 17, 2013
How BlackBerry is riding iOS and Android to power its comeback
Summary: The very factor that decimated BlackBerry over the past five years is now becoming one of the most important catalysts in its turnaround.
By Jason Hiner for Between the Lines | May 16, 2013 — 15:09 GMT (08:09 PDT)
While a fresh new generation of BlackBerry phones fight a ferocious battle for third place in the smartphone race, BlackBerry’s other big business remains in a great position in its red-hot market, Mobile Device Management (MDM). At BlackBerry Live 2013 in Orlando this week, the company rolled out a major update to BlackBerry Enterprise Service (BES) and deepened its commitment to making BES a multiplatform solution that now deeply secures its two leading smartphone competitors.
Ironically, the trend that brutally undercut BlackBerry phones during the past five years—the ”bring your own device” (BYOD) movement—is now driving significant sales of BES, the company’s backend software. At BlackBerry Live, the company released version 10.1 of BES. BES 10.1 will support a powerful new module that will launch at the end of June called Secure Work Space, which brings BlackBerry’s high security mobile solution to Android and iOS.
“Our customers have been asking, ‘Can you just take what you’ve done on BlackBerry and put it on iOS and Android?’” said Pete Devenyi, BlackBerry’s SVP of Enterprise Software.
While older versions of BES could do some basic administration of non-BlackBerry smartphones like iPhone, Android, and other types of devices, the solution was limited to the basics, including a full remote wipe of devices when those employees left the company. But, that’s obviously not a great solution with BYOD where employees own the devices. With Secure Work Space, BlackBerry will manage iOS and Android devices in a much more sophisticated and secure way.
Part of that is due to the fact that BES 10 not only does mobile device management, but also does mobile application management, and secure mobile connectivity as well. This triple play raises the bar on manageability. One of the key factors that makes all of this happen in BES 10 is a module called BlackBerry Balance that cleanly separates work and personal data and applications. For example, you can’t copy and paste between work and personal data and in a BYOD situation where an employee leaves the company and IT needs to wipe the business data off the device then it can wipe the work side of the phone without affecting the former employee’s personal data.
However, BlackBerry Balance is limited to BlackBerry devices because they are designed from the ground up to function this way and to adhere to this security model. Because of that, BlackBerry can’t bring Balance to Android and iOS because those operating systems are simply architected differently. But, BlackBerry is doing the next best thing by bringing a lot of these same features to iOS and Android with Secure Work Space.
“With Secure Work Space, it really is a secure container,” said Devenyi.
Image: Jason Hiner
Secure Work Space will be an app in the Apple App Store and Google Play, pending approval from Apple and Google, respectively. It will include secure email, calendar, contacts, tasks, and document editing. It won’t allow data leakage including copy and paste between Secure Work Space and the rest of the device. IT will be able to remotely wipe everything in the Secure Work Space without affecting any of the other apps or data on the person’s device, in a BYOD scenario.
“It really is about the separation of work data and personal data,” Devenyi said. ”It supports a BYOD model much more directly.”
Another thing that Secure Work Space does is to create a fully encrypted tunnel back to the BES 10 server so that all communications from it are secure, even if you’re on an insecure connection such as an Internet cafe or public Wi-Fi. In the past, you’d typically need to launch a VPN tunnel in order to accomplish that, but Secure Work Space does it automatically and at all times.
Devenyi said, “There’s no need for a VPN. It’s a [continually] secure outbound port”
The combination of secure data and apps and a secure connection turns BYOD Android and iOS smartphones and tablets into highly secure business devices. That’s what BlackBerry is bringing to market at the end of Q2, built on top of BES 10.1.
“For the first time, a solution on Android and iOS can benefit and take advantage of the BlackBerry infrastructure and BlackBerry security model,” said Devenyi.
BlackBerry does not split out BES revenue from its revenue from smartphones, but clearly it’s a much more attractive business than the commodity mobile hardware business. And, Devenyi said that BlackBerry is seeing “exploding” demand for MDM solutions to manage BYOD.
