Find: LOL, texting, and txt-speak: Linguistic miracles

Writing is becoming more like normal speech. 

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LOL, texting, and txt-speak: Linguistic miracles

LONG BEACH, CA—Is texting shorthand a convenience, a catastrophe for the English language, or actually something new and special? John McWhorter, a linguist at Columbia University, sides with the latter. According to McWhorter, texting is actually a new form of speech, and he outlined the reasons why today at the TED2013 conference in Southern California.


We often hear that “texting is a scourge,” damaging the literacy of the young. But it’s “actually a miraculous thing,” McWhorter said. Texting, he argued, is not really writing at all—not in the way we have historically thought about writing. To explain this, he drew an important distinction between speech and writing as functions of language. Language was born in speech some 80,000 years ago (at least). Writing, on the other hand, is relatively new (5,000 or 6,000 years old). So humanity has been talking for longer than it has been writing, and this is especially true when you consider that writing skills have hardly been ubiquitous in human societies.


Furthermore, writing is typically not a reflection of casual speech. “We speak in word packets of seven to 10 words. It’s much more loose, much more telegraphic,” McWhorter said. Of course, speech can imitate writing, particularly in formal contexts like speechmaking. He pointed out that in those cases you might speak like you write, but it's clearly not a natural way of speaking.

Find: AT&T-Mozilla “WebPhone” gives a glimpse of the dumb pipe future

A phone that relays on data alone. 

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AT&T-Mozilla “WebPhone” gives a glimpse of the dumb pipe future

By combining Firefox's new WebRTC support, Ericsson's Web Communication Gateway, and AT&T's API Platform, Mozilla has demonstrated calls, text messages, and video calls all being made from within the browser. It's all in a proof-of-concept application AT&T calls WebPhone, and Mozilla will demonstrate WebPhone next week at the Mobile World Congress conference.


With the right phone operator support, the plugin-free technology can potentially offer a full range of telephony services through the browser. This decouples traditional phone services from the phone itself, potentially enabling access to the phone and text messages from anywhere with an Internet connection and WebRTC-enabled browser. The demo is currently limited in scope, with AT&T planning to roll out an alpha version of the full API "in the near future."


AT&T describes WebPhone as a "vision for the future of seamlessly integrated communication." More than that, however, it's a vision for the network operator as dumb pipe provider. Put that browser on a phone—perhaps one running Firefox OS—and you can do away with the voice connection entirely. Just place everything, voice and data alike, over the data connection.

Find: Firefox phones to be sold by four hardware makers and 17 carriers

The non native app environment intrigues, because web apps should work any os. 

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Firefox phones to be sold by four hardware makers and 17 carriers

Competing in the smartphone market dominated by iOS and Android is one of the great challenges in the tech industry—even for companies with strong platforms and deep pockets like Microsoft and BlackBerry. For those companies trying to bring entirely new smartphone operating systems to market—like Mozilla with its Firefox OS—it's even tougher.


Mozilla has good news to report, though. Four hardware makers (Alcatel, LG, ZTE, and Huawei) stand ready to make Firefox phones to be sold later this year, from 17 carriers across the globe. Mozilla also said it has the first commercial build of its Firefox OS ready to be previewed at Mobile World Congress.


The announcement shows Mozilla is ahead of Canonical's Ubuntu for phones in terms of both the stage of technology development and ability to publicly announce partners. Still, there is far to travel. Firefox phones will hit the market this year overseas, but not in the US until 2014 according to Computerworld. And while the hardware makers on board are well-known, they're not dominant players in the smartphone market. Samsung, the world's most successful maker of Android phones, has reportedly said it has no interest in selling Firefox phones. Samsung already has an alternative operating system in the open source Tizen (which is being combined with the failed Bada. 

WebOS is alive and it’s coming to a television near you—thanks to LG

I know I would like a better tv ui

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WebOS is alive and it’s coming to a television near you—thanks to LG

CNET reports electronics giant LG will acquire webOS from HP to use it for its smart televisions division. But there are no plans for webOS to be integrated into any mobile devices, as LG already has a thriving mobile division with its handsets and Android smartphones.


