MacTech Blog

Aug 11

Good Technology releases Q2 Mobility Index Report

In its twelfth quarterly Mobility Index Report, Good Technology, which specializes in secure mobility, has announced key findings showing that organizations are continuing to adopt an increasing variety of apps to secure corporate information. The acceleration of secure work app deployments enables users to perform work-related and personal activities on the same device, protecting user information, such as email, contacts, voicemails, SMS, location, etc.

With 67% of organizations now using two or more apps beyond email, companies are rapidly mobilizing content and apps while strengthening their cyber resiliency. The average organization now uses almost three and a half apps in addition to email, with secure browser leading all app categories for a third quarter in a row, according to Good Technology.

This quarter’s findings indicated that employees are requesting mobile access to corporate information located behind the firewall. The top five app categories...

The early excitement surrounding AR (augmented reality) and VR (virtual reality) has prompted some substantial bets from major players, including Google, Samsung, Microsoft, and Facebook. ABI Research (www.abirsearch.com) says Microsoft’s Hololens will likely be a major driver of consumer AR devices, while Google Cardboard will continue to be the first choice for an inexpensive VR experience (estimated to ship around 1.5 million units by then end of 2015), and will join Samsung’s Gear VR in driving mobile-reliant device growth.

The Oculus Rift, along with similar devices like the HTC Vive or Sony’s Project Morpheus, will be dominant among tethered devices and will drive early growth, with their successors likely continuing that lead in the space, according to the research group. These tethered VR devices are forecast for the highest growth among VR device types — 128% CAGR (compound annual growth rate) 2014...

As wearables continue to explode, the discussion of practical applications for wearables within businesses becomes more and more important. At the end of last year a survey of 300 top IT leaders showed that over a third of the surveyed companies were interested in using wearables, but most also felt that the current market did not have any offerings that were ready for adoption into a corporate environment.

Now, according to a report from Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com), the U.S. Enterprise Wearables market is expected to reach US$8.5 billion by 2020, with growth driven by key industries such as medical, industrial, energy and field services.

"A wrist computer or glasses style heads-up-display will be beneficial to workers in the industrial sector, giving them the hands-free ability to manage difficult tasks and still receive and send information," says...

New data from Juniper Research (www.juniperresearch.com) says that the number of IoT (Internet of Things) connected devices will number 38.5 billion in 2020, up from 13.4 billion in 2015: a rise of over 285%.

While IoT "smart home" based applications grab media headlines, it is the industrial and public services sector – such as retail, agriculture, smart buildings and smart grid applications – that will form the majority of the device base, notes the research group. This is due in no small part to a much stronger business case for these types of applications.

Michelin and John Deere, for example, have successfully transitioned their businesses towards being service based companies through the use of IoT, as opposed to their previous incarnations as product vendors. Juniper's new research found that while the number of connected devices already exceeds the number of humans on the planet by...

SOASTA, which specializes in performance analytics, has unveiled the findings of its annual SOASTA Back to School Shopping Report Card, which found that nearly all (91%) of parents who plan to shop online for back to school report there are stressors for them when making online purchases for the new school year.

According to SOASTA’s research, back to school online shoppers cited shipping costs (57 percent), out-of-stock inventory (51%) and not being able to see or test the product before buying (50%) among the top stressors when shopping online for back to school. Additional frustrations they’ve experienced include:

° Credit card security – 30%;

° Slow load times – 27%;

° Page crashing in the middle of a transaction – 25%;

Hard-to-navigate websites – 23%;

Out-of-date website and buying process – 19%.

While most back to school online shoppers report feeling stressed while making their online purchases, SOASTA’s...

Biometric technologies are developed constantly, strengthening their position in both existing markets like law enforcement and government applications, but also in emerging high-value segments like the consumer and banking markets.

Near-infrared iris recognition technology is a promising up-and-comer for both smartphone applications and enterprise access control, while ultrasound fingerprint and vein recognition companies are looking to establish their dominance in banking and finance applications, according to ABI Research (www.abiresearch.com).

Shortcomings on facial recognition, solid-state, and optical fingerprint technology are being revisited with companies unveiling new commercial deployments to secure their position in the market but some technical issues keep them from delivering to their full potential, according to the research group. Different end-user markets, however, have specific...

With the early success of consumer wearables targeting health and fitness and recent advancements in neuroscience research technology, several manufacturers are preparing to launch Brain-to-Machine Interface (BMI) products in advance of the end-of-year holiday buying season.

According to a new market intelligence study by ABI Research (www.abiresearch.com), revenues from both medical-grade and consumer BMI products will approach US$10 million in 2015. Unlike the scenes in science fiction books and film, BMI is not able to read one’s thoughts nor can it be used to program someone to perform nefarious acts. However, tapping into brain activity as a means of understanding human behavior, or controlling an external activity are now possible.