In its latest analysis of the MDM market, Gartner corroborated that perspective saying, “MDM is the fastest-growing enterprise mobile software ever (in terms of number of suppliers, revenue growth and interest from Gartner clients).”
That growth is fueling a crowd of companies to jump into MDM, but BlackBerry is one of the creators of the category and one of the most trusted names in mobile security. The fact that many of the companies that need MDM for BYOD have previously relied on BlackBerry and BES to manage their mobile devices provides the company with an excellent opportunity to become a market leader in securing for iOS and Android for BYOD. The irony is obvious, but don’t underestimate how much this could potentially fuel BlackBerry’s comeback, no matter what BlackBerry devices do.
How BlackBerry is riding iOS and Android to power its comeback | ZDNet.
Study: Voice-activated texting while driving no safer than typing – The Washington Post
Posted by Michael B. Calyn in Perspective on April 23, 2013
Study: Voice-activated texting while driving no safer than typing
By Ashley Halsey III,
It had appeared that technology might have solved a problem of its own creation when voice-
activated texting came along so that drivers could keep their eyes on the road. Not so, says the first major study of the subject.
It’s every bit as dangerous to speak into a mobile device that translates words into a text message as it is to type one.
“It didn’t really matter which texting method you were using, your reaction times were twice as slow and your eyes were on the road much less often,” said Christine Yager, who did the research for the TexasTransportation Institute at Texas A&M University.
With Americans swapping 6.1 billion text messages every day, several mobile-application developers came up with voice-to-text software. Yager tested two developed for the popular iPhone and Android devices as drivers performed tests on a closed course.
“We were using a tracker, measuring how often they looked at the roadway and how long it took the driver to complete each text-messaging task that we asked them to do, and we also were looking at how long it took them to respond to that light that turned on periodically,” she said.
The finding: Voice-to-text applications “do not increase driver safety compared to manual texting.”
“We aren’t surprised,” said Jonathan Adkins, deputy executive director of the Governors Highway Safety Association. “Anything that takes the driver’s concentration away from driving is a potential distraction. Our message to drivers is to hold off on sending a text until the car is parked.”
Using a hand-held device to tap out a text message while driving has been banned in the District and 39 states, including Virginia and Maryland. The District, Maryland and nine other states also prohibit use of hand-held devices for almost all purposes.
In a survey released this year, almost 35 percent of drivers told the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety that they had recently read text messages or e-mail while driving, and 26 percent said they had sent a text message.
About 3,300 people a year die in crashes attributed to distracted driving, with 387,000 more injured in 2011, federal data show.
For the study, Yager recruited people who were familiar with sending and receiving texts, and some of them already were using voice-to-text applications.
“One of the common comments was that they felt an inclination to look down at the screen to see if it heard them correctly, so that could be one possible explanation of why they were not looking at the roadway more frequently,” Yager said.
She said drivers said they felt safer when using voice-activated texting than when entering messages on a keyboard.
“Perhaps it is because they view it as safer and therefore it must be, but still they have this inclination to look down at the screen,” she said. “We found that their driving performance suffered equally with both methods.”
As has been proven in studies of cellphone conversations, Yager said drivers engaged in any form of texting were distracted by the communication effort.
“Whether you’re talking on the cellphone, whether you’re trying to send a message, whether you’re typing it with your hand, speaking it, driving is not a simple, mindless task,” she said. “So any of these types of activities that are not about driving have the potential of seriously taking your mind off what you’re doing in operating that vehicle.”
Study: Voice-activated texting while driving no safer than typing – The Washington Post.
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Facebook Unveils New Waste of Time : The New Yorker
Posted by Michael B. Calyn in Borowitz Report, Humor/Parody on April 7, 2013
APRIL 7, 2013
FACEBOOK UNVEILS NEW WASTE OF TIME
POSTED BY ANDY BOROWITZ
MENLO PARK (The Borowitz Report)—Before a rapt audience at Facebook headquarters Thursday, Facebook C.E.O. Mark Zuckerberg unveiled new software that he promised “will totally change the way you are wasting your life.”
