Mobile health (mHealth) applications are rapidly evolving to take advantage of new image support capabilities in mobile networks and devices, according to a new report from Strategy Analytics (www.strategyanalytics.com).

mHealth image-based applications range from remote interpretation of blood samples taken in a remote jungle clinic to sending fetal sonograms to the smartphones of friends and relatives. Remote diagnostics has seen significant growth in recent years, as it is a way to get around shortages or poor distribution of specialists, according to Strategy Analytics. In Egypt, for example, a partnership of Qualcomm, Mobinil, Click Diagnostics and the Ministry of Health allowed remote health clinics to send smartphone-captured images of skin conditions for diagnosis, by some of the country's few dermatologists.

"Smartphones and tablets have improved so much as image capture and...

Kaazing, pioneers of HTML5 WebSocket and the leading web and mobile communication platform for live data delivery, have announced the findings of its annual Live Web and Mobile Communication research study. 

The survey, which was conducted in March 2013 with nearly 300 global IT professionals and developers worldwide, found that nearly nine out of 10 (86%) respondents consider real-time web and data communication to be a priority for them in 2013, with 81% saying they will apply that priority to their mobile strategy. Within the next 12 months respondents plan to enable two-way, real-time web applications, ranked as follows:

° Monitoring -- 33.8%;
° Push notifications -- 32.8%;
° Collaboration -- 30.4%;
° eCommerce -- 29.7%;
° Live chat -- 29.1%;
° Extending enterprise applications to the web -- 25.7%;
° Remote employee solutions -- 23.6%.

Countries outside of the U.S. also ranked online gaming and real-time voting as top...

The Internet content delivery market will undergo huge changes over the next decade as major telcos and Internet giants -- including Google, Amazon, Netflix and Microsoft -- wrangle over the continuing over-the-top (OTT) Internet traffic content boom, according to a new Informa Telecoms & Media report Internet Innovation.
 
The Internet Innovation report details how the Internet giants are trying to fulfill their ambitions of becoming globally dominant digital content providers by building their own Internet infrastructure that will provide them with low-cost high-quality digital content distribution.
 
Google, Amazon, Netflix and Microsoft are working towards delivering their digital content in premium condition to their customers using techniques such as edge caching on operator networks and using Internet Exchange Points (IXPs). By building out their own extensive Internet distribution networks, these Internet giants also hope to alleviate the telcos...

Infonetics Research (www.infonetics.com) says global smartphone market totaled $247 billion in 2012, up 51% from 2011 -- and that the number of LTE smartphones increased by 151%.

Owing to the introduction of the iPhone 5, Apple regained its lead in smartphone revenue market share in 4Q12 with 37%. It was followed by Samsung with 29%; Samsung maintains its lead in smartphone unit share.

Sales of tablets reached US$42 billion worldwide in 2012, jumping 281% over 2011. In 2012, shipments of standalone USB mobile broadband cards grew steadily, driven by W-CDMA shipments in developing countries and LTE growth in developed markets

Meanwhile, embedded cards declined as the more functional tablet segment overshadowed embedded PCs and mobile internet devices (MIDs) Infonetics expects the number of global mobile broadband subscribers (phone and PC) to grow from 1.2 billion in 2012 to close to 3 billion by...

A new report from Juniper Research (www.juniperresearch.com) has found that advancements in entertainment head-units and higher smartphone penetration will result in app-capability reaching a fifth of all consumer vehicles in the developed markets of North America and Western Europe by 2017.

The success of new standards such as MirrorLink will be instrumental in creating the foundations for the connected car ecosystem to flourish, finds the report. Though Juniper Research also forecasts robust growth in more traditional embedded consumer telematics services, the success of smartphone tethering and in-vehicle apps is expected to exert downward pressure on the price of vehicle manufacturers’ own embedded telematics infotainment services.

The report notes that "big data" derived from telematics service provision is also likely to emerge as an unexpected revenue driver for telematics companies...

Mobile gamers and social networkers spend the most time playing games or posting updates during TV prime time -- weekdays from 8-10 pm -- according to an hour-by-hour analysis of Arbitron Mobile smartphone panelists (www.abitron.com) in the United States during the fourth quarter 2012.

Five functions -- –voice calls, messaging, browsing, social networking, and gaming -- dominate weekday smartphone use by Arbitron Mobile panelists in the U.S. The average time per hour for each of the five top smartphone functions rises sharply until the 9-10 am hour when messaging, browsing, social networking, and gaming enter a late morning plateau.