In these last three months the Spy has introduced the fully modern dialect of an existing notation he and Telecom engineer Benjamin Kowarsch have developed to address serious software engineering issues of safety, security, reliability, and extensibility. This month he shows how to leverage Blueprints to enforce the rigour involved in planning code before executing it.

Modula-2 R10 allows the programmer to develop Abstract Data Type (ADT) libraries that include binding to language features such as operations (+ - * and /), various reserved words such as FOR, and syntax such as the accessor [] commonly used in programming notations for random access to array elements.

Each such library must conform to a blueprint In the definition module for each of the separate types and IO libraries that contained bindings, the syntax [Proto..] appears immediately after the name of the module, for instance:

New data from the June Application Strategies’ Monthly iPhone Entertainment App Tracker (http://bit.ly/1HLdbbk) – covering 150 individual countries – indicates that established entertainment brands are being outshone by less well known applications potentially creating new media powerhouses across the globe.

Of the top 10 most popular free and grossing apps – based on number of appearances globally in June – only Netflix and Vine make the list as established global brands. This is partially due to the confusion about what the entertainment category actually is. The category includes streaming apps – such as Netflix and HBO Now but also content creation apps such as Action FX and personalization apps such as Wallpapers for iOS8.

For entertainment companies – such as HBO, Cinemax and Starz – seeking a global audience the ability to break through the noise of the category could be challenging and may...

Cloud, as one of the substantial transformative forces, is impacting all areas of IT supply, composition, and consumption and provides the basis for many of the big data, mobile, and social solutions. In fact, the IDC (www.idc.com) research group predicts the number of new cloud-based solutions will triple in the next four to five years.

Industry-specific applications will be a driving force as businesses look for solutions that can be easily configured to their unique business and vertical requirements, says IDC. With the huge increase in the number and diversity of services available in the market, organizations across the industries will shift steadily toward cloud-first strategies to enable digital transformation.

The IDC study provides a vertical forecast by 20 industries for the United States and worldwide for 3 public cloud computing technologies — software as a service, platform as a service, and...

There are a variety of ways to secure data, either on the perimeter or within the local area network (LAN), but the most fundamental method in a defense-in-depth model is hardware encryption. ABI Research (www.abiresearch.com) expects the global hardware encryption market revenue to reach US$36.4 billion by end of 2015.

The advantage of hardware-based solutions is that they bypass many of the typical drawbacks of software-based solutions like performance degradation or vulnerability to attacks aimed at the encryption key stored in memory. Because encryption is available at drive-level, this solution is not dependent on any software or operating system used, and usually cannot be turned off by users.

Driven by an explosion of smartphones and tablets, the landscape for printing, scanning, and document management is in the midst of profound and significant change.

According to new global research covering six countries across three major regions from International Data Corporation (IDC), the mobile opportunity for document solutions continues to grow as organizations adopt mobile devices at a fevered pace. Large and medium companies are leading the charge, accounting for 54% of smartphone and/or tablet users, notes the research group. Additionally, six vertical markets stand out as having a statistically higher percentage of smartphone and tablet users: Information Technology, Wholesale Trade, Banking, Life Sciences, Resource Industries, and Securities.

"The business value for smartphone/tablet printing is enormously clear, and yet support for this is shockingly lacking in 2015. This is a huge missed productivity opportunity for both businesses and print providers...

Worldwide semiconductor capital spending is projected to grow 2.5 percent in 2015, to US$66.1 billion, according to Gartner, Inc. (www.gartner.com). This is down from the 4.1% growth predicted in the previous quarter's forecast.

"Since the previous quarter's forecast, continued weakness in the euro and yen have created major weaknesses in the overall equipment market picture," says Bob Johnson, research vice president at Gartner. "With over half of all equipment being produced by either Japanese or European suppliers, the weakness in their currencies has been the primary factor in our reducing our overall outlook for 2015. Longer term, we expect modest growth throughout the semiconductor cycle, with just a pause in the equipment market growth expected in 2016, as DRAM goes through a typical cyclical downturn."

Consumers are motivated to play video games because they relieve boredom, provide a challenge, create a more social atmosphere and help to escape reality. A recent study by Strategy Analytics (www.strategyanaltyics.com) has found that mobile gaming continues to primarily be for quick entertainment in downtime; in an average week, more time is spent playing mobile games outside of the home.

The Media and Services UX (MSX) group at Strategy Analytics investigated mobile gaming behaviors and identified four motivators that are making the mobile gaming experience more compelling. These include daily incentives for accessing and playing the game, game incentives for viewing advertisements, daily timeouts for game play and frequent game updates.