Explaining the development of Facebook’s new phone software, Home, Mr. Zuckerberg said, “Our research showed that Facebook users still had a few hours a day when they were leading somewhat healthy and productive lives. Our new software will change all of that.”
Mr. Zuckerberg said his developers had worked for months developing Home, “which seizes control of your phone and makes it good for little other than Facebook—much like many Facebook users themselves.”
By bombarding the user with status updates on a twenty-four-hour basis, he boasted, “Home transforms Facebook from just a social network into something akin to a neurological disorder.”
As the audience applauded that pronouncement, Mr. Zuckerberg added, “At Facebook, we want to be a million voices inside your head.”
When one member of the audience worried whether Home would give Facebook even more access to private information about one’s life, Mr. Zuckerberg reassured the questioner, “After using Home for several weeks, you will have no life.”
While clearly proud of his latest product, Mr. Zuckerberg gave notice that he did not intend to rest on his laurels: “At Facebook, we will never stop striving to replace real experience with something soulless and empty.”
Facebook Unveils New Waste of Time : The New Yorker.
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Why Samsung might be walking out on Android | ITworld
Posted by Michael B. Calyn in Business, Engineering on June 19, 2012
Why Samsung might be walking out on Android
Samsung’s doing great with souped-up Android phones. So great they might leave Android behind.
By Kevin Purdy
June 18, 2012
Waiting in line for the Samsung Galaxy SIII smartphone during a late night sale event in Berlin May 28, 2012.
REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch
If you think the Samsung Galaxy SIII is just about the best Android phone ever made, like many reviewers and techies do, then you’ll be heartened to hear that the new CEO of Samsung wants to make the company’s phones even Samsung-ier.
In a speech detailed by the Wall Street Journal (and excerpted by CNET News, for those without WSJ subscriptions), CEO Kwon Oh-hyun touted the Samsung-only apps that differentiate the Galaxy SIII from other Android phones. That includes “S Voice,” a Siri-like, voice-recognizing personal assistant, the “Smart Stay” feature that tracks your eyes to know where to focus and when to turn off, a lot of little apps for photos and videos, specialty apps that work with Samsung’s specialty stylus, and others. Other Android phone makers offer their own unique apps and interface tweaks, but Samsung’s remodeling is so pervasive and uniquely styled as to suggest Samsung might create its own operating system, or at least “fork” Android into a custom build that doesn’t track with Google’s new releases.
Why would Samsung choose to take on the job of maintaining its own OS when Google offers to do it for free, and, in fact, pushes hard to get new versions of its mostly open OS onto phones? A few reasons, as detailed by the WSJ, CNET, and recent Android history:
· Differentiation: What sets one quad-core, hi-res, LTE-enabled Android phone apart from another? Lots of little hardware and software details, actually, but what really draws eyeballs and opens wallets is marquee features, in Samsung’s mind. 50 GB of online storage space, a phone that pulls up directions from your voice, a phone that calls people when you pick it up while looking at a text message—something different.
· Side markets: With the official Android OS, it’s hard to close off certain apps and their offerings, or to lock in your own company’s music app and MP3 store as the primary tool for tunes. But look at what Amazon or Barnes & Noble have done with the Kindle Fire and the Nook (respectively): they’re “Android,” but they exist to sell and collect each maker’s offerings. Samsung has not looked at Amazon and Apple’s success and declared, “No, we’d rather not have that kind of diverse revenue, we’ll stick to razor-thin hardware margins.”
· Paranoia: Google bought Motorola Mobility, and swore up and down that it would operate Motorola at an arm’s length: no exclusive access to Android versions, no favored status for Nexus device partnerships, and so forth. Samsung isn’t buying it. Samsung said it was looking forward to seeing Google utilizing Motorola’s patent portfolio to minimize Android litigation risks—but who isn’t looking forward to free things? Samsung executives have told CNET that they expect to be competing with Goog-orola directly when it comes to new phones and devices, and it’s hard to compete with the team that controls your software.
There’s a chance Samsung is still a happy Android partner, and just wants to tout its proprietary offerings above and beyond the general marketing points for Android. But there’s a much bigger chance that Samsung, emboldened by its recent successes and growing name recognition, will look at how proprietary profit is being made and move toward getting some of it.