"It creates a new path for LG to offer an intuitive user experience and Internet services across a range of consumer electronics devices," said Skott Ahn, president and chief technology officer of LG Electronics Inc., as reported by CNET. The deal would give LG the rights to all of the source code for webOS, its documentation and engineers, and all of the related websites, as well as HP’s licenses for use with webOS products and all of the patents HP inherited from Palm. However, HP will hold on to the webOS cloud services division, which includes the app catalog and the backend services that interact with the operating system.


This will be the third major company webOS has fallen under. Its first company, Palm, was bought out by HP for $1.2 billion. Then HP called it quits in August 2011 by discontinuing all webOS-related operations, including the HP TouchPad. The company said back then that it would "continue to explore options to optimize the value of webOS software going forward."

Find: Understanding Camera Optics & Smartphone Camera Trends, A Presentation by Brian Klug

A great primer on how smartphone cameras work. 

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Understanding Camera Optics & Smartphone Camera Trends, A Presentation by Brian Klug

Recently I was asked to give a presentation about smartphone imaging and optics at a small industry event, and given my background I was more than willing to comply. At the time, there was no particular product or announcement that I crafted this presentation for, but I thought it worth sharing beyond just the event itself, especially in the recent context of the HTC One. The high level idea of the presentation was to provide a high level primer for both a discussion about camera optics and general smartphone imaging trends and catalyze some discussion.

For readers here I think this is a great primer for what the state of things looks like if you’re not paying super close attention to smartphone cameras, and also the imaging chain at a high level on a mobile device.

Read on for the full presentation!

Opp: Microsoft App Madness Challenge

Benjamin Watson
Director, Design Graphics Lab | Associate Professor, Computer Science, NC State Univ.
919-513-0325designgraphics.ncsu.edu | @dgllab

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Brett Wolfe <Brett.Wolfe@microsoft.com>
Date: Tue, Feb 26, 2013 at 10:04 AM
Subject: Microsoft App Madness Challenge
To: "tate@csc.ncsu.edu" <tate@csc.ncsu.edu>


Hello Ken,

 

I want to let you know about the student program Microsoft is offering this semester. The program is designed to provide students the opportunity to learn to build mobile apps/games and deploy them to the Windows Store marketplace.  Currently Windows Store is the fastest growing mobile market and first mover advantage is really important for the viability of an app, regardless of app category.  We believe that this opportunity provides students a real world startup experience that will enhance their resume and impress future employers with their ability to execute a project from concept to commercial success.

 

The details of the program are outlined below. If you find this program compelling we would be grateful if you would get the word to your students. If you are interested in an on-campus or on-line game development workshop for students delivered by a member of the team, do not hesitate to reach out to me.  Thank you!

 

Brett Wolfe

Director of Technical Evangelism | DPE East Region

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  Work: 980-776-7498  |  
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 Mobile: 513-403-6049

 

App Madness

 

Create and publish a Windows 8 app by April 11th.

 

Qualify to win a $100 gift card for each app published up to 20 Apps

(DO THE MATH!)

 

Build the most apps to win one of four exciting trips.

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Facebook Page – https://www.facebook.com/Windows8AppChallenge

Getting Started Guide - http://aka.ms/getStartedNow 

Windows 8 Game Lab Workbook http://appmadness.azurewebsites.net/

 

 

 

Meet the Team

Image004

 

Tara Walker

Expertise: Windows 8 App and Cross Platform Development

Image005

 

Joe Healy

Expertise: Windows 8 & Windows Phone Development

Image006

 

Brian Hitney

Expertise: Windows Azure and Windows 8 Development

 

 

 

 


How the HTC One's Camera Bucks the Trend in Smartphone Imaging

Interesting for two reasons: the manner in which cameras are compared, and the final reversal of the mpixel race. Much better to have good sensitivity in fewer pixels than poor sensitivity in lots. Or, a few gems are worth a lot more than a pile of...

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How the HTC One's Camera Bucks the Trend in Smartphone Imaging

Now that we’ve seen the HTC One camera announcement, I think it’s worth going over why this is something very exciting from an imaging standpoint, and also a huge risk for properly messaging to consumers.