"Daily incentives for accessing and playing a game give users a progressive series of incentives," says Christopher Dodge, report author and...

Operating in the unlicensed 5GHz band, LTE-U’s coexistence with Wi-Fi has become a primary concern for the Wi-Fi industry which anticipates disruption on both the technical and business levels, according to ABI Research (www.abiresearch.com).

Unlike Wi-Fi, LTE-U, as a propriety solution does not sense the channel activity before transmitting. Instead, it applies a form of time sharing using periodic time slots, according to the research group. Such scheduled transmission of LTE-U not only adds interference and increases collisions for Wi-Fi’s opportunistic transmission, but also defies the concept of fair sharing as it seizes complete control over the channel and Wi-Fi’s transmission window.

LTE-U provides clear advantages for mobile operators. It uses the free unlicensed spectrum to expand network capacity and does so without having to integrate another network, like Wi-Fi, within the cellular core...

High resolution premium video, including 4K and UHD content, is a fast-growing market and therefore content protection services must follow suit with adaptability and preparedness for the expanding space, according to ABI Research (www.abiresearch.com).

"UHD TV penetration is expected to reach 61% in North America by 2020, which is higher than expected," says Eric Abbruzzese, analyst with the research group. "Along with TVs, browser and application based streaming services will continue to roll out 4K content at a quickening rate, creating an expanding marketplace filled with premium content from studios that demand strong content protection.”

Guidelines for proper 4K content protection rely on deep hardware-level integration of security measures in combination with software security, creating an end-to-end secure system from publishing to consumption. This involves dedicated space on a SoC; Hardware...

According to Strategy Analytics (www.strategyanalytics.com), mobile gaming apps continue to show strength globally with smaller second quarter (Q2) declines in the US and UK than last year.

However, emerging categories such as Travel and Health & Fitness need to find revenue through alternative business models, says the research group. Mobile gaming continued to experience seasonal Q2 declines but in the U.S. specifically those declines still placed gaming at a higher percentage of top grossing apps than in the year ago quarter.

While the gaming category continues to decline as a percentage of the top free and paid apps its strength is clearly being driven by in-app purchasing of virtual goods – a revenue model that gaming companies have exploited and others have failed to truly benefit from. Strategy Analytics says the following combination of factors will see mobile gaming grow in...

New data from Parks Associates (www.parksassociates.com) finds that OTT [over-the-top] video service credential sharing will cost the industry US$500 million in direct revenues worldwide in 2015. The report shows 6% of U.S. broadband households use an OTT video service that is paid by a person living outside of the household.

"Live-streaming usage has garnered media attention recently, but credential sharing is also a popular form of piracy in the connected world, one that has received varying responses from service providers and content owners," says Glenn Hower, research analyst, Parks Associates. "Credential sharing has a measurable impact on video services, particularly in the OTT video service area, where young subscribers are active. The impact on OTT video revenues is especially troublesome as OTT providers are investing large sums of money to boost their original content offerings."

In its latest report, Transparency Market Research (www.transparencymarketresearch.com) states that the global wearable medical devices market was worth US$2 billion in 2012, and is estimated to be worth $5.8 billion by 2019. The research group's study also indicates that the global wearable medical devices market will register a CAGR [compound annual growth rate] of 16.4% during the forecast period of 2013 to 2019.

Geographically, the wearable medical devices market has been dominated by North America, leading the overall market in 2012 with a global industry share of 44%. Asia-Pacific, on the other hand, is anticipated to be the fastest-growing regional market for wearable medical devices, presenting a more than 18% CAGR from 2013 to 2019.

Emerging economies such as India and China have been witnessing an increase in medical investments and an improvement in...

New data from Parks Associates (www.parksassociates.com) finds smart thermostats taking a larger portion of the market this year, accounting for over 40% of the nearly 10 million thermostats sold in the U.S. The research group estimates smart thermostats will account for over 50% of the total market by 2017.

"Smart thermostats already account for more than one-half of the smart home devices in U.S. broadband households," says Tom Kerber, director, Research, Home Controls & Energy, Parks Associates. "Many utilities have promoted smart thermostats as part of their home energy management initiatives; however, the retail channel accounts for the most units sold last year, nearly 45% of the total market, so opening utility programs to include the variety of different types and brands of devices is an important consideration."

Worldwide semiconductor revenue is forecast to reach $348 billion in 2015, a 2.2% increase from 2014, but down from the previous quarter's forecast of 4.0 percent growth, according to Gartner, Inc. (www.gartner.com).