Why Samsung might be walking out on Android | ITworld.
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Facebook smartphone? Dumb idea
Posted by Michael B. Calyn in Facebook on June 3, 2012
Facebook smartphone? Dumb idea
Farhad Manjoo
June 3, 2012 – 2:30PM
Wrong numbers … will Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg get the message?Photo: AP
If you’re looking for a cheap, ad-heavy phone based on a dubious business model, you should rejoice.
THERE are two ways to make money in the smartphone business. There’s Apple’s way: 1) Make premium products that people clamour for; 2) Sell the devices for substantially more than it costs to make them; 3) Figure out what to do with your rapidly accumulating stockpiles of cash.
And then there’s everyone else’s way: 1) Spend a lot of money to make lots of different kinds of phones; 2) Sell them for rock-bottom prices, sometimes even for free; 3) Chalk your losses up to long-term strategy.
Google is the primary exemplar of this second approach. The search company gives away its Android operating system to phone makers around the world. The free OS has allowed manufacturers to create lots and lots of Android smartphones, some of them really good, most of them quite bad. Phone makers sell Android phones at low margins, sometimes even below cost, hoping to make a fortune on all the people who are switching from dumbphones to smartphones and are looking for a good deal.
But while the pricing strategy has made Android the world’s most popular smartphone OS, it hasn’t resulted in much of a windfall for anyone. According to Horace Dediu, who runs the phone-industry analysis site Asymco, Apple now collects 75 per cent of the profits in the phone business. And Google makes twice as much money from ads it displays on Apple devices than from those on Android phones.
Now there are fresh reports that Facebook is planning to enter this terrible business. The New York Times’ Nick Bilton says the social network has been stealthily recruiting smartphone hardware engineers — including former Apple staffers — in an effort to build its own phone. Bilton’s report is the latest in a series of stories about Facebook’s long-in-the-works, on-again, off-again phone. TechCrunch first reported on the project in 2010, and last year All Things D disclosed several more details about the phone.
It’s obvious why Facebook would want its own phone. A lot of the social network’s users log in to the site through their mobile devices, and Facebook hasn’t found a good way to make money on small, ad-free screens. There’s also the access threat — if most people come to Facebook through devices controlled by Google and Apple, Mark Zuckerberg can rightly fear that at some point, his rivals might somehow make it harder for people to get to his site. As one anonymous employee tells Bilton, “Mark is worried that if he doesn’t create a mobile phone in the near future that Facebook will simply become an app on other mobile platforms.”
But when you puzzle out the economics of Facebook’s entry into this market, you inevitably come out scratching your head. How could they possibly make money from the phone business?
Let’s say that Facebook tries to ape Apple’s business model by building an amazing, one-of-a-kind phone that can be made at low prices, in high volumes, and will be snapped up at premium prices. OK — stop laughing. Apple’s phone was the result of years of research and the sort of design, marketing and production expertise that comes from decades in the hardware business. What’s more, when it launched in 2007, the iPhone was unlike anything else on the market, and it was thus something people were willing to pay a lot for. There is just no way that Facebook, a company that has never made any hardware, will come up with something like that.
Zuckerberg likely understands that, and is thus probably thinking of Facebook’s mobile plan as a variant of the Android model. Facebook would create the operating system and would work with a third-party phone manufacturer to build the actual phones, which would be priced low enough to gain a large foothold in the market. The device would offer deep integration with Facebook’s services, and Facebook would hope to make money through all of that increased usage — and the advertising that comes with it.
But that strategy also makes little sense. For one thing, Facebook is already deeply integrated into most smartphones. Facebook’s apps — the main social networking app, as well as its add-on apps for messaging and its new Camera app for photos — are some of the most popular add-ons on the iPhone and Android. Many Android phones also allow you to hook in your phone more directly, for instance by syncing your address book with the social network. And because it relies on advertising revenue, Facebook can’t afford to offer preferential treatment to its own phone over other phones — it’s got to work really well everywhere, because Facebook only makes money if everyone uses it. Consequently, it’s hard to see how the Facebook phone can ever hope to be better at Facebook, supposedly its main function, than any other phone.