The plateau exception: mobile voice calls. Average time per hour continues to increase until noon, when it sags slightly over the lunch break, and then accelerates again to a 5 pm peak. Both mobile social media and mobile gaming see a slow increase in their average time per hour...

The results from the Strategy Analytics consumer survey (www.strategyanalytics.com), conducted in the US, UK and China, showed that smartphone owners were much more likely than feature phone owners to use their devices either while shopping or for shopping.

Usage at home demonstrates that smartphones are frequently used for research on products. Sixty-one percent of smartphone owners use the device for shopping at home. Usage while out and about shows a very similar pattern to usage at home, although slightly more users overall have used their smartphone while out and about (67% compared to 61%). The least popular shopping activity on all devices is the actual point of purchase itself.

"Brick and mortar retailers are not waiting for carriers or OEMs [original equipment manufacturers] to roll out mobile payments and are leveraging mobile solutions already in the market, such as mobile...

The improvised 3D experience in smartphones, tablets, notebooks, computers, cars, etc. is set to revolutionize the mobile device market and other GPS-enabled device market by broadening the horizons for the users to locate things easily using any device, according to new data from Reportlinker.com, a web site that covers "industry reports, company data and country profiles."

The past decade witnessed a giant leap in various industries, with 3D technology being implemented in various electronic devices and other objects. The need for 3D mapping arose after an attempt to make 2D maps more advanced and look more real. This was done by introducing sensors, cameras, scanners, GPS components, and other acquisition devices to capture the real time 3D images which are created into models incorporated into maps. This type of technology is often used in modern computer programs to provide a lifelike view of a place or thing on a map.

Portable GPS devices use 3D mapping...

Many people would take an unreasonably long time to recover their data if their IT systems were to go down, and tape backups still have an important part to play. These are the findings of a survey carried out for Norwegian storage experts.

Proact (www.proact.eu) charts Norwegian companies’ attitudes towards information management every year. This survey, carried out by an independent body, involves telephone interviews with 200 decision makers and provides an insight into what Norwegian companies are thinking as regards storage and information management.

Seven in 10 respondents reckon that their departments are receiving enough resources to meet demands in terms of quality and uptime. Six in 10 are concerned about what business information employees can store using external cloud services such as Dropbox, Google Drive, Apple iCloud and suchlike. Fifty-five percent have refused to allow staff to connect private...

Over the next five years, the worldwide base of mobile subscriptions will rise to 8.9 billion, and four out of five of these will be in developing countries.

According to "Worldwide Cellular User Forecasts, 2012-2017," the most recent forecast from Strategy Analytics' Wireless Operator Strategies (WOS) service, subscriptions in developing countries will grow at a compound annual rate of 7.5%, substantially faster than the 2.8% growth that will be seen in developed countries.

With worldwide mobile service revenue growth slowing to about 2% per year through 2017, developing countries like Nigeria, where revenue is growing at twice that rate, can be very attractive markets to international players. Phil Kendall , director of WOS, notes that "the Middle East and Africa will generate an impressive 28% revenue growth between 2012 and 2017, confirming its significance to investors from outside the region such as Airtel, Orange and Vodafone."

The developing countries...

Revenues from mobile content, monetized through direct carrier billing, is expected to rise from US$2 billion last year to more than $13 billion by 2017, according to a report from Juniper Research (www.juniperresearch.com).

The report notes that operator storefronts and portals now accounted for just 6% of content downloads worldwide, with Google Play and Apple’s App Store now comprising nearly 70% between them. Indeed, the report noted that the increasing popularity of OTT (Over The Top) stores had led to many operators closing their own storefronts.

However, the report found that by offering carrier billing to third-party storefronts, operators could more than offset the continued decline in portal revenues. According to Juniper Research, storefronts that have already integrated carrier billing solutions have seen a 5-6x increase in conversion rates compared with credit card billing,...

In 2013, retailers are increasingly shifting their point-of-sale to mobile devices in response to the explosive growth of smartphone adoption and the demand for a seamless shopping experience across all channels.

According to mobile POS solution provider Infinite Peripherals, Inc. (http://www.ipcprint.com), which has products in 30% of the top 20 U.S. retailers and more than 250,000 mobile POS devices on the market, enterprises should carefully weigh pros and cons before choosing between iOS and Android.

Independent research firm IDC believes that, by the end of the year, iOS will be the top operating system in the enterprise among companies that deploy mobile products to employees. IPC -- the first to market to add mobile POS functionality to the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad products -- has identified key points retailers must consider when choosing between iOS and Android. These include:

...