"The outlook for the major applications that drive the semiconductor market, including PCs, smartphones, and tablets, have all been revised downward. This, combined with the impact of the strong dollar on demand in key markets, has resulted in a lower semiconductor forecast for 2015," says Jon Erensen, research director at Gartner. "The typical second-quarter bounce did not materialize this year, and as a result, the semiconductor industry is more back-end loaded and dependent on a strong third-quarter rebound, driven by Windows 10 and the ramp-up to the holiday season."

From an application point of view, smartphones and solid-state drives (SSDs) will continue to drive semiconductor market...

The Internet Society today released its 2015 Global Internet Report (http://tinyurl.com/oq8zx9c) , the organization’s second annual report on the global state of the Internet. Focused on the impact of the mobile Internet, this year’s report shows that mobile has fundamentally transformed Internet access and use, and holds the key to fulfilling the promise of Internet connectivity for the next billion people.

People are increasingly accessing the Internet through mobile devices. Today there are more than 3 billion people online and the mobile Internet offers hundreds of millions around the world their primary, if not only, means of accessing the Internet. In addition to providing access, benefits of the mobile Internet arise from using all the features embedded into smart devices, which are typically accessed via convenient apps.

Worldwide combined shipments of devices (PCs, tablets, ultramobiles and mobile phones) are expected to reach 2.5 billion units in 2015, a 1.5% increase from 2014 and down from the previous quarter's forecast of 2.8% growth, according to Gartner, Inc. (www.gartner.com).

End-user spending on devices will total $606 billion in 2015 and will show, for the first time since 2010, a 5.7% decline in current U.S. dollars, according to the research group.

"Our forecast for unit shipment growth for all devices in 2015 has dropped by 1.3 percentage points from last quarter's estimate," says Ranjit Atwal, research director at Gartner. "This was partly due to a continued slowdown in PC purchases in Western Europe, Russia and Japan in particular, largely due to price increases resulting from local currency devaluation against the dollar."
The only market that continues to show growth is the mobile phone market...

According to International Data Corporation (IDC), total cloud IT infrastructure spending (server, storage, and Ethernet switch) will grow by 26.4% in 2015 and will reach US$33.4 billion, accounting for a third of all IT infrastructure spending, up from 28.1% in 2014.

Private cloud IT infrastructure spending will grow by 16.8% year over year to $11.7 billion, while public cloud IT infrastructure spending will grow by 32.2% in 2015 to $21.7 billion, says the research group. In comparison, spending on non-cloud IT infrastructure will remain flat at $67 billion.

IDC expects that spending on cloud IT infrastructure will grow across all regions and all technologies. In most regions, growth in public cloud IT infrastructure spending will exceed growth in spending on private cloud IT infrastructure as public cloud service providers will continue to invest in expansion of their datacenters and service offerings.

According to a IDC research group (www.idc.com) study n tablets in enterprises, a large and increasing share of tablets deployed across U.K., French, and German companies are the only devices that employees are equipped with to perform their business activities.

"The majority of tablet users in enterprises currently have at least another device to perform their business activities," says Marta Fiorentini, senior research analyst, IDC EMEA Personal Computing. Additional devices are usually desktop or portable PCs, smartphones, workstations, or, depending on the employee's role, specialized handheld or point of sale (POS) devices. "However, a large share of tablets is already used by employees as their only work tool, either replacing traditional client devices or for functions previously not supported by any computing device. As digitalization transforms business processes and tablets are optimized for business functions...

In a survey of smart home use cases, the Parks Associates (www.parksassociates.com) research group found that over 40% of U.S. broadband households are interested in the ability to receive medical alerts via a smartphone or other connected platform. And about 10% have some type of smart home product, service, or both.

"By 2019 the number of U.S. homes with a smart home controller will exceed 26 million," says Harry Wang, director, Mobile and Health Products Research, Parks Associates. "The smart home industry is looking for new growth opportunities, and the Supreme Court's decision in King v. Burwell has provided stability to the healthcare industry, making it an attractive market for smart home players. The smart home could enable new value propositions in home-based health and wellness solutions and independent living products and services."

Worldwide IT spending is on pace to total US$3.5 trillion in 2015, a 5.5%decline from 2014, according to the latest forecast by Gartner, Inc. (www.gartner.com).

Analysts at the research group attribute the decline to the rising U.S. dollar. In constant-currency terms, the market is projected to grow 2.5%. In Gartner's previous forecast in April, it had forecast IT spending to decline 1.3% in U.S. dollars and grow 3.1% in constant currency.

"We want to stress that this is not a market crash. Such are the illusions that large swings in the value of the U.S. dollar versus other currencies can create," says John-David Lovelock, research vice president at Gartner. "However, there are secondary effects to the rising U.S. dollar. Vendors do have to raise prices to protect costs and margins of their products, and enterprises and consumers will have to make new purchase decisions in light of the new prices."