With the One, HTC has chosen to go against the prevailing trend for this upcoming generation of devices by going to a 1/3.0" CMOS with 2.0 micron pixels, for a resulting 4 MP (2688 × 1520) 16:9 native image size. That’s right, the HTC One is 16:9 natively, not 4:3. In addition the HTC One includes optical image stabilization on two axes, with +/- 1 degree of accommodation and a sampling/correction rate of 2 kHz on the onboard gyro. Just like the previous HTC cameras, the One has an impressively fast F/2.0 aperture and 5P (5 plastic element) optical system. From what I can tell, this is roughly the same 3.82 mm (~28mm in 35mm effective) focal length, slightly different from the 3.63 mm of the previous One camera. HTC also has included a new generation of ImageChip 2 ISP, though this is of course still used in conjunction with the ISP onboard the SoC, and HTC claims it’s able to do full lens shading correction for vignetting and color, in addition to even better noise reduction, and realtime HDR video. Autofocus is around 200ms for a full scan, I was always impressed with AF speed the previous cameras had, this is even faster. When it comes to video HTC apparently has taken some feedback to heart and finally maxed out the encoder capabilities for the APQ8064/8064Pro/8960 SoC, which is 20 Mbps H.264 high profile.

HTC One Camera Specifications
Device HTC One
Sensor Size and Type 1/3" BSI CMOS
Resolution 4.0 MP 16:9 Aspect Ratio (2688 x 1520)
Focal Length 3.82mm
F/# F/2.0
Optical System 5P
OIS 2-axis +/- 1 degree, 2 kHz sampling
Max Capture Rate 8 FPS continual full res capture
Video Capture 1080p30, 720p60, 720p30, 1080p28 HDR, 768x432 96FPS
H.264 High Profile, 20 Mbp...

Find: NVIDIA Tegra 4 Architecture Deep Dive, Plus Tegra 4i, Icera i500 & Phoenix Hands On

It's fast, and has programmable computational imaging API: gpu and camera are linked. 

NVIDIA Tegra 4 Architecture Deep Dive, Plus Tegra 4i, Icera i500 & Phoenix Hands On

Ever since NVIDIA arrived on the SoC scene, it has done a great job of introducing its ultra mobile SoCs. Tegra 2 and 3 were both introduced with a healthy amount of detail and the sort of collateral we expect to see from any PC silicon vendor. While the rest of the mobile space is slowly playing catchup, NVIDIA continued the trend with its Tegra 4 and Tegra 4i architecture disclosure.

Since Tegra 4i is a bit further out, much of NVIDIA’s focus for today’s disclosure focused on its flagship Tegra 4 SoC due to begin shipping in Q2 of this year along with the NVIDIA i500 baseband. At a high level you’re looking at a quad-core ARM Cortex A15 (plus fifth A15 companion core) and a 72-core GeForce GPU. To understand Tegra 4 at a lower level, we’ll dive into the individual blocks beginning, as usual with the CPU.

Find: Ubuntu touch preview can now be installed on Nexus phones, tablets

Ubuntu touch preview can now be installed on Nexus phones, tablets

The promised Ubuntu Touch Developer Preview, the first version of Ubuntu ready for phones and tablets, is now available for download. Canonical has provided operating system images for various types of Nexus devices, along with instructions for installing them.


"The Ubuntu Touch Developer Preview is intended to be used for development and evaluation purposes only," Canonical said. "It does not provide all of the features and services of a retail phone and cannot replace your current handset. This preview is the first release of a very new and unfinished version of Ubuntu and it will evolve quickly."


The installation process wipes Android from your device, unless you follow instructions to dual-boot the two operating systems. Google provides factory images for Nexus devices, so if you want to revert back to Android afterward that is an option. Before replacing Android with Ubuntu, make sure to check that your device is supported. The Touch Developer Preview is for the Galaxy Nexus and Nexus 4 phones, and the Nexus 7 and Nexus 10 tablets. However, not every version of these devices is supported.

Announcement: Critique Schedule

Folks,

Critiques ("Show and Tell") will be presented in class on the dates mentioned below. We will have 3 groups presenting on any given day and each group will have 25 minutes to present their critique and update their progress to the class. Often you will have your clients or guests from industry present at your critique to ask questions and give feedback.

The critiques start Mar 11 and hence we expect you to start early. You will have 3 weeks between each critique.

For the first critique, we are expecting sketches and wireframes for the app you are going to develop. You should explain your project and app in as much detail as you can.