So what would be the point in using the Facebook phone? Well, remember, it will be cheap. But so are lots of Android phones. If Facebook makes a phone, then, the device will necessarily spark a battle for the low end of the phone market, with each company offering ever-cheaper devices in the hopes of cashing in on some future advertising bonanza. If you’re looking for a cheap, ad-heavy phone based on a dubious business model, you should rejoice. Otherwise, try to stifle your yawns.
Facebook smartphone? Dumb idea.
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In ‘iDisorder,’ a Look at Mobile-Device Addiction – Review – NYTimes.com
Posted by Michael B. Calyn in Social, Society on May 14, 2012
When You Text Till You Drop
By BRYAN BURROUGH
Published: May 12, 2012
I DON’T know about you, but I’ve always found the debate about what our mobile devices are doing to us — to our behaviors, our manners, our minds — at least as interesting as reports about what we’re doing with these devices.
What about that gent who was talking loudly into his Android phone on the Metro-North train this morning? Was he really that obnoxious before we all went wireless — or did the device somehow change him? And what about all those young people who spend hours upon hours texting and sexting and Facebooking? What kinds of adults will they become?
Is the casual anonymity of Internet discussion turning us into boors? What did we once do with all the hours we now spend obsessively checking e-mail and texts? Smoke?
Larry D. Rosen, a California psychologist, is less concerned with techno-boorishness than with the very real possibility that all these new personal gadgets may be making some of us mentally ill — especially those who are prone to narcissism, for example, or to depression or obsessive-compulsive disorder.
In “iDisorder: Understanding Our Obsession With Technology and Overcoming Its Hold on Us” (Palgrave Macmillan), Dr. Rosen surveys the existing research, throws in a bit of his own and suggests ways that users of new technologies can avoid behavioral pitfalls.
As much as the topic interests me, I was initially skeptical of this book. For one thing, it’s a little proud of itself. The word “iDisorder,” which Dr. Rosen repeats throughout, suggests an author trying very hard to coin a term. He is among the few authors I’ve seen who refers to his own book as “groundbreaking.”
Yet “iDisorder” is a pleasant surprise — lean, thoughtful, clearly written and full of ideas and data you’ll want to throw into dinner-party conversation. Did you know thatpsychologists divide Twitter users into “informers,” those who pass along interesting facts, and “meformers,” those who pass along interesting facts about only themselves? Or that 70 percent of those who report heavily using mobile devices experience “phantom vibration syndrome,” which is what happens when your pocket buzzes and there’s no phone in your pocket? (I thought I was the only one.) Or that heavy use of Facebook has been linked to mood swings among some teenagers? Researchers are calling this “Facebook depression.” (And I thought that my children were just having a lot of bad days.)
One strength of “iDisorder” is Dr. Rosen’s cleareyed view of technology and its uses. He doesn’t oppose it. In fact, his view is quite the opposite. What we need, he says, is a sense of restorative balance and self-awareness. It is unavoidable that many of us will fall prey to an iDisorder, he says, but “it is not fatal and we are not doomed to spend time in a mental institution or a rehab center.” By using a few simple strategies, he says, “we can safely emerge from our TechnoCocoons and rejoin the world of the healthy.”
The book’s chapters focus on mental health challenges linked to heavy technology use. They include how social media sites may spawn narcissism (no surprise there) and how constantly checking our wireless mobile devices (he calls them W.M.D.’s, a great acronym) can lead to obsessive-compulsive disorder. Others look at how technology addiction can lead to attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, and at how all that medical data available online has created a class of people known as “cyberchondriacs.” Perhaps most interesting of all, Dr. Rosen examines how the constant use of technology may be rewiring our brains. One study he cites calls the impact on memory the “Google effect,” that is, an inability to remember facts brought on by the realization that they are all available in a few keystrokes via Google.