The worldwide pay-TV market surpassed more than 900 million subscribers in 1Q 2015, representing 48% penetration—the market is likely to grow steadily over the next 5 years, mainly boosted by emerging markets, according to ABI Research (www.abiresearch.com). Half of the world’s households will have access to pay-TV service by 2017, representing 1 billion subscribers, notes the research group.

As pay-TV service providers experience increasing competition from alternative platforms such as OTT [over-the-top], ARPU [average revenue per user] continues to decline across the various platforms in many markets. Many of the operators have added OTT, multiscreen services, and on demand services in order to compete with OTT service providers. These services have contributed additional revenue to pay-TV operators as well as maintaining customer loyalty.

Over the last two months the Spy introduced the motivation for he and Telecom engineer Benjamin Kowarsch developing a new language, or more precisely, a fully modern dialect of an existing notation--to address serious software engineering issues of safety, security, reliability, and extensibility--then offered something a little more than a "Hello World" as an initial example. In this piece, he briefly describes the baked-in building blocks of Modula-2 R10, that is the reserved symbols, words and reserved identifiers.

Modula-2 has always been smaller than but at least as expressive as any other mainstream general purpose language (including that thousand ton gorilla of notations known as Ada). Throughout the R10 design process, every proposed addition was scrutinized for necessity (use cases required) and potential for bloat. To mitigate the latter, in most cases, every addition required a deletion, so that the...

The wearables market maintained its upward trajectory in the first quarter of 2015 as new vendors, including Apple, prepared to enter the market.

A new forecast from International Data Corporation (www.idc.com) estimates that 72.1 million wearable devices will be shipped in 2015, up a strong 173.3% from the 26.4 million units shipped in 2014. Shipment volumes are expected to experience a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 42.6% over the five-year forecast period, reaching 155.7 million units shipped in 2019, according to the research group.

"The demand for basic wearables, those that do not run third party apps, has been absolutely astounding," says Jitesh Ubrani, senior research analyst, Worldwide Mobile Device Trackers, IDC. "Vendors like Fitbit and Xiaomi have helped propel the market with their sub-$100 bands, and IDC expects this momentum will continue throughout 2015."

Home automation was gaining attention and experiencing robust growth in 2014; however a new report by Argus Insights (www.argusinsights.com) reveals that sector is quickly losing steam.

The research group's data shows that as of May 2015 consumer demand for connected home devices such as thermostats, lightbulbs, locks, sensors and cameras experienced its first drop below the level of a year ago, a sign that consumer interest is stagnating.

"Based on our review of consumer interest, the state of home automation in 2015 is not looking good for anyone who sells or makes these devices," says John Feland, CEO and founder, Argus Insights. "Even though Google and Samsung made big purchases in this space by buying Nest thermostats, Dropcam and the suite of SmartThings products demand is stagnating. It is obvious that the early adopters have bought what they want and other consumers are expressing...

By the end of 2017, market demand for mobile app development services will grow at least five times faster than internal IT organizations' capacity to deliver them, according to Gartner, Inc. (www.gartner.com).

The research group forecasts mobile phone sales will reach 2.1 billion units by 2019, which will fuel demand for apps in the enterprise that meet the high performance and usability of consumer apps. Gartner principal research analyst Adrian Leow says enterprises find it a challenge to rapidly develop, deploy and maintain mobile apps to meet increasing demand, as it is exceedingly difficult and costly to hire developers with good mobile skills.

"Organizations increasingly find it difficult to be proactive against competitive pressures, which is resulting in their mobile apps becoming tactical, rather than strategic," he adds. "We're seeing demand for mobile apps outstrip available development capacity...

Consumer ability to access the internet and connected services while in the car remains strong, making driving or parking tasks easier. While interest is especially high for services which provide traffic updates, weather updates, open parking spaces, and navigation instructions, interest in social media functionality remains low.

A new report from Automotive Consumer Insights group (ACI) at Strategy Analytics (www.strategyanalytics.com), surveyed consumers in the US, Western Europe, and China regarding their interest in and preferred payment models for in-vehicle connectivity and connected services. Consumers remained interested in services which provided drive-relevant information; with access to in-vehicle connectivity playing an increasingly important role in the purchase decision of a vehicle, across all demographics. However, interest in some popular payment models for connectivity has...

Limelight Networks (www.limelight.com), which specializes in digital content delivery, has released new data that shows consumers are nearly always plugged in and are increasingly updating and adding content to their phones and other connected devices.

In addition, the research shows that consumers, especially Millennials, expect and demand a seamless and consistent experience when downloading digital content. Other findings illustrate the hunger for consuming digital content on smart phones, tablets, computers and gaming consoles. Forty nine percent of Millennials report that they are more likely to download content than just one year ago, versus 43% of all respondents. However, 75% of those surveyed currently find downloading content frustrating, especially when it takes too long to complete, gets interrupted, or simply doesn’t work.