For the second critique we are expecting some sort of running prototype (it may not be perfect and may have some rough edges) for demonstration.

These critiques will count towards your final score.

Here is the schedule for each group:
Group First Critique Second Critique
A personal assistant for sustainable tourism 13-Mar 1-Apr
Help people to get the most out of Winston-Salem’s greenways 13-Mar 1-Apr
Help students log their activity in a field biology class 13-Mar 1-Apr
Automated test framework and companion Android app 18-Mar 8-Apr
Making electronic music in Africa 18-Mar 8-Apr
Support the biking movement in Winston-Salem 18-Mar 8-Apr
A mixed reality, NFC-based API and game 25-Mar 15-Apr
Encouraging people to experience their city on foot (Walk Raleigh - iOS and Android) 25-Mar 15-Apr
nVidia 25-Mar 15-Apr

Let us know in case of any issues or doubts.

Cheers,
Kalpesh



Survey: Visit to Spottrot at HUB (OPTIONAL)

Folks,

Blake Callens has arranged a visit to Spottrot at HUB for interested students. The visit is scheduled for March 13, 2:30 PM.

Please fill the form here expressing your interest if you wish to participate.

Note: Participating, as well as filling out this survey is OPTIONAL.

Cheers,
Kalpesh

Find: From the car to your phone: How BlackBerry ported over QNX for its new OS

Nice review of qnx history. 

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From the car to your phone: How BlackBerry ported over QNX for its new OS

By now, you know all about BlackBerry 10, with its myriad gestures, its bustling notifications Hub, and the BlackBerry Balance mode, which separates work-centric applications and accounts from personal ones. You may also be aware that BlackBerry is hedging its bets on these features, which are the main attractions behind the newly overhauled mobile operating system. All of these features are made possible by QNX’s real-time operating system—one that the Canada-based company takes great pride in.


BlackBerry (née RIM) acquired QNX Systems in April 2010 with the intention of gaining a major foothold in the automotive industry. Although QNX has its hand in several automotive projects—the QNX Car Platform 2.0 is featured in the Bentley Continental GT, for instance, and the software has historically been embedded in the control systems of other high-end luxury vehicles—BlackBerry’s focus, for now, remains on its mobile devices, and it’s using this acquisition to hold on to its relevance in the mobile operating system wars.


While BlackBerry 10 still hasn't officially debuted in the United States, we thought we'd take a look at the framework behind BlackBerry 10 and see how the company's acquisition of this real-time operating system has been implemented in its new OS.

Announcement: Request for Android Devices

Folks,

In case you need Android devices for your project, we can loan you Android devices via the CSC department. Right now, a request of up to two devices per group will be honored. Later, in case you need more devices, and there is availability, your group may be allocated more devices.

Please fill out the form here in case you need devices.

There is NO deadline to complete this.

Cheers,
Kalpesh

Assignment: Mandatory Survey

Folks,

A mandatory survey regarding your first meeting schedule has been put up here. Every group is required to fill this survey. Remember that only one person per group should fill out this survey.

This survey is due Sat, 23 Feb 2013, 23:59 EST.

Cheers,
Kalpesh

Guest Lecture: Ravi Devarajan and Paul Layne



Hello folks,

Ravi Devarajan and Paul Layne from SAS will be visiting us for guest lecture on Mobile Graphics library on March 11th.

Cheers,
Kalpesh

Find: NVIDIA Announces Tegra 4i, Formerly Project Grey, With Integrated LTE and Phoenix Reference Design

Nvidia now has an soc with lte, and a cheap reference phone design. 

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NVIDIA Announces Tegra 4i, Formerly Project Grey, With Integrated LTE and Phoenix Reference Design

It has been a while since we’ve heard anything about Project Grey, the first NVIDIA SoC with an integrated digital baseband, and the result of NVIDIA’s acquisition of soft-modem manufacturer Icera. Today, NVIDIA is ready to formalize Project Grey as Tegra 4i, and we have a bunch of information about this SoC and will obtain even more before MWC is upon us. NVIDIA’s roadmap from late 2011 put Grey in early 2013, and while other members of that roadmap haven’t necessarily stuck to the promised release schedule, Grey seems to be somewhere close to that schedule, at least as far as announcement and samples are concerned.