AT the end of each chapter, Dr. Rosen details a list of things that can be done to combat each techno-disorder. These tend to be a bit repetitive and common-sensical, but that doesn’t make them any less useful. One often-suggested solution is to take a “tech break.” In other words, if overusing your iPad is making you crazy, maybe you should stop using it so much. I know: duh. But still.
For those combating some form of techno-addiction, Dr. Rosen advises regularly stepping away from the computer for a few minutes and connecting with nature; just standing in your driveway and staring at the bushes, research shows, has a way of resetting our brains.
Parents will find this book particularly helpful. Dr. Rosen suggests a whole set of remedies for children’s techno-addiction. Two popular methods are to make sure your child gets a full night’s sleep, and to convene regular family dinners where technology is forbidden at the table. This is especially useful, it appears, in reintroducing children to normal interaction after hours spent in cyberconversation.
For those worried about their own heavy use of technology, or their family’s, this book could be a helpful starting point for understanding the consequences, and for overcoming them.
In ‘iDisorder,’ a Look at Mobile-Device Addiction – Review – NYTimes.com.
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Why Verizon Doesn’t Want You to Buy an iPhone | News & Opinion | PCMag.com
Posted by Michael B. Calyn in Business on May 5, 2012
Why Verizon Doesn’t Want You to Buy an iPhone
May 4, 2012
A pretty hot story is going around, stoked by CNNMoney, that Verizon Wireless sales reps are steering customers away from Apple’s iPhones in favor of 4G LTE-enabled Android devices. I absolutely believe this, Verizon’s official denials notwithstanding.
This has nothing to do with the Apple/Android war. It has little to do with the huge subsidies paid on Apple products, little to do with Apple’s power in the market, and little to do with how much Android manufacturers kowtow to Verizon. Maybe those are minor factors, but they aren’t the primary reason.
Verizon Needs LTE Subscribers
Here’s the problem: Verizon has spent millions of dollars rolling out its massive LTE network to cover 200 million people so far. You could call it billions, if you include the $5 billion spent on the C Block 700-Mhz spectrum licenses. But according to its first-quarter earnings presentation it’s only been able to convert 9.1 percent of its 93 million users to LTE.
Moving over “Internet device” customers on USB modems and iPads won’t help, because according to Verizon’s most recent quarterly report, that’s only 8 percent of the carrier’s postpaid subscriber base. Verizon needs to convert smartphone users, and 72 percent of its postpaid phone sales were smartphones, according to its earnings release.
Verizon customers’ data demands are growing, because more and more are choosing smartphones. But the carrier can’t easily add capacity on its old 3G network. We’ve seen average speeds on the Verizon 3G network creeping down for a while; we got average download speeds of 1.01Mbps in our Fastest Mobile Networks 2010 feature, but the carrier dropped to 700kbps in Fastest Mobile Networks 2011.
The carrier has done a very good job of preventing network crowding from ending up with blocked calls and dropped connections, but it still has a crowded network using a base technology (EVDO) that is slower than AT&T and T-Mobile’s HSPA.
The 4G LTE network, on the other hand, is blazingly fast and has tons of capacity right now. It isn’t overcrowded. There’s plenty of room. And every 4G phone can fall back to 3G just in case.
You Can’t Move an iPhone Customer to 4G
From Verizon’s position, the solution looks simple: move heavy data users in crowded urban areas from 3G to 4G as fast as possible. That would help everyone. The new 4G users get much faster connections, and the 3G users would see better speeds and network quality, too, as that network becomes less crowded.
There’s only one problem. The iPhone isn’t a 4G phone. And according to Verizon CFO Fran Shammo, the carrier sold more iPhones over the last quarter (3.2 million) than it did LTE devices (2.9 million). That means more than half of Verizon’s smartphone buyers are crowding onto the already busy 3G network, while the 4G network has plenty of space.
So you see why Verizon has a strong reason to push buyers away from the iPhone. The iPhone is a great device. But it’s making a crowded network more crowded. Until the LTE iPhone comes along, to rebalance its network, Verizon may quietly push Android phones.
Why Verizon Doesn’t Want You to Buy an iPhone | News & Opinion | PCMag.com.
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