A recent study from the In-vehicle UX group at Strategy Analytics (www.strategyanalytics.com) surveying consumers in the US and Western Europe has confirmed low interest in wearables for automotive use-cases.

While younger males and luxury car owners appeared to be most interested in the US, strong interest was below 20% across all Western European segments. Despite the market for wearables (and in particular smartwatches) poised for strong growth, wearables in automotive remain arguably a solution in search of a problem.

Investigating two key use cases for wearables in the car - i) detecting and monitoring a driver’s medical condition (i.e. a supplementary heart rate monitor); and ii) remote functionality, (such as remote start or automatic parking) – Strategy Analytics noted that interest in the use of wearables for on-board heart rate monitors was below 45% for both regions. Further,...

A new report from 451 Research (www.451research.com), an information technology research and advisory company, says cellular Internet of Things (IoT) and machine to machine (M2M) connections will increase nearly fourfold globally from 252 million in 2014 to 908 million in 2019. A monumental increase in active cellular IoT/M2M connections will be driven by a number of key factors, according to 451 Research.

First, hardware and bandwidth costs have dropped to a point where nearly every enterprise can reap the benefits of virtualizing the physical world. Second, cloud-based middleware and data platforms are making it easier to securely generate insights from machine data at greater scale than ever before possible. Last, the buzz around this topic is generating overall awareness of the transformational potential of IoT/M2M in terms of return-on-investment, competitiveness and support of completely new business...

The head mounted display market (HMD) will grow at a compound annual growth rate [CAGR} through 2019, according to ReportsnReports (www.reportsnreports.com).

Core virtual reality works well with the interactive world of games as currently no technology can give a fully immersive, 360 degree 3D experience, says the research group. Cost also has a considerable impact on the adoption of HMDs. Currently, the industrial sector is witnessing high adoption of these devices, but adoption among individual consumers is difficult unless low-cost micro displays are integrated in this technology to bring down their overall price, says ReportsnReports.

However, demand for Light-weight HMDs and need for enhanced safety and convenience are major head mounted display market growth drivers. Customization of HMDs and integration of HMDs in multiple tasks are market challenges while VR gaming and possibility of...

New data from Parks Associates (www.parksassociates.com) finds global OTT [over-the-top] video service subscription revenues will increase from nearly US$9 billion in 2014 to over $19 billion in 2019.

Currently, 57% of U.S. broadband households subscribe to an OTT video service. Among European broadband households, 57% in the U.K., 29% in Spain, and 24% in Germany subscribe to an OTT service. The research group also finds that in 2015, approximately 7% of all U.S. households, or 8.4 million households, subscribe to broadband and at least one OTT video service but do not subscribe to pay TV.

This figure includes consumers who have discontinued pay-TV service and those who have never subscribed to pay TV. In other Western nations, this same figure is approximately 4% or less among all households. Operators are introducing their own OTT services to appeal to consumers who are not currently...

The growth of sensor-based data combined with advanced algorithms and artificial intelligence (AI) are enabling smart machines to make increasingly significant business decisions over which humans have decreasing control, according to Gartner, Inc. (www.gartner.com).

"As smart machines become increasingly capable, they will become viable alternatives to human workers under certain circumstances, which will lead to significant repercussions for the business and thus for CIOs," says Stephen Prentice, vice president and Gartner Fellow. "In the 2015 Gartner CEO and business leader survey, opinions were equally divided on this issue and indicate that business leaders are starting to take notice of the advances being made and more readily acknowledge that the threat to knowledge work is real."

Already the growing capabilities of automation and robotics have led to their increasing deployment in a wide range of...

The collaborative robotics sector is expected to increase roughly tenfold between 2015 and 2020, reaching over US$1 billion from approximately US$95 million in 2015, according to a new study published by ABI Research (www.abiresearch.com).

The research group says the growth will be fueled by three key markets: electronics manufacturers and electronics manufacturing services companies, small-to-medium manufacturers, and manufacturers seeking robotic solutions optimized to support agile production methodologies.

"Collaborative robotic systems, such as ABB’s YuMi and Gomtec/Roberta platforms, Rethink Robotics’ Baxter and Sawyer, Universal Robots (Teradyne) UR family of robots, KUKA’s LBR iiwa and Kawada Industries’ Nextage, were developed in response to a number of pressing social drivers and businesses imperatives, and aided by ongoing technological innovation and dropping prices for powerful enabling...

New data from Parks Associates (www.parksassociates.com) finds that 51% of pay-TV subscribers are very interested in having unlimited space to store DVR recordings, which indicates strong consumer demand for cloud-based DVR services.