First, Tegra 4i includes the familiar 4+1 arrangement of cores we've seen since Tegra 3, but instead of Tegra 4's A15s, 4i includes ARM Cortex A9 CPUs running at a maximum single core clock of 2.3 GHz, we’re still waiting on a breakdown of the clock rates for dual and quad configuration, as well as the shadow core. NVIDIA has noted that it using R4 of ARM’s Cortex A9, which includes higher IPC thanks to the addition of a better data prefetching engine, dedicated hardware for cache preload instructions and some larger buffers. NVIDIA believes it is the first to implement the latest version of ARM's Cortex A9 core, however there's nothing stopping others from doing the same. 

NVIDIA likely chose to integrate ARM's Cortex A9 r4 instead of the Cortex A15 to reduce power consumption and die size. While Tegra 4 is expected to be around 80mm^2, Tegra 4i measures in at around 60mm^2 including integrated baseband. NVIDIA isn't talking about memory interfaces at this point, but do keep in mind that your memory interface is often defined by the size of your die.

The 4i SoC is also built on TSMC’s 28 HPM process, interestingly enough not the 28 HPL process used for Tegra 4. As Tegra 4i appears to be geared towards hitting very high clock speeds, the use of TSMC's 28nm HPM process makes sense.

Tegra 4i also gets the exact same ISP and computational photography features that Tegra 4 includes, along with the s...

Assignment: Your first meeting

Folks,

Now that projects are assigned, Google groups created and members added, its time to start working! In order to get started, you need to schedule a remote or face-to-face meeting with your client to discuss project details, deliverables, milestones etc. As we have mentioned in the past, this is going to be one of the three mandatory meetings with your client. The other two should be scheduled sometime half-way through the project and at the end of the project. We encourage you to interact more often if you like.

Goals 
Set up a meeting (remote or face-to-face) with your client to
  • discuss the project in detail
  • set up expectations
  • determine your milestones
  • establish timelines
  • agree on deliverables

Additional
  • Agree on platform/technology
  • Coding standards
  • Create github repository for your project (after creation, provide us access to it)
  • Anything else you consider important for your project that I may have overlooked mentioning here

Outcome
Each team needs to submit us a project proposal detailing your project requirements, timelines and deliverables. You can make this proposal as detailed as you can, since this document will be used to assess your final performance. Remember this is your project. You (and client) decide what you want to develop and deliver, and thus it is essential that you setup clear expectations and deadlines, and through this proposal make us aware of it.

Deadline
The deadline to turn in your project proposal will be Monday, March 4th. The sooner you schedule meetings with your client, the better. You may setup multiple meetings if you have to. Remember to use your respective Google groups for scheduling meetings, and other interactions. (However, do not have the meeting itself as a series of emails/discussion over the group - organize either face-to-face meetings or over remote methods like Skype, GoToMeeting, Google Hangout etc.).

Post any questions regarding this assignment to our class group

Good Luck!

Cheers,
Kalpesh

Find: Review - BlackBerry 10 is better, much better, late than never

Innovations: flick keyboard, time choosing in photos, more. A nice summary. 

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Review: BlackBerry 10 is better, much better, late than never





Late last year, Samsung was the number one handset manufacturer on the Android side. Samsung and Apple accounted for 50 percent of the world's handset market share. BlackBerry, once the go-to business phone for just about every major company in the world, seemed to be tottering around on its last leg. As the company lost most of the world's smartphone market share, many looked BlackBerry's way and wondered what the Canada-based corporation was going to do to save itself.


After a year of speculation, leaks, and promises, BlackBerry provided its answer. The company unwrapped and released BlackBerry 10, the smartphone operating system on which it's betting the farm. While we were fortunate enough to have a first look at the gesture-based operating system during CES 2013, we walked away with a bit of trepidation. Those fancy gestures weren't working too great for us when we poked around during our half hour with developer-assigned handsets. It wasn't because of the prerelease hardware either—we were mostly perplexed at the idea that "gestures" and "a unified inbox" were the two game-changing features on which BlackBerry was wagering the company's future. Can BlackBerry 10 actually win users back to its platform with these particular elements, or will consumers just see them as gimmicks?