Currently, over 50% of U.S. broadband homes either include a DVR as part of their pay-TV subscription or have purchased one at retail. The research firm estimates the total number of cloud DVR subscribers in the U.S. will exceed 4.6 million by the end of 2015 and total 24 million by 2018.

"Consumer interest in cloud DVR features is strong, particularly the idea of unlimited storage capacity. As with any transition, there are challenges and opportunities for operators looking to expand their services into the cloud," says Brett Sappington, director of research at Parks Associates. "Operators are interested in cloud DVR because these services will reduce their...

The Internet of Things (IoT) continues to gain momentum as vendors and enterprises begin to embrace the opportunities this market presents. According to new research from IDC (www.idc.com), the worldwide Internet of Things market will grow from US$655.8 billion in 2014 to $1.7 trillion in 2020 with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 16.9%.

Devices, connectivity, and IT services will make up the majority of the IoT market in 2020. Together, they are estimated to account for over two-thirds of the worldwide IoT market in 2020, with devices (modules/sensors) alone representing 31.8% of the total. By 2020, IDC expects that IoT purpose-built platforms, application software, and "as a service" offerings will capture a larger percentage of revenue.
IDC's IoT taxonomy includes a view to the horizontal technology stack of hardware, software, services, and connectivity as well as a vertical view to the industries and use...

ABI Research (www.abiresearch.com) predicts that 5.4 billion SIM cards will ship during 2015 marking a modest YoY [year-over-year] growth rate of 4.1%. The days of double-digit shipment growth for SIM cards are over and declining ASPs [average sales prices] have forced smart card and IC vendors to change strategies, says the research group.

Vendor focus is now moving away from market share gains and up the value chain. This movement is driven by higher value product propositions such as SWP and LTE SIMs with the aim of maintaining reasonable revenue growth.

The transition from 2G to 3G and on to 4G is creating one of the bright spots contrasting against the gradual decline of SIM card ASPs. All of the top smart card vendors including Gemalto, Giesecke & Devrient, Oberthur Technologies, and Morpho are chasing these more lucrative segments. Not all regions are experiencing an easy transition from...

According to a new forecast from IDC (www.idc.com), the number of third-party applications designed to run on smart wearable devices is expected to grow from 2,500 at the end of 2014 to 349,000 in 2019.

While the majority of these applications will be consumer focused, the research group believes a significant opportunity exists for enterprise-oriented applications. Developers capable of delivering clear benefits and a transformative experience will catalyze demand and further accelerate application development on the supply side.

With the Apple Watch expected to capture up to two thirds of the smart wearable device market in 2015, Apple's influence on the wearable applications market will be considerable.

"It has been clear since well before it was launched that the Apple Watch, with the WatchKit SDK, is poised to set a tone for the broader market," says John Jackson, research vice president, Mobile and...

"With the majority of mobile traffic either originating or terminating indoors, Wi-Fi becomes a viable and robust access technology for 2G, 3G, and 4G mobile operators," says Nick Marshall, research director. "This is true whether the traffic is residential, which accounts for the majority of mobile traffic, enterprise, or venue."

In-building wireless data traffic will grow at a double-digit rate to reach more than 50 exabytes per month worldwide in 2020. Asia-Pacific will continue to consume almost half the worldwide in-building wireless traffic throughout the forecast period thanks to the large population in the region and its extensive Wi-...

Strategy Analytics (www.strategyanalytics.com) has identified that the camera of a smartphone is the most-used, on-device feature thus far, while also being a consumers’ number one priority when purchasing a new mobile device. It is clear that users are always looking for value-added features to improve their photo capturing experience.

A recent study from the Wireless Device Lab (WDL) at Strategy Analytics, surveying smartphone camera behaviors, found that when capturing a photo, consumers are most interested in "lining up the shot," "angling the camera correctly" or "positioning the subject the right way" prior to capturing a photo. Concern was highlighted when capturing photos in dim lighting, as shadows appeared on the photos and flash caused unwanted "red eyes" or "washed out skin color."

“To solve these issues, camera phone manufacturers need to work on improving the low...

In the first quarter of 2015, worldwide server shipments grew 13 percent year over year, while revenue increased 17.9% from the first quarter of 2014, according to Gartner, Inc. (www.gartner.com).

"The first quarter of 2015 was a particularly strong start to the year, with the strongest shipment growth since the third quarter of 2010, when the market was recovering from the downturn. It was also the second-largest-volume quarter ever," said Adrian O'Connell, research director at Gartner. "The market was driven by particularly strong demand from the hyperscale area, which benefited North America, in particular. This comes at a time when other regions are struggling, due to price pressure driven by the appreciation of the U.S. dollar. The strength in North America was strong enough to offset declines in Latin America and Japan. EMEA [Europe, the Middle East and Africa] was barely positive, with 1%volume growth." ...