Andrew Cunningham has already written his review of the touchscreen-only BlackBerry Z10 handset, but that review focused on just the hardware. We wanted to spend some additional time using the BlackBerry 10 operating system, so that we could dive in deeply and give this new operating environment the review it deserves. Fortunately, there's more to BlackBerry 10 than a few gestures and a new inbox view. There have been plenty of questions asked, so we'll try to get through all of them. Really, we think you'll like what you see.

Find: Mobile app security: Always keep the back door locked

Nice discussion of mobile security: not easy. 

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Mobile app security: Always keep the back door locked




Aurich Lawson



In the 1990s, client-server was king. The processing power of PCs and the increasing speed of networks led to more and more desktop applications, often plugging into backend middleware and corporate data sources. But those applications, and the PCs they ran on, were vulnerable to viruses and other attacks. When applications were poorly designed, they could leave sensitive data exposed.


Today, the mobile app is king. The processing power of smartphones and mobile devices based on Android, iOS, and other mobile operating systems combined with the speed of broadband cellular networks have led to more mobile applications with an old-school plan: plug into backend middleware and corporate data sources.


But these apps and the devices they run on are vulnerable… well, you get the picture. It's déjà vu with one major difference: while most client-server applications ran within the confines of a LAN or corporate WAN, mobile apps are running outside of the confines of corporate networks and are accessing services across the public Internet. That makes mobile applications potentially huge security vulnerabilities—especially if they aren't architected properly and configured with proper security and access controls.

Find: Saddle up, Apple: Samsung has a rumored smart watch, too

Good idea, though we really need to start thinking about throttling info as much as ease of access.

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Saddle up, Apple: Samsung has a rumored smart watch, too




Alleged screenshots from a smart watch Samsung may be developing.




Samsung may be working on a smart watch to complement its Galaxy line of phones, according to screenshots found by Slashgear Thursday. The watch, allegedly named the Galaxy Altius, runs an OS titled “AltiusOS beta2,” so though it follows the Galaxy path, it’s unclear whether the watch will be part of the Android family.


The screenshots from the watch are black and white and 500×500 pixels in size (though it’s unclear if any post-processing took place) and according to one of them, the watch packs 235MB of internal storage space. One screenshot shows selection panels for music, e-mail, and maps. The watch also appears to tell time. Slashgear states that the screenshots were picked up from a Korean forum, and the language in the pictures is indeed Korean, though the name of the form was not specified.


The rumor follows on the heels of another concerning an Apple “iWatch” made of curved glass. It’s unclear from either the iWatch whisperings or the Galaxy Altius whisperings whether these devices are meant to function independently or as supplements to a nearby smartphone or tablet that the user is also carrying, serving as a display proxy for receiving messages or accessing other visual content. Motorola released a smart watch of the latter type in 2012 called the Motoactv.


Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments


Find: The future of mobile CPUs, part 1: Today’s fork in the road

Nice survey. One interesting observation: phone and tablet cpus will diverge. 

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The future of mobile CPUs, part 1: Today’s fork in the road




Aurich Lawson / Thinkstock



Mobile computing's rise from niche market to the mainstream is among the most significant technological trends in our lifetimes. And to a large extent, it's been driven by the bounty of Moore’s Law—the rule that transistor density doubles every 24 months. Initially, most mobile devices relied on highly specialized hardware to meet stringent power and size budgets. But with so many transistors available, devices inevitably grew general-purpose capabilities. Most likely, that wasn't even the real motivation. The initial desire was probably to reduce costs by creating a more flexible software ecosystem with better re-use and faster time to market. As such, the first smartphones were very much a novelty, and it took many years before the world realized the potential of such devices. Apple played a major role by creating innovative smartphones that consumers craved and quickly adopted.


To some extent, this is where we still stand today. Smartphones are still (relatively) expensive and primarily interesting to the developed world. But over the next 10 years, this too will change. As Moore’s Law rolls on, the cost of a low-end smartphone will decline. At some point, the incremental cost will be quite minimal and many feature phones of today will be supplanted by smartphones. A $650 unsubsidized phone is well beyond the reach of most of the world compared to a $20 feature phone, but a $30 to $40 smartphone would naturally be very popular.