Semi-autonomous features like adaptive cruise control (ACC) and traffic jam assist (TJA) represent early real-world tests for human-machine interaction (HMI). At their best, when operated correctly in proper conditions, ACC and TJA completely control all acceleration, braking, and steering, removing some of the cognitive load from the driver. From an HMI perspective, this presents the challenge of how to convey control and status information on a number of different subsystems, in an immediately clear and meaningful way to users.

A new expert evaluation of ACC and TJA implementations in 2015 model year vehicles by the Automotive Consumer Insights group (ACI) at Strategy Analytics (www.strategyanalytics.com), found that the current offering of semi-autonomous driving systems lacked refined HMIs.

"Current TJA and ACC systems do not reliably inform the driver when any driving assistant...

Notable brands like Target, Neiman Marcus, PF Chang’s, Staples, Michaels Stores, and Home Depot have all have become victims of point of sale (POS) security breaches targeting consumer payment card data. In the majority of cases, POS attacks take place due to malware infections, notes ABI Research (www.abiresearch.com).

During the past few years there has been a considerable rise in malware families including POSCardStealer, Dexter, Alina, vSkimmer, ProjectHook, BlackPOS and others, many of which can be easily purchased online, adds the research group. According to the 2014 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR), 198 total incidents related to POS intrusions were reported. ABI Research expects the total number of POS related security incidents with confirmed data exposure will hit 600 by the end of 2015.

The most sophisticated attacks are highly targeted, deploying hard-to-detect,...

Software Updates via MacUpdate

Microsoft OneNote 15.29 - Free digital n...

OneNote is your very own digital notebook. With OneNote, you can capture that flash of genius, that moment of inspiration, or that list of errands that's too important to forget. Whether you're at... Read more

Spotify 1.0.44.100. - Stream music, crea...

Spotify is a streaming music service that gives you on-demand access to millions of songs. Whether you like driving rock, silky R&B, or grandiose classical music, Spotify's massive catalogue puts... Read more

SpamSieve 2.9.27 - Robust spam filter fo...

SpamSieve is a robust spam filter for major email clients that uses powerful Bayesian spam filtering.
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VueScan 9.5.62 - Scanner software with a...

VueScan is a scanning program that works with most high-quality flatbed and film scanners to produce scans that have excellent color fidelity and color balance. VueScan is easy to use, and has... Read more

Fantastical 2.3.2 - Create calendar even...

Fantastical 2 is the Mac calendar you'll actually enjoy using. Creating an event with Fantastical is quick, easy, and fun:
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PCalc 4.4.4 - Full-featured scientific c...

PCalc is a full-featured, scriptable scientific calculator with support for hexadecimal, octal, and binary calculations, as well as an RPN mode, programmable functions, and an extensive set of unit... Read more

Alfred 3.2.1 - Quick launcher for apps a...

Alfred is an award-winning productivity application for OS X. Alfred saves you time when you search for files online or on your Mac. Be more productive with hotkeys, keywords, and file actions at... Read more

OmniPlan 3.6 - Robust project management...

With OmniPlan, you can create logical, manageable project plans with Gantt charts, schedules, summaries, milestones, and critical paths. Break down the tasks needed to make your project a success,... Read more

Backblaze 4.2.0.990 - Online backup serv...

Backblaze is an online backup service designed from the ground-up for the Mac. With unlimited storage available for $5 per month, as well as a free 15-day trial, peace of mind is within reach with... Read more

AppDelete 4.3.1 - $7.99

AppDelete is an uninstaller that will remove not only applications but also widgets, preference panes, plugins, and screensavers along with their associated files. Without AppDelete these associated... Read more

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PINE GROVE 1.0
Device: iOS Universal
Category: Games
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Niantic teases new Pokémon announcement...

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3 reasons why Nicki Minaj: The Empire is...

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Clash of Clans is getting its own animat...

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Leaks hint at Pokémon GO and Starbucks C...

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DietSensor, Inc., a developer of smart food and nutrition applications designed to fight diabetes and obesity and help improve overall fitness, has announced the launch of its DietSensor app for... Read more

Best Buy has dropped their price on the 64GB Apple TV to $159.99 including free shipping. That’s $40 off MSRP.
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12-inch Retina MacBooks, Apple refurbished, n...

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Apple has Certified Refurbished 13″ MacBook Airs available starting at $849. An Apple one-year warranty is included with each MacBook, and shipping is free:
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Apple refurbished iMacs available for up to $...

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Apple’s Education discount saves up to $300 o...

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