In this grand progression, 2013 will certainly be a significant milestone for mobile devices, smartphones and beyond. It's likely to be the first year in which tablets out-ship notebooks in the US. And in the coming years, this will lead to a confluence of high-end tablets and ultra-mobile notebooks as the world figures out how these devices co-exist, blend, hybridize, and/or merge.


Read 28 remaining paragraphs | Comments


Talk: Duncan Brumby on multitasking with mobiles, Tuesday 19th at 11

Very relevant to our work. 
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Tuesday March 19,  2013, 11:00 AM
Interactions on the Move: Understanding Strategy Adaptation in Dynamic Multitask Environments
http://research.csc.ncsu.edu/colloquia/seminar-post.php?id=499

Assignment: Project Addendum

Due by Friday 5PM.

Folks,

We have another (and last) addition to our list of projects. The description is now available on the class website under Projects tab. This project requires you to sign confidentiality and background check forms.

Please state your preference for this project here.

Cheers,
Kalpesh

Final: Visit by Jonathan Stephens

Folks,


Jonathan Stephens of Republic Wireless will sit in on critique with us on May 3 during final period.

Cheers,
Kalpesh

Guest Critique: Jonathan Stephens



Hello folks,.

Jonathan Stephens of Republic Wireless will be visiting us for guest critique on various projects on February 25th.

Cheers,
Kalpesh

Find: indystate, browsing - safari dominates mobile browsing at 60 %

Internet Explorer still growing as Windows 7 starts its decline

In the first month of 2013, Internet Explorer's desktop market share is continuing to slowly climb upwards, with Firefox consolidating its number two spot. There are signs that Windows 7 may have peaked as Windows 8 is slowly picking up users.


January was a good month for Microsoft's browser, up 0.37 points to 55.14 percent. Firefox also grew, up 0.12 points to 19.94 percent. Chrome fell, down 0.56 points to 17.48 percent. Safari was unchanged at 5.24 percent, and Opera up a hair, gaining 0.04 points to reach 1.75 percent.

The improvement of Internet Explorer's position masks a story that's decidedly mixed for Microsoft. Windows 7 fell for the first time in January, dropping 0.63 points from a high of 45.11 percent to 44.48 percent. Windows 8's slow growth is continuing, up 0.54 points from 1.72 percent to 2.26 percent. There's also a small number of tablet users, with 0.08 percent on Windows 8 Touch and a minuscule 0.02 percent on Windows RT Touch.

Find: indystate, devices - Apple current top US mobile phone vendor at 33 %

Apple nabs crown as current top US mobile phone vendor

For the first time since Apple entered the mobile phone market in 2007, it has been ranked the top mobile phone vendor in the US. For the latter quarter of 2012, sales of its iPhone accounted for 34 percent of all mobile phone sales in the US—including feature phones—according to the latest data from Strategy Analytics.

While the iPhone has consistently been ranked the top smartphone sold in the US, market research firm NPD noted that feature phone sales have fallen off a cliff recently, to the point where 8 out of every 10 mobile phones sold in the US are now smartphones. That ratio is up considerably from the end of 2011, when smartphones had just cracked the 50 percent mark. Given this fact, it's no surprise that Apple, which only sells smartphones, has been able to reach the top of the overall mobile phone market domestically.

For the fourth quarter of 2012, Apple ranked number one with 34 percent of the US mobile market, up from 25.6 percent year over year. Samsung grew similarly, up to 32.3 percent from 26.9 percent—but not enough to keep from slipping to second place. LG dropped to 9 percent from 13.7 percent, holding its third place spot. It should be noted that Samsung and LG both sell a variety of feature phones in addition to smartphones.


Assignment: Project preferences

Hello folks,

We have created an online form where you can rank each project as "preferred, okay or rather not". You can also mention the name of one person you would like to work with. We will assign projects based on your preferences expressed in this form.

Remember: fastest finger first ;)

Once again, the form is here.

Have a great weekend.

Best,
Kalpesh Padia

Guest Critique on Projects: Ravi Devarajan

Hello folks,.

Ravi Devarajan of SAS will be visiting us for guest critique on various projects on March 6th.

Best,
Kalpesh Padia

Guest Lecture: Blake Callens - SpotTrot

Hello folks,

Blake Callens of SpotTrot will speak about mobile web development in class on Monday, February 18.

Best,
Kalpesh